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Does PageRank Even Matter Anymore?

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    The validity of PageRank as a ranking factor for SEO (search engine optimization) has been debated for years by those who know their way around SEO.

    As an Omaha SEO Company, we don’t expect you to know the ins and outs of PageRank. However, the following tips can help the work we are performing tremendously. Below, we have provided some insight that will benefit any service provided by an Omaha SEO Company.

    From Wikipedia – a Definition

    PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references.

    PageRank as it Relates to Back Links

    To optimize your back links, measure the relevance of the content of the source page of that link to the content on your landing page. The more relevant, the more weight that will be assigned to that back link. Will prospects entering search queries relevant to your products or services find your site on the first page of results in Google, Bing or Yahoo? If not, it doesn’t matter if your PageRank is ten.

    It’s Been Contended that PR is a Purely Mechanistic Calculation of the Probability of a Resource Being Randomly Requested.

    See the formula below:
    PR(A) = (1 – d) + d * SUM ((PR(I->A)/C(I))
    Where:

    • PR(A) is the PageRank of your page A.
    • d is the damping factor, usually set to 0,85.
    • PR(I->A) is the PageRank of page I containing a link to page A.
    • C(I) is the number of links off page I.
    • PR(I->A)/C(I) is a PR-value page A receives from page I.
    • SUM (PR(I->A)/C(I)) is the sum of all PR-values page A receives from pages with links to page A.

    When we externally compare sites for PageRank, we’re comparing Google’s displayed PageRank, which doesn’t necessarily match Google’s internal PageRank. Displayed PageRank is essentially an algorithm to quantify the authority of a site, and is assigned a numerical number (0-10).

    The Value of “Targeted Marketing”

    The more specific the search query is, the greater the probability that lower PR pages may outperform higher PR pages in SERPS (search engine results pages). And vice versa – the more generic the query, the greater the probability that higher PR pages may outperform lower PR pages. Google looks at hundreds of key indicators, and the combination of those determine real PageRank. Displayed PageRank is believed to be a numeric value of link juice, or the measurement of indexed links to your site. Google once advocated PageRank sculpting using the nofollow tag, but then reversed course. The nofollow attribute is apparently still counted toward how PageRank is apportioned among all links on a page, so nofollow doesn’t mean that those links don’t count.

    Earlier from Matt Cutts (Google) About PageRank Sculpting

    I would say that it’s not the first thing I would work on. I would work on getting more links, having higher quality content, those are always the sorts of things that you want to do first. But then if you have a certain amount of budgeted PageRank, you certainly can sculpt your PageRank. I wouldn’t necessarily do it with the nofollow tag…. but a better more effective form of PageRank sculpting is choosing, for example, which things to link to from your home page.

    Although all search engines factor in backlinks, Yahoo seems to factor out low page rank sites. Google, on the other hand, clearly seems to use a variety of different algorithms to rank sites.

    Need help formulating SEO strategies? Contact a successful Omaha SEO Company today, such as Big Red SEO at (402) 522-6468. Our mission is to help businesses be found where their customers are looking. More than ever, potential customers are searching for services in their local area. We can help you get the results you deserve.

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