PR

What is PR ?

PR- (Page Rank), and is usually seen accompanied by a number i.e. ‘PR6’. It is a score of how trustworthy a particular site is as ranked by Google’s PageRank algorithm. A score of 10 is the highest, and unattainable by all but the most popular websites on the web.

PR is an important part of search engine optimization (SEO) past and present history. PageRank is a link analysis algorithm applied by Google.com that assigns a number or rank to each hyperlinked web page within the World Wide Web. The basic purpose of PR is to list web pages from the most important to the least important, showing on a search engine results page when a keyword search occurs. The process involves PR assessing all the links to a web page. When a web page has a lot of links from large websites that also rank well, then the original web page is given a high ranking. Where the links are coming from is just as important as the number of links to any web page, the system being rather “democratic” according to Google.com.

Were PR Started

PR was developed at Stanford University in 1995, in order to create an algorithm for Google that would allow the website to rank all web pages based on merit and not on Meta Tags because of the spamdexing abuse and other unscrupulous actions. The mechanics of PageRank measures how likely it is for a visitor to reach a web page through random clicking of other websites, whether they are related extensively or just for one or two keyword phrases. Higher ranking in PageRank equates to a greater probability of the site being reached because they are not only quantitatively linked to several times but are also linked to other popular web pages.

PageRank has several different uses now that it is just one of hundreds of algorithms that Google.com employs to rank web pages. The Google Toolbar has a version of PageRank that features a smaller version of the algorithm. Visitors with the Google Toolbar can stop on a web page, and the toolbar will display a PageRank of 0 to 10 for the page, 0 being an obscure page and 10 a highly visible page. This type of ranking is not the careful form that Google uses to rank pages on search engine result pages but gives a visitor some idea of the popularity of a page. The Google Toolbar PR is generally a tool that allows people to see the visibility of a page they may want to link to without performing in-depth research.

 Be Careful

There are companies that “link farm” or build business solely on the manipulation of PageRank results. The links from well-ranking pages of PageRank are sold to companies seeking other SEO methods. Google.com has warned companies that participation in link farming will result in the links being discredited and the rankings lowered.