Google PageRank is Not Exactly What You Expect It to Be

Understanding the PageRank mechanism will give you a key insight as to how webmasters can use the information to increase a web page's ranking in the Google search engine report pages. It is based on a unique set of algorithms that evaluate certain data about a web page, thus assessing that page's popularity and relevance. A more technical approach defines PageRank as being a link analysis algorithm.

But PageRank is more complex than meats the eye... For starters there are two types of PageRank:

1. There is the Real PageRank destined for Google use exclusively and...
2. There is the visible PageRank showing up with the PR Toolbar; this is used by webmasters and SEO developers to estimate Google's trust towards a given domain or webpage.

Both variations work on a similar basis, which is to assess quality back links, but the real PageRank's system values reach much higher, and often stretch into the millions.

What the 11 level toolbar does is sort webpages from 0 to 10, according to the real page each accumulates after launching.

Looking at two web pages, where one has a PageRank of 2 and the other has 4, the difference is not merely 2. In real PageRank scoring, the difference is multiplied many times higher.

The truth is that nobody knows how Google calculates the Real PageRank for pages in its index.

However, we have one clue as to how Google works out a web page's true PR and this is an important step in understanding the dual nature of PageRank. What is known is that the level of transition from one category level to next is exponential. We also know that the higher the transition, the more points are needed to achieve the transit changeover.

Facts to consider when considering improving your website's PageRank:

1. Google doesn't analyze websites, it analyzes web pages.
2. The grades shown on the toolbar marry up to a wider range on real PageRank, meaning that the real PageRank values may vary little, or may vary widely.
3. Multiple back links coming from the same domain name only count as one in PR economy.
4. In the first instance, a web page is allotted a low PageRank score referred to as "1-d“, and where the value ”d“ can and does change and it is contained by what Google have christened the ”damping factor". A newly assessed web page will be given a "d" rating of 0.85, but in real PageRank terms this will result in a value of 0.15. This is the dual nature of PageRank in action.
5. In order to progress to the top of the toolbar scale, you will have to constantly increase the number of inbound links referencing your site.
6. Real PageRank values are made public, through the toolbar, once every three months and they rapidly get outdated as the real PageRank is permanently updated but not publicized. This is the reason why seamlessly webpages with inferior PageRank rank better than pages with superior scores.
7. Real PageRank is also programmed to analyze the link structure design of a web page.

After Google assembles a quantity of web pages within its index, it then rates them for integrity and popularity by assessing the quantity of links referring back to those pages. But there are other considerations too.

The Basics of PageRank Dynamics:

• A web page receives PageRank by getting inbound links from other pages.
• PageRank coming from an internal webpage has an equal contribution as PageRank received from a webpage on a different domain as long as these two linking pages have the same PR score.
• Web pages won't lose PageRank because they link to other pages. It's just passed along to the linked webpages. Google appreciates an open policy for relevant outbound linking as opposed to PageRank sculpting practices.
• PageRank passed to other webpages is divided between the total number of links leaving the referring page.
• Finally, due to the damping factor, an incoming link is maximized at 85% of its value.