Understanding Google’s Phantom Governing Tool - Page Rank

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Commentary by John Hernandez

RISMEDIA, April 15, 2008-These days, achieving a high placement on Google is the Holy Grail when it comes to generating website leads and subsequent business. People dedicate weeks, months, even years trying to decipher the foolproof tactic to one up the competitor that’s keeping them from appearing at the top of the results page.

If you happen to use the Google Toolbar for your everyday browsing you’ve likely seen the tiny green bar with the words PageRank right above that gives you a number out of 10 if you hover over it. That small green bar actually holds a tremendous amount of importance.

Google PageRank is what tells people whether a webpage holds any degree of significance so if you happen to visit CNN or Microsoft for example, you’ll notice their PageRank is an eight and a nine, respectively. This figure is determined by a relatively complex equation which, among other things, takes into account how many links are coming in and out of the webpage using the assumption that if websites are linking to the page, the information is considered valuable.

It’s tempting to try and make as many active links as you possibly can in an effort to attract search engines but, using that finely tuned equation, “link stuffing” will cause an opposite effect and could drop your PageRank down to zero or worse, get you blacklisted. Therefore, select your links carefully and make sure they’re relevant. You might want to strongly consider evaluating the PageRank of the website(s) you intend to link to just to make sure they have a somewhat comparable number and won’t drop down your own rank unintentionally. It goes without saying then that link farms (i.e.: websites chock full of irrelevant links with no real purpose) should not even become a consideration at any point.

Speaking of links, achieving optimum PageRank is not just a simple matter of linking to relevant websites in hopes they’ll establish a reciprocal relationship. On your own website your links should all be interconnected with one another. Think of it like a figure eight with multiple dots strewn across it. Regardless of which direction you go, you will always be able to reach the link you arrived from. If you link to page that doesn’t have other links going back or somewhere else, you’re “hindering the flow” so to speak and thus preventing yourself from achieving a higher PageRank.

If you know there are pages you’d prefer are not used in Google’s PageRank, you can find countless resources on the Internet on the proper snippets of code to add in order to prevent them from being included. Implementing them usually involves typing a few additional words into your code and doesn’t require any kind of laborious or complicated programming.

The bottom line however to staying at or near the top of results is to not only employ the proper search engine optimization tactics but to take an active role in your website and making sure the material stays fresh and informative along with the aforementioned linking strategies. Combine these and it won’t necessarily be quite as difficult staying on top of your competition while remaining credible and dedicated.

John Hernandez is CEO of Real Estate Systems Integrator, Inc.

For more information, e-mail resi@resionline.com or visit http://www.resionline.com.

RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.

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