Page Rank Explained – Sort Of

Page Rank is a Google ranking from zero to 10. Every page Google indexes has a Page Rank.

You get a Page Rank based in part on the number of other web pages that link back to your web page. These are called “back links”.

Remember how search engines see just one page. Page Rank is a way that some pages become more powerful than other pages.

As I understand it – and I am certain that I am giving you examples instead of accurate numbers here – to get a Page Rank of 1 you have to have 100 pages that themselves have a Page Rank of 1 link back to your page. Or, you can have 10 pages with a Page Rank of 2 link back to you.

So roughly, a Page Rank of 1 is 1/10th the value of a page rank of 2. A page rank of 2 is 1/10th the value of a page rank of 3. A Page Rank of 3 is - you guessed it – 1/10th the value of a Page Rank of 4. And so on and so on.

For the average site to get a Page Rank of 3 or 4 is a great accomplishment. Page Rank is also one of the things that goes into how highly your page is returned in a free search result.

Because Page Rank is derived from back links, a number of folks try anything to get back links. This goes as far as to set up link pages with a back link to anyone’s pages if they will do the same for you. The derogatory name for this is a “link farm” – that is a page which exists for no other reason than to create back links. Search engines do not like these. Search engines look for these and penalize these links.

Another idea for scamming the system has been to put links on all your own pages to all your other pages. This is also penalized. It is link spamming.

However, it is appropriate for each page to have a link back to your home page. This is just good navigation for your readers. As a side effect it will also improve your home page's Page Rank, but remember, your home page should not be the focus of your search strategy because it is not about just one thing.