Oylinki

Google’s Dirty little secret…

Have you ever seen search results where a site with a higher PageRank ends up under the lower one in Google’s search results?

Ever wonder why?

Since there is a possibility of a new PageRanking session going on now, there is quite a bit of buzz about PageRank all over the internet. From reading other articles, blogs, and their comments, you would think the Google PageRank was somehow all that mattered in SEO. It is almost funny how excited people get about all of this. “I went from PR3 to PR5,” “I don’t know why but I now am PR4, and I was PR7,” “I am happy that my measly PR3 didn’t change, with everyone dropping in rank I was worried.” These are just some of the comments I have read recently.

Is page rank really all that important? From all of the buzz you would think that it is all that matters in the results Google returns.

The plain truth is that PageRank is only one factor used in determining how Google ranks your site in the search results.

From some of the posts and comments I have been reading, you could get the impression that a high PageRank equates to guaranteed success on the internet.

The truth is, if success is defined as, being in the number 1 spot in the Google search results for your keyword, then it takes more than PageRank. I have seen PR7 sites come back below PR3 sites.

Is PageRank just another way of saying “hey mine is bigger than yours?”

The truth is that page rank is just one of many factors used to determine where you land in the search results. Don’t get me wrong it is important to have a good PageRank, but it is not the only thing that matters. If it was a higher ranked site could never come back below a lower page, but they do. I know this all sounds like SEO sacrilege, but don’t worry I haven’t lost the faith, read on…

One possible explanation of this Phenomenon could be the higher ranking page has some bad outbound links. By bad links I mean they are pointing to sites that no longer exist, or have been banned by Google. This is an area that is often overlooked as a problem.

In the quest for the holy PR, webmasters often exchange links, buy links, post to blogs, submit articles etc… but, how many times do they go back and check that the pages they are linking to are pages they should be linking to? The answer for many is not enough.

If high page rank is your goal, then a linking strategy must be an integral part of your strategy. If you don’t follow up and make sure that you are linked to sites that are acceptable to Google you could end up hurting yourself.

I recommend that you check the pages you link to at least once every couple months, and more if you have developed a large list of link partners. If you find that a site you link to has suddenly lost all of its PageRank, then you may have a problem.

Check to see if they are still in the Google index by searching for their entire domain name. If no results come back, then they are banned (presuming that they were once in the index, you did check that before exchanging links right?). You should immediately delete the link from your page to the banned page, or Big G wont like it. And if Big G doesn’t like something, they may not ban you, but rest assured they will penalize you in the search results.

Don’t avoid exchanging links because of this. It is still important to gain PageRank (if for no other reason than bragging rites). Just keep an eye on your linking partners to make sure they don’t bring you down.

Robert Emmerson is a freelance writer specializing in Internet marketing, SEO, Blogging, and making money online. If your found his article helpful, read his Blog which is loaded with more useful content on this, and related topics. http://www.robemmerson.com