Google PageRank Defined
PageRank is Google’s primary method of ranking web pages in their index. PageRank refers to a hidden value (presumably between 1 and 10) that ranks a page based on importance.
Web pages with higher PageRank (PR for short) are thought (by Google) to be more important, and thus get ranked higher than pages with lower PR.
When one web page links to another web page, they give that page some of their PageRank. This concept is what gives PageRank its power. The theory behind it is this: Let’s say a large, popular website (let’s say CNN.com) links to your web page. The page on their site would likely have a high PR. Google looks at this link to you and gives you a higher PR because they trust CNN.com.
When Google indexes your website, they search for links to your pages, which are called backlinks. The number and quality of backlinks to your website’s pages have a major impact on your PageRank.
Simply put, the more quality links you can get to your website, the higher your website will rank in Google Search.
According to Google, PageRank is:
PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.
PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page’s importance.
Shortcuts in Google Search
Have you ever wondered how to search Google for terms inside a specific website? Or find how many sites link to yours? Below is a list of common advanced search techniques with descriptions and examples:
Search for an exact phrase
"exact phrase to search"
Will return only results with the exact phrase.
Search within one website
site:www.website.com "search phrase"
This example searches through www.website.com for the phrase “search phrase”.
Search for link to a specific website
link:www.website.com
Will return all the websites that have a link to www.website.com.
Exclude words or phrases from search results
search phrase -excluded
Searches for the phrase but will only return results excluding the text after the minus sign.
View a cached version of a web page
cache:www.website.com
View a cached version of www.website.com
Search for a specific type of file
google ebook filetype:pdf
Searches for only PDF files containing ‘google ebook’
Search for phrase only in websites’ title tag
allintitle:"google articles"
Searches for web pages with “google articles” in the title tag.
Search for keyword only in website’s URL
inurl:googlearticles
Searches for pages with ‘googlearticles’ in the URL, including the domain name and subdomain or page names.
These are a great way to quickly search from Google’s home page, without having to click over to the advanced search.
Welcome to Google Articles
Google Articles is going to be a my place to blog about my favorite Google Apps, the Google Search Engine, Adwords, Adsense and everything else Google.
If you’re a Google fan, or you’re just trying to get higher ranking on the search engine, I’m here to help. Stay tuned for articles on a variety of topics, reviews, and tips and tricks to get the most out of Google products.