PageRank is the Trademarked name of the Google link analysis algorithm used by the Google Search Engine that assigns a numerical weighting to a hyperlink (from 0 to 10).
In a nutshell a PageRank value results from a total of all links or “votes” among all other pages on the Internet. The more popular you are the more votes or links you most likely have. Additionally some links are weighted more heavily than others based on the voting page’s PageRank. This is a very simple view of what is actually a more complicated secret formula to weed out abuses but in general this is accurate.
Therefore Google’s PageRank treats all pages on the internet as contestants in a popularity contest. The more important you are the more the PageRank machine will hear your voice. Total it all up and you receive a logarithmic value from 0 to 10.
PageRank is recalculated and updated for all internet pages at the same so it is essentially a snapshot in time. Historically this used to happen as many as 20 times per year but since 2006 this has been reduced to about 5-7 times per year most likely due to the size of the update, complexity of deployment, and stability of the algorithm.
The last 6 PageRank updates occurred on the following dates:
January 10, 2008
February 29, 2008 (partially confirmed)
April 29, 2008
July 26, 2008
September 27, 2008
January 2, 2009
For a more detailed historical table click here
PageRank alone does not make you money and it does not have any real value but it does play a big role in how high your pages rank in Google’s organic search results. This organic placement is directly related to how much free traffic you receive for various search phrases (aka keywords). If you have the ability to convert that traffic into sales or advertising revenue you can make money.
The buying and selling of links for the explicit purposes of transferring PageRank is frowned upon by Google and doing so can quickly render your PageRank useless because it will be discounted once recognized. You can however buy PageRank legitimately by simply purchasing websites with PageRank and pointing them to your target site. There is nothing wrong with linking the sites you own to each other in an effort to increase conversion and yield PageRank as a side effect. I’ll discuss this method along with others in my next article “How to Increase Your Google PageRank”.
Tags: Page Rank, website traffic