What is PageRank?

PageRank, also known as PR, is an indicator of a number of factors.  It is commonly thought that the higher the PageRank of a website, the higher they will place in Google.  While that is mildly true to an extent, PR isn’t the only factor in how well a site ranks.

Every page on the internet has a base PageRank.  A brand new site has a PageRank, and it can pass that PageRank on to other pages, including pages on the same site.

The amount of PageRank passed to a site is mainly dependent on how many links there are on that page.  If the page has 10 links going out, then each page it links to will get more PR “juice” than they would if there were 50 outgoing links on the page.

A page’s PR increases as more pages link to it, but it’s not just about the quantity of links.  There are actually several variables that help determine a page’s PR:

1. The number of pages linking to it.
2. The PR of the pages linking to it.
3. The number of outgoing links on those pages.
4. The “quality” of those pages.
5. And other factors.

It’s not enough to simply get links to a page, but you also need to find quality pages that have good PR and don’t have a large number of outgoing links.  Additionally, it helps if the pages that link to your page are relevant, i.e. within the same niche as your page.

You should note that having a high PageRank does not automatically mean you will rank well in Google.  You will notice after some research that lower PR sites often rank better than higher PR sites, because PageRank is only one small factor among many that determine how well a page ranks.  While it’s a good thing to have a high PageRank, you shouldn’t concentrate on it.  There are plenty of factors that matter much more than PR itself.