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If you’ve done any work at all on getting your website’s pages to rank higher in Google you are at least aware of Google Page Rank; you may not understand what it is, but you at least know it exists.  Since Google’s latest ranking algorithm update, there have been claims that Page Rank is dead, or at the very least isn’t as much of a key in how pages are listed in the Google search engine.  I’m here to tell you that despite what you may have heard, Page Rank is alive and well.

What is Google Page Rank?

First a quick explanation about what Page Rank is, and how it is calculated.  Page Rank is a measure of the number and quality of links that point to your web page.  It determines the quality of links by determining if the links are relevant to the topic of your web page, and by looking at the quality of the links that  point to the page that is linking to your page.

What that means is, suppose you have two incoming links, one from Page A and one form Page B.  Page A has 100 links pointing to it, and they are all from other pages that are related to your page.  Page B has 100 links pointing to it, but it exchanges links with anyone that will trade, and most of those links are unrelated to your page.  Google would determine that the link from Page A is a higher quality link, and it would be given more weight in the ranking algorithm.

What This Means To You

I am making an assumption here that Google does not intentionally spread misinformation.  They can be very secretive about what all is considered in who pages are ranked, but they do not outright lie about what they are doing.  That being said, you can determine whether or not Page Rank is still important by looking at what Google says.  They claim “The heart of our software is PageRank™…”

To me, that sounds pretty darn important.

So, for you, that means not just link building, but quality link building.  All things being equal, a link from a PR 5 page is of much greater benefit than a PR 3 link.  That’s if all things are equal, which they seldom are.  To go a step further, a PR 4 link that is relevant to your page is of greater value than a PR:4 link from an unrelated page; and it is probably of greater value than a PR:5 (and maybe PR 6) link.

There has also been talk that getting links from pages with a lower Page Rank will hurt your ranking.  It doesn’t.  Google understands that you have no control over who links to your pages.  If they penalized you for low ranking links, all your competitors would have to do is set up a lot of low quality sites and link to you, which would drag your ranking down.  That’s not the way it works.

Page Rank is believed to be set on a Base 8 formula (remember your high school math?).  If that is true, it would take 8 - PR:1 links to equal 1 – PR:2 link.  To get an equivalent of a PR:4 link you would have to get 8 x 8 x 8 PR:1 links.  That’s 512 links, so if you are going after lower ranked sites, you better get busy.

Does that mean you should ignore lower ranked sites?  Absolutely not.  It just means that all tings being equal it will take a lot more work if you rely on lower Page Rank pages.

Don’t Ignore the Evidence

I can already hear the arguments forming.  But before you get too indignant, look at what the SEO gurus are doing and saying.  While some are decrying the death of Page Rank, they still tell you that it is important to build quality links to your page, which is the very thing that Page Rank measures.  If Page Rank was truly dead, then links, either internal or external, would not make any difference in where your page lists on Google.

Another exercise is to look at a search term that no one optimizes for.  Go to Google and type in “Click Here”.  The #1 listed site is Adobe Reader.  If you dig a little deeper you will see that the words “Click Here” do not appear anywhere on the page.  Adobe Reader has its #1 listing because of all the other pages that link to it using the anchor text “Click Here.”  All of those links pushed Adobe Reader up to a PR:9, and a #1 listing.

You can find the same thing searching for “Home.”  The #1 listing goes to the New York Times (PR:9), which beat Home Dept and Realtor.com (Homes for Sale).  The Times does not optimize for the word “Home”, but they get a #1 listing because of a far greater number of quality links, which gives it a higher Page Ranking.

There are a couple of things to consider.  First, while no one knows exactly what Google looks at when determining where pages list, there are believed to be around 100 on-page and off-page elements that are considered in the Google algorithm.  Second, Google is constantly updating the algorithm to a) give more relevant results in the search engines, and b) to combat black hat SEO techniques.

Every time Google updates the algorithm the ranking of individual pages fluctuates.  Things that may have gotten you a first page listing will now kick you out of the top 100 listings.  Getting highly ranked has never been a “Do it and forget it” venture.  It is an ongoing process.  You have to continue to work at SEO to maintain the higher listings.  You’ll move to the top, then Google will update, and you have to climb your way to the top again.  Frustrating?  Yes, but Google is still the king when it comes to driving large amounts of traffic to your site.

My advice: Don’t lose sleep over what your Google Page Rank number is.  Go out and build quality, relevant links to your site, and your Page Rank will take care of itself.