PageRank is an algorithm used by Google to measure the relevance of your website page in relation to other websites on the internet. It is a measure by which Google assesses its pages when deciding how to rank them in its search engine results pages (SERPs).
To understand PageRank, it is helpful to first understand the concept of “links” within the internet. Each web page can be thought of as a node, with an inbound link from another web page (the “referring page”) and outbound links to other web pages (the “referenced pages”). Consequently, when you input a search query into a search engine, the engine can use this link information to assess which web pages are most relevant for the query.
PageRank is an algorithm which attempts to assess each webpage’s relevance to a search query, based on the number and quality of the inbound and outbound links of the page. It was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University in 1996 to assess the relevance of academic papers, but has since become closely associated with Google’s search engine.
In essence, PageRank measures the many connections that a web page has across the internet. It does this by assigning each page on the internet a numerical value between 0 and 10, known as its “PageRank”. This number is determined by the number and quality of the inbound and outbound links the page possesses. A PageRank of 5, for example, would mean that the page is receiving five times as many inbound links as another page with a PageRank of 1. Conversely, a page with a PageRank of 8 would be expected to have 8 times as many inbound links as a page with a pageRank of 1.
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Google now uses the PageRank algorithm to identify those web pages that are most likely to be most relevant to the search query. It does this by assessing the number and quality of inbound and outbounds links of each page. It then promotes those pages with higher PageRank numbers.
From a content perspective, it is important for your pages to have as many relevant and high-quality inbound links as possible. These links can be earned by engaging with other webmasters, asking them to link to your pages and responding to online customer requests. Outbound links can also be beneficial, but should be kept to a minimum and only used to link to other high-quality, relevant pages, as this will help to give your page a higher PageRank rating.
In addition, you should ensure that any inbound and outbound link URLs are correctly “canonicalised”, so that the search engine can correctly identify the target page. You should also avoid using “no-follow” links, as these will not be counted by Google when assessing your page’s relevance. Finally, as part of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy, your webpages should also contain relevant and keyword-rich content, as this will help to further increase your page’s ranking.