SEO, Google Page Rank and the Richter Scale

Organic Search Engine Optimization is that part of Internet Marketing that focuses completely on the organic or natural results for a keyword phrase. As opposed, to paid search, this is also targeted for keyword phrases, organic search results are achieved or earned, not paid for. So, those on the top 3 pages of Google (98% of searchers don’t go past the 3rd page) have a great opportunity for “free” traffic; that is, no matter how many times the listing is clicked, it doesn’t cost the website any money. However, getting to the first page(s) is no small feat, particularly for keyword phrases with over 100K or even millions or tens of millions of competing pages. So, how do the Search Engines and particularly Google determine / rank for relevancy.

CONTENT

Google “crawls” your website and evaluates your pages, site structure, and organization. But mostly it evaluates your page content. It looks at the title, the metadata, anchor text and all of the geeky stuff as an indexing tool. More importantly, it scans your textual content in the body of the web page. Clearly, pages that have unreadable text, such as those entirely programmed in Flash, have a huge barrier to getting anywhere in terms of organic rankings. The interrelationship and cohesiveness of the content contained in the title, the metadata, the anchor text with the humanly read content on the page provides Google with the information it needs to understand, classify and ultimately determine what your page is about and what it is primarily focused upon. In brief, CONTENT is what Google uses as the basis for relevance. Content alone however is just one element in Google’s Algorithm - the logical, very sophisticated formula to rank web pages for relevance. Ultimately Google determines your relevance quotient. However, it is the Google Page Rank that is most widely believed factor for the final calculation of the rank.

GOOGLE PAGE RANK

Google Page Rank does not depend on content for its determination. To illustrate the point, two identically relevant sites for the term “internet marketing services” are not ranked the same on Google and this is entirely due to the influence / importance of the sites Page Rank. Page Rank is determined by an online voting system of sorts. It measures the number and quality of backlinks that the web page receives. Backlinks are one-way links pointing directly into your site and have no reciprocation (reciprocal links in return). This is considered a vote of confidence, a vote of authority. But not all backlinks have the same weight. Backlinks that are purchased or just come from a directory are well known to Google and carry less weight. On the other hand, backlinks that come from high value sites are critical and highly “point-getting.” So it is the number of these backlinks AND the quality of these backlinks that ultimately determines the Google Page Rank.

One measure of quality, in fact, is the Page Rank of the site that is linking to you. Page Rank is simplified by Google into a 0-10 scale. I am only aware of one Page Rank of 10 and, quite predictably, it’s Google; they own the ball so we play by their rules! Everyone starts at zero. However, you can quickly move up the scale to 1, 2 or 3 simply by doing some of the basic things you need to do to get your website off the ground. In brief, launch your site, code it well, include your content, submit your site to the search engines and you will start moving up. The more backlinks you get, the more you will move up.

Going from 0 to 3 is generally pretty easy and straight forward. Moving to 4 and beyond is progressively harder, it is believed exponentially higher. Only demonstrably successful websites achieve rankings of 4 -6 and there is a wide gap between 4 and 5 and 5 and 6. Large media and commercial brands have a Google Page Rank higher than 6. So, like the Richter Scale, used to measure the power of earthquakes and tremors, each rung up the ladder is not equal numerically to the distance preceding it. It is an exponential increase or a logarithmic increase i.e. the difference between 104 and 105 vs. the difference between 4 and 5.

Getting away from the math, SEO comes down to generating and proving relevance in the eyes of the search engines. Google Page Rank is a major towards creating the “separation” towards final rankings and assessment. Consider Page Rank as the leverage factor.

So, what does this mean to you? You have a great opportunity by dedicating yourself, your company and your business to successfully competing for top positions without the need to have the “biggest wallet” in the room. There are many factors affecting relevance and many others affecting Page Rank. By focusing and committing to great content and to stay with it, you can take great advantage of the opportunities at hand. Hiring a strong Internet Marketing Company, well mastered in all of the key processes and specialties should be a strong consideration. Of course, contact us for assistance.

Click here to read the rest of Google Rank. If you enjoyed this article, you also might like our other stories about Search Engine Optimization.