PageRank Still has Some Use for SEO

Back in Google’s very early days,
Larry Page developed an algorithm
with fellow Google co-founder
Sergey Brin. It was dubbed PageRank
(which ended up being a wonderful
name because it is a metric that
measure web pages) and became a
key metric for how Google ranked
pages in its search results.
Despite such rich beginnings,
PageRank is now considered by many
SEOs to be a less meaningful metric
that too many people focus on for all
the wrong reasons. As Google has
shaped and refined its algorithm over
the years to include hundreds of
different factors, PageRank just isn’t
as important as it used to be, but it
still has some interesting value to
SEO.
As you may know, the formula for
calculating a PageRank is based on
linking. Essentially, every page in
Google’s index receives a PageRank,
based on the number of websites
linking to it and the relative quality
of these links. Scores come in a
logarithmic scale from 0-10, with 10
being the highest and most elusive
PageRank (not even google.com
ranks at 10).
When Google assigns a PageRank to
a site, it’s assigning a level of
importance. Pages that look
important get crawled and re-
indexed more frequently than
others. Getting your content crawled
at a higher rate means that it can be
ranked by search engines more
quickly – which can give you a leg up
on the competition.
PageRank is also a good indicator if
your site is having a problem. If your
site is being exploited by hackers or if
you are engaging in unscrupulous
SEO, Google is likely to warn you by
dropping your PageRank before
dropping your ranking in searches.
Although PageRank is not the be all
end all of SEO anymore, it is still a
useful indicator for certain aspects of
your site.

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