How important is Google PageRank, really?

Webmasters can spend most of their waking hours attempting to do everything they can to raise their Google PageRank. It is common knowledge that PageRank, which is largely based upon the number and quality of backlinks a webpage has, is an important factor in how well a particular webpage ranks within the Google search results. Since webmasters spend so much of their time worrying about PageRank, an important question is: how important is PageRank, really?

Many webmasters will tell you from experience that other factors besides PageRank, such as keyword density and placement, have recently taken a larger role in website ranking. No one will argue that PageRank has become irrelevant, but there is significant evidence to suggest that PageRank is not quite as important of a factor in website ranking as it once was.

To illustrate this point, I utilized a very useful tool you can find at prlookup.com. The tool returns regular Google query results with one interesting addition – they also give the pagerank for every webpage. Thus, you can type in any word or phrase and see the pagerank of those webpages that rank well (or not so well) for that keyword. Looking at the results, you probably notice something almost immediately. Some sites with low PRs do surprisingly well in the results, while some higher PR sites do quite poorly. Some of this difference can be contributed to sheer content – that is, how many times, and in what manner, the keywords you entered actually show up on the webpage. Google takes a close look at keyword usage and density in determining ranking. However, some pages clearly have very close keyword densities, yet in some cases, the page with a lower pagerank somehow still receives a better ranking.

Let us take a more quantitative look at this. Taking 20 of the most popular keywords from rankpulse.com (for this particular day), and entering them in prlookup.com, it is possible to get a better feel for the importance of pagerank. Looking at the first five results only, I wanted to see how many followed in order of highest PR to lowest PR. Surely, out of the results for 20 keywords, a good portion of them will display such an order, right? I have listed the number of webpage results that appeared in correct PageRank order for each keyword (i.e. 5 would indicate that 5 out of 5 results were in order of highest to lowest pagerank).

airfare
web host
contact lenses
debt negotiation
blinds
web hosting
web design
domain hosting
payday loan
cheap web hosting

4
3
3
4
3
3
1
2
1
0

discount web hosting domain registration
credit card debt
debt consolidation
crn
loans
toner
computer training
travel insurance
data recovery

0
3
0
4
1
0
0
5
2
4

Although limited by sample size, these results seem to indicate that PageRank is not an overwhelmingly dominant component of website ranking on Google. If it were, the average of correct PageRank order for these keywords really should be somewhere around 4 to 5. Thus, other factors including keyword density in webpage content, title, and even the URL, play a significant role in webpage ranking. I want to mention that, while looking over these results, I noticed that about 4-5 of these keywords came up with at least one webpage within the first 10 results (first page on Google) that had absolutely no PageRank at all (PR 0). In addition, a couple keywords came up with results with exactly reverse-order PageRanks – that is, the first result at the lowest PR and the fifth result had the highest (for example, PR8, 7, 6, 6, 5 or something similar).

What you will notice in this picture is that the webpage with the lowest PageRank (5) is actually ranked the highest among three more webpages, each with higher PageRanks. The listing at the top of this picture is actually the current #1 result for the popular keyword "discount web hosting." What's propelling this site website ahead? Check out the url.

So what does this all mean for the average webmaster concerned with SEO? The first lesson is that keywords and other non-PageRank factors can be absolutely crucial. They can put a PR6 site above a PR8 site (if you do not believe me just use the tool I mentioned above). Does this mean that website owners should not worry about links? Not at all. It's just that all the time people spend on exchanging and acquiring links for the sole purpose of increasing PageRank may be better spent developing website content and keyword strategies instead. As far as keywords are concerned, we discovered that having keywords in the website title and URL can help a site rank much more competitively. Good content tends to have the fortunate effect of both increasing your one-way in-bound links (people like to link to sites they find interesting, thoughtful, informative, or helpful), thereby improving your PageRank, while at the same time producing keyword rich webpages good for both human viewers and search engine spiders.

The take home message here is that PageRank is important, but it certainly is not worth obsessing over; there are many other factors involved in website ranking that should be given nearly equal consideration. In addition, simply building a good website is the best thing you can do to attract visitors, even without a great PageRank. PageRank, however, will likely follow – consider it a welcomed byproduct of your hard work.

Discuss this topic in our Google Forum.

Google advertises Hamas
YNet News ^ | Mar. 27, 2005 | Roee Nahmias and Gal Mor

Posted on 03/27/2005 6:56:19 PM PST by JohnathanRGalt

Google advertises Hamas
Terror organization uses search engine to promote website of its military wing Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades

By Roee Nahmias and Gal Mor, (03.27.05, 19:38)

Terror organizations are advancing their recruitment and public relations methods: Internet surfers who enter the word “Hamas” in Arabic in the Google search engine, will view, in addition to the search results, an AdWord message that links directly to the website of the organization’s military faction Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

The link also appears in a search of several other words, such as the “Gaza,” “Palestine,” “Jihad.”

This indicates that a Hamas source has paid Google, the most popular search engine on the web, for the advertisement.

The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades website holds updated and diverse information: Along with news updates stories from the news agencies, the site also publishes interviews with the organization’s leaders.

In one such interview, Hamas member Said Badarna, who is imprisoned in Israel, says, “abductions are the only way to release prisoners being held in Israel.”

Google’s AdWord service offer registered surfers the opportunity to purchase search words and post text messages that are linked to certain websites.

The AdWords also appear in G-mail, Google’s email service, and on other websites on Google’s advertising network Adsense.

Moved operations to Eastern Europe

Google has automatic filters that prohibit the posting of links to “problematic” websites, such as gambling and sex websites, but as of now they can only identify English words.

Company Spokeswoman Debbie Frost said “we took care of the matter as soon as Ynet turned to us,” but Ynet has learned the advertisements have not been removed as of yet.

Reuven Erlich of The Information Center for Intelligence and Terror says Hamas is the Palestinian terror organization with the most advanced Internet services.

“In the past, when services provided by American companies to terror organizations were exposed, those companies quickly halted that support,” he says.

“So, a trend was created whereby Hamas’ Internet quality infrastructure moved to Eastern European countries.”

According to The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center , Hamas and other international terror organizations utilize the Internet to distribute terror-enticing messages and to maintain contact between the different organizations and their target audiences with almost no supervision or censorship.
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3064050,00.html

I thought it was pretty much common knowledge that pagerank just acts pretty much like a tie breaker.

I've never paid the first bit of attention to it.

Yes, it does seem to act as a bit of a tie-breaker at times. Though it seems, from many of the example I have come across, that keyword placement can actually overcome pagerank fairly easily. I think I was most surprised at low pagerank (or no pagerank) websites beat out those with PR6+ for the same basic keywords.

I oversee online advertising and search engine bidding for an internet website.

We don't spend inordinate amounts of time on pagerank on google. When it happens that we're the number one site, that's icing on the cake, but we still feel the need to advertise on that page.

We spend our time on maximizing advertising dollars on google by constantly analyzing the Google Adwords data to find out what is and what isn't working for us, by comparing click through rates to ad ranking, and tracking sales (we use another tool, plus short survey's to track sales by search engine term).

Google gives you so much info on their Adwords page that I tend to get caught up analyzing the data. I find it very fascinating, comparing month to month with previous years to see how we're doing.

We're definitely getting better at it, more bang for our buck. More click throughs, even with less impressions, resulting in higher click through rates, and lower cost per click.

Overture is easy to manage, but Google is definitely more fun.