Google PageRank First and foremost, PageRank is part of algorithm of Google's ranking in search engine results. Other search engines use link popularity in their algorithm to evaluate your website as well. But PageRank is only one of 100 plus criteria Google uses to evaluate your web pages. Use idea of PageRank as a "tool" to help make decisions, there's no need to live and die by results. Link popularity itself is merely one way to improve your ranking.

Should You Link To Them? Think about it. You see a quality website, you see good content. The site is a "Mom and Pop" website with little ranking. So what if Google Toolbar says PageRank 2/10? That 2/10 may one day be 8/10. More importantly, you are linking to it because it is good to link to for your visitors - end of story.

Reciprocal Linking Fears There is a general fear of reciprocal linking to websites who inadvertently link to a "bad neighborhood" with penalties or PageRank zero, passing on problems to you. Use your common sense. Is this a website you would want to visit or your visitors would want to visit? If answer is no or you can't tell what subject of site is, make a note of it and keep looking. A website full of links with little content doesn't "make sense" because what benefit is it to you or your visitors? Of course you are going to link to your partners in business or maybe small website that is doing a bang up job of selling widgets and providing widget information.

Linking Just To Link If you are going to link, what purpose does it serve? The idea of acquiring link popularity by linking back and forth to other sites to boost your popularity artificially is a popular method. But is it of value to your website? Ask yourself:

As a child, we learned power of food to entice animals to do our will. Ducks, chipmunks, and dogs could all be enticed to come closer to us for viewing or petting. Even our young siblings were sometimes enticed --- and led as a puppy --- with a trail of M&M's.

On Internet, we can also use food of a sort to pull people to our websites. Rather than appealing to a person's desire for sustenance, we appeal to desires and whims of human mind through use of strategically placed words and images.

THE FOOD ANALOGY

To truly appreciate analogy of food and Internet, you must first examine your own methods of finding what you are looking for online.

When you are searching for specific information on a specific topic, product or service, how do you get from your starting point to your satisfaction point?

The truth is that world does not search for information much differently than you do. Although world may have different activities, have different interests, and use different tools than you, process or pattern is not going to be very different at all.

WHERE THE SEARCH BEGINS

The search either begins with a desire or a desire is triggered while an individual is viewing a website or doing other online activities.

DESIRE BROUGHT TO THE WEB

If individual sits down to his or her computer with a desire in mind, his or her search will generally begin at a search engine. With hundreds of search engines to choose from, exact starting point is rarely known unless it turns up in your server logs.

According to a February 25, 2003 Search Engine Watch report, most used search databases are as follows:

Service Searches Per Day

Google 250 million Overture 167 million Inktomi 80 million LookSmart 45 million- includes MSN searches FindWhat 33 million Ask Jeeves 20 million AltaVista 18 million FAST 12 million

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156461

Although these numbers provide results of "one day in life" of Internet, they have remained somewhat consistent moving forward in time.

The search begins with selecting a search engine and then follows with picking keywords that one feels will best deliver desired results.

DESIRE TRIGGERED DURING WEB ACTIVITIES