Check Your Google Pagerank!

If you haven’t noticed it by now, there has been another Google update! For a lot of websites, this is exciting news, as their toolbar pagerank has improved. However, there are many websites that have experienced either no change or a decrease in pagerank.

What is Toolbar Pagerank?

Google has a special algorithm, called pagerank or PR, which ranks web pages. While this algorithm may take several factors into consideration, the main determinant of a website’s rank is the number, recency, and quality of inbound links.

Toolbar Pagerank is based on this number. However, it may differ from the actual Google pagerank for two main reasons. First, it is not always current because Google generally only performs quarterly pagerank updaets. And second, there are other factors, such as penalization, which might lowers a website’s toolbar pagerank. (In this case, the actual pagerank would be higher.)

So, if toolbar pagerank isn’t always accurate, why are people always talking about it?

Pagerank determines the ‘worth’ of a website

Pagerank is basically a measure of how important Google views your website. And this translates directly into the volume of traffic that you will receive. This is one reason why many webmasters are obsessed with it.

Additionally, some advertising programs determine the value of a link, or banner ad, based on Pagerank. So if you generate ad revenue from your website, having a high pagerank might help.

And finally, for visitors who surf the web with a pagerank toolbar installed in their browsers, they often use the pagerank as a tool for deciding on whether a particular website is trustworthy.

How to maintain and increase Pagerank

As we mentioned in our article, How To Improve and Maintain Your Google Pagerank, a website’s pagerank can fluctuate, for the better or for the worse. So it is important to continually work to maintain or improve your pagerank.

Two basic ways to do this include:

• Acquiring links from other websites. Since the Pagerank algorithm is based on links, a website can easily increase its pagerank by increasing inbound links. However, it is important to know that all links are not created equal. When acquiring links, seek to get links from other quality high-PR websites.
• Avoiding frowned-upon practices. Some webmasters have resorted to buying links, black hat seo, and other unsavory techniques to improve their pagerank and overall search engine ranking. Doing this can have two negative effects: (1) your website can be penalized and experience a decrease in pagerank or (2) your website can be banned and dropped from the Google index..

To check your Google pagerank, consider adding a pagerank toolbar to your browser. For Firefox users, go here to get the Live Pagerank toolbar. If you don’t want to install a toolbar, there are various websites which can retrieve your pagerank. Do a quick Google query to find one.