Google Page Rank isn’t the same as ranking in Google.

There is a lot of confusion about Google Page Rank and how it effects a website’s Google search engine rankings. Here is a good article by Mark Jackson and the folks at Search Engine Watch.

It’s happened more than once. A prospect calls me to discuss the possibility of having my company handle their SEO efforts, and then tells me that their goal is to “increase their Google PageRank from a 4 to a 6.”

First, for those of you who are not aware of Google PageRank, let me share this Wikipedia definition with you:

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is also called the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E). The name PageRank is a trademark of Google. The PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999). The patent is not assigned to Google but to Stanford University.

One point that isn’t explained in the Wikipedia entry is that PageRank is actually named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google: the word “Page” in the name has nothing to do with a “Web page.”

OK. Back to the topic at hand. A company’s SEO “goal” is to increase Google PageRank? Seriously?

Yeah. Seriously.

Google PageRank is one of many things to be considered for your SEO efforts. It may be a consideration as to how authoritative your Web site is, but it’s not why your Web site will or won’t rank in the Google search results. Click here to read the rest of this article.