[SEO Article] What is PageRank?

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What is PageRank?
PageRank is Google?s method of measuring a page?s ?importance.? When all other factors such as Title tag and keywords are taken into account, Google uses PageRank to adjust results so that sites that are deemed more ?important? will move up in the results page of a user?s search accordingly.

A basic overview of how Google ranks pages in their search engine results pages (SERPS) follows:
1) Find all pages matching the keywords of the search.
2) Rank accordingly using ?on the page factors? such as keywords.
3) Calculate in the inbound anchor text.
4) Adjust the results by PageRank scores.

In reality, it?s slightly more complex and we?ll discuss this in more depth later, but for now the above description serves our purposes. It?s worth noting that PageRank is a multiplier and is not just simply added to the score. Thus, if your page had a PageRank of zero, it would rank at the very end of the SERPS.



How is PageRank determined?
The Google theory goes that if Page A links to Page B, then Page A is saying that Page B is an important page. PageRank also factors in the importance of the links pointing to a page. If a page has important links pointing to it, then its links to other pages also become important. The actual text of the link is irrelevant when discussing PageRank.


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