PageRank – we’ve all heard of it and we know it’s got something to do with Google, but what exactly is it?

Put simply, it is one of the ways that Google works out the value of a web page. In other words, the PageRank of each one of your web pages will help to determine where each page will appear in relevant search results.

It basically has a lot to do with inbound links to each web page and the quality of the content on that page. You will no doubt be aware of the need to have as many links coming into your site (and its individual pages) as possible, since this increases the chances of it showing up in relevant results.

But the importance of each link is also relevant, and this is a big part of what goes towards a site’s PageRank. Generally, a page with one hundred incoming links to it carries more weight than one that only has a couple. But perhaps not surprisingly there is more to it than that.

Some people will think about this particular part of PageRank and work at getting as many links as they can – no matter how good or bad they are. But Google has made sure that the better links have more importance than the dubious ones. That means if you can get an inbound link from a reputable site, it will be likely to do you a lot of good as a result.

The way it works is fairly logical. If a website has a PageRank of 5, and it links to 10 other pages, the PageRank value of 5 is divided in some way (depending on content, anchor text, location on the page, etc) and gives value to each of the other 10 pages. So you can see that a link from a page with a higher PageRank is far better than one with a low PageRank, or no PageRank at all. Similarly, a link from a site with too many outgoing links, despite a high PageRank, may not be as valuable as a link from a medium PageRank with only a few outgoing links, because more actual value is received if there are only a few outgoing links to share with.

Now, we all know that if you have an internet marketing business you will want to get as much publicity and promotion as possible. And climbing up the search engine rankings will certainly get you more traffic as a result. But if you focus solely on linking to get a higher PageRank you will consequently be missing out on a lot of other important factors.

PageRank is certainly not the only thing that determines your search engine rankings. If you put together a sub-standard site with plenty of links you still aren’t going to rank highly. This is because you need to remember that Google looks at a number of things to figure out where each site should be in the results. Search engine optimization, for example, is just as important, if not more. If you are neglecting keywords in order to get those inbound links created then you are going to be missing out on a lot of benefits.

In short, while PageRank has its place in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t the be all and end all of getting your site seen. In fact, there have been examples demonstrating that it isn’t as important as it was in the past. So pay attention to it and know what your own ranking is, but don’t treat a high PageRank as the Holy Grail. As long as you cover all angles, you will see results.