SEO for Blogs: Considering Google PageRank or Not!

The Google PageRank metric was named after co-founder Larry Page and was initially developed by the search engine to assign a numerical weight to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents to determine relative importance within the set. He had envisioned the “perfect search engine” as something that “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want,” and PageRank was initially a major part of that vision.

PageRank Today

Today, however, Google uses more than 200 signals alongside PageRank to order websites, and these algorithims are updated on a weekly basis. These signals may include a variety of impact factors including the ways in which you feature key words, be it in header tags, within the body, their proximity, and more, or your page’s social proximity to a user based on their past interactions with the website and other social networks linked to it.

In fact, in the past Google has updated PageRank across the Internet only a few times per year. Sometimes, it’s even been as long as 11 months between updates. Although initially updated every month, these updates have been very sporadic in recent memory. Although PageRank updates have very recently been found on June 27, July 18, and now August 4, 2011, it is important to continue considering PageRank amongst many hundreds of additional factors as the two authorities below and many hundreds of others have further explained.

The Truth About PageRank for Blogs

SEOmoz, an industry leader in the field of SEO insisted earlier this month (August 2011) in their weekly whiteboard videos:

Do not use PageRank for understanding why things rank well in the SERPs [search engine results pages] or don’t. You look at a page of search results and you see, oh, the number one result, well, it must have the highest PageRank. No. [...] I can’t describe to you how frustrating that is for anyone, for search engineers, for professional SEOs, for . . . anyway, that is not how the search results work. I know. Ten years ago, it used to be the case. It was sort of like use good things on your page and get a high PageRank and you’ll rank well on Google. That’s not the case anymore. I think PageRank is possibly responsible for, I don’t know, sub 5% of the ranking algorithm today, and I think most Googlers would tell you that as well.

Matt Cutts, one of the lead team members behind Google’s Search Quality group and a specialist in search engine optimization issues, well known within the community for enforcing the Google Webmaster Guidelines, agrees as well. In June, 2010 he emphatically noted in a video response, “Do not get obsessed with PageRank,” adding further that:

If you’re thinking about whether users are going to have a good experience, whether your visitors are going to be happy and whether if they’re going to tell their friends, to come to your site, or check it out, that’s the mark where a website will often be successful.

To check out more of his response, watch the video below. And remember, just like we noted in our kickoff post for this series, the most important factor to consider when calculating your website or blog’s worth within search engine rankings is the overall picture. Are your users finding useful, relevant, and engaging information? Are they sharing your posts with friends? If so, then you’re certainly on track to rise to the top.