What is Google PageRank and Why is it Important?

Page Rank is defined as a mathematical algorithm that analyzes links on a website giving different numerical weight to each hyperlinked document on a website on the World Wide Web. The purpose of this is to give measured relevance to each link within a website. This Page Rank algorithm can be used on any group of pages with reciprocal references and quotes. The numerical weight that is extrapolated from these links is the Page Rank. Page rank, the actual score will be from 0 to 10, 10 being the highest rank possible and 0 being the lowest.

The system of Page Rank was patented by the founders of Google while they were at Stanford University. This system is the process by which a numeric value is given to each page according the importance of a page and its content. Page Rank is calculated by taking the content of a page and combining it with the inbound links from other pages which are in essence a vote for that page. These inbound links are given more weight based upon the page rank of the site they are coming from. The more inbound links or votes there are for a given page, the higher its page rank will be. The higher the page rank of the originating inbound link, the more importance that link is given as a vote in favor of a site.

Page Rank is important for your website when deciding where to put your website in a Google search display. The page rank that is extrapolated from the links and content decides how far up you go on the search listing for the relevant keywords. This process involves an actual mathematical formula that gives your page a value.

The Process of SEM (search engine marketing) is the process a company takes to improve the overall rank of a website in search. Using the mathematical formula Google has designed to give pages value, we can modify a page to give certain features the Google algorithm looks for more weight. Some of these features are content that matches meta tags, quality inbound links from relevant sites, and a properly designed and optimized site and site map for Google to easily spider the content of the site.