Google’s PageRank System and its Relation to SEO
PageRank is a system originally developed in 1996 by Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, and released to the public to show how Google as a search engine rank web pages and differentiate between them. The PageRank toolbar also publicly assigns a rank to each webpage on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 indicating a high likelihood that the page will be shown near the top of the search engine results page (SERP) and thus being more likely to be clicked on. The fundamental idea behind this algorithm is that if a page receives more incoming links from other sources (or backlinks), the page itself will have more authority and relevance on a subject and its PageRank value will increase as a result. However, due to the relative transparency that the PageRank algorithm and value has at that time (as these resources are publicly accessible), marketers and people who want their sites to be higher on the SERP became involved in buying and selling links. Essentially, if a site has a high PageRank value, its owners can sell links to other sites to increase the PageRank of the other sites since a backlink from an authoritative source is advantageous to a higher PageRank value. However, due to the complexity of web links and how PageRank values of different sources are interconnected together, it was difficult for Google to detect this kind of action and provide a more accurate PageRank value for the sites. This eventually results in Google stopping the usage of the PageRank toolbar and transitioning the development of its PageRank algorithm to be an internal action.
In contrast to the buying and selling of links in order to manipulate PageRank, search engine optimization (SEO) can be viewed as a more standardized and legitimate way to improve a site’s credibility and relevance. The main strategies to improve a site’s SEO include maintaining recent, relevant, and quality content with keywords so that the search engine can associate the page with certain key topics and provide the site to the user when the user searches about these topics. Other strategies involved improving a site’s “internal design” by adding metadata to title, description and keyword, relevant links, and alt tags that reveal more about the media content displayed on a page. SEO is also recommended by Google itself to improve a site’s credibility and trustworthiness in the long term. As shown through the typical recommendations to improve SEO, the current algorithm used by Google focuses more on a web page’s content and other relevant data to determine the quality of a site’s information and its relevance in regard to user’s search words. While the emphasis on links still exists, the role of links in determining PageRank has been reduced to prevent the issue where people try to manipulate SEPR using links.
In relation to this course, the original PageRank algorithm used by Google is very similar to the base PageRank update rule. The PageRank update rule also assigns a node with a PageRank value derived from incoming links, but offers a more simplified version of Google’s algorithm being practiced on a more finite set of websites. When the algorithm is executed by Google in the earlier times, there is definitely more calculation involved to compute and update PageRank values of the sites, since sites can be taken down and new links can be established. The discussion of PageRank update rule in this course also includes the derivation of an equilibrium set of PageRank values when the network is strongly connected. However, aside from the fact that the web is not strongly connected, the complexity and size of the web also makes it difficult for an equilibrium to exist. From the information related to Google’s PageRank algorithm, it seems like the sites are evaluated more individually and then ranked to be displayed on the SEPR. On the other hand, the current strategies to improve SEO falls under the classic info modern search ranking by placing a heavier emphasis on the contents of a site. Overall, the PageRank algorithm by Google and the PageRank update rule are similar in their usage of links to rank sites, but Google’s algorithm offers a more realistic application of the algorithm to web.
Sources:
https://www.clearscope.io/blog/what-is-pagerank
https://www.mtu.edu/umc/services/websites/seo/
https://ads.google.com/home/resources/seo-vs-ppc/