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There is a scare story doing
rounds which claims that being listed on link popularity sites, or for that matter any site with a large number of links, can get your site penalised or even banned from Google. This is simply not case. If it were, you'd effectively be able to wipe-out your competition's Google presence with one afternoon's work. It doesn't work that way.
Having links to your web pages on sites with a low page rank and a large number of links means that benefits are quite effectively minimised to zero. But this will not detract from your current PageRank at all.
Obviously, what people really want to know is whether PageRank can be manipulated. In past it was often considered impossible to do so, but nowadays this is not always case. There are two simple factors involved: Firstly: who links to you, and how they choose to do so. Secondly: your own website's navigation and internal links.
Clearly, sheer number of pages linking to you will not influence your PageRank. Of far greater importance is PageRank of each of these pages, and how many links appear on them. Common sense certainly needs to be applied here. In theory, one simple way to improve your PageRank might be to have Microsoft link to you from front page of their website. In practice, this might be a little difficult to achieve.
It is already quite clear that linking out to another website, even if it opens in a new browser window, actually involves potentially giving away a lot more than a little space on your website. My advice would be to look at your link exchanges as you would your food. You always want to make sure you're not leaving yourself hungry, and if you do choose to share, be selective. Exchanging a piece of your sirloin steak for a small piece of stale bread, shared between hundreds of people, is far from an even trade. If you're doing so to help another site, as an act of charity, then this is fine and well, as long as you know what you're giving away. Choose wisely.
Well-known websites and their PageRank
Now that we have a basic understanding of how PageRank works, let's take a look at some of more well-known websites on web today, and see how their main pages perform.
Finding out a page's PageRank is couldn't be simpler. Follow link to Services and Tools from Google home page, and find Google Toolbar. After installing software, a bar appears at top of browser showing a value for each page you're visiting. Hold mouse over bar, and you'll be told page's PageRank - a score out of ten. As already mentioned, this figure is little more than a representation of a page's actual PageRank.
Not surprisingly, very few pages score ten out of ten, and those that do includes likes of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google itself, AltaVista, Adobe, AOL, Mozilla.org and others. In other words we're looking at biggest of biggest websites - and not something that most of us could ever hope to achieve!
Of course, there is a simple reason that search engines and directories have such a high PageRank. Not only do they link to a huge, ever-growing list of sites and pages, but more importantly, a truly staggering number of these sites and pages link back to them. When you consider importance of reciprocal linking, you start to understand why they do so well. With Adobe, you only need to consider sheer number of web pages out there that link to a PDF file (with links to Adobe for their free reader software), and you will see why they have achieved such a high number.
A nine out of ten score still puts you within a very small minority of web. Should you be able to achieve this high a PageRank, you'll be rubbing shoulders with likes of MSN, BBC News, Winzip and Internet.com. We're talking about web's upper classes here - not really attainable for majority of normal website owners.
Eight out of ten starts bringing you to "reachable" web. You'll find sites such as CNN, TuCows, Simtel, Association of Shareware Professionals, Shareware Industry Conference site and Lockergnome.
A PageRank of seven is starting to appear reasonably attainable, as long as we're willing to work hard on content and reputation of our site. The sevens include companies such as D-Link, MSNBC, CNET's Download.com and our very own SharewarePromotions.com.
Don't lose your perspective! At this point, a little perspective might be in order. A critical point to remember is that PageRank only plays a part in performing well in Google. PageRank's primary aim involves ranking results of a search - but in order to show up in search to start with, your site needs to be properly optimised and have good, solid content. So contrary to popular belief, era of Search Engine Optimisation is far from over. It's only had a new, interesting factor thrown into it.
Finally, a note of caution. This article has been an attempt to very briefly summarise an enormously complicated subject. Aside from constraints of space, much of workings of PageRank remain shrouded in mystery. The ideas presented are based on available data, known facts, speculation and my own experience - but none of it should be considered as insurmountable fact!
PageRank is undoubtedly an important factor in how much traffic you will receive from Google. It is, however, merely one component in your arsenal of tools to win battle for one particular search engine. Even with constantly evolving web, and ever-tightening systems employed by search engines to quantify usefulness of a website, content is still by far most important factor, and will invariably form base on which everything else is built. Be seen, be sold.
