Posted by Julian
Posted on 09-28-2007 under Development, SEO

Anyone who has dealt with managing a website post launch, or tried to do any sort of SEO (search engine optimization), has spent countless hours checking google page rank, comparing keyword density to rival sites or entering their URL into a Google search to check the last time the site was spidered. Although I plan to address all of these issues in the future, hopefully putting some devs. at ease, in this post I’m mainly going to address the worst of the bunch: Google PageRank.

Pagerank can be one of the most daunting issues to deal with as a web developer. This is mainly because you cant really do much about it. Not only that, but it takes months and months to raise your page rank even a couple levels. Think of it as an earthquake. An earthquake of 6 is ten times as powerful as a 5. Although we do not know if its to the 10th degree (due to Google’s double edged sword of secrecy), it is a painful process and with each rank gained another round of drinks is deserved.

PageRank is based on many things - however to sum it up, its a popularity contest. Yes, think back to all those horrible years in high school. If your reading a blog about SEO, chances are, you were not the dude in the letterman. Thats about to change. Just like in high school, inbound links from outside sites, with more popularity (or PageRank) will raise your cred. Follow?

Here is an Example.

You run a site selling custom wine bottle racks for kitchens and pantries. You have a PageRank of 3. Sutter Home Wine’s website, with a PageRank of 5, says “Hey, for good custom wine racks check out this site that we loved” They link to your site. Then, next time Google spiders that page, it sees that a 5 has your back. If you have 4 wine websites, 2 interior design firms and Ikea, all linking to your site, Google will see those, and bump up your cred. YO!

What if the site does NOT have a higher rank than you? Well it won’t hurt you. In the SEO community (yes we have one too) how much it helps is still debated (like most SEO topics). My take on it is this: An inbound link wont hurt you, so might as well take all you can.

Maximizing your inbound links.

Any inbound link is helpful, however not all forms of it are the same. Some key things to pay attention to:

1. What is the PageRank of the page you are being linked from? The Main homepage of the site may be a rank 6, but sometimes they will have a “links” page that, due to their site tree structure, or amount of links on that page (see next item below), will have a lower PageRank. If the best you can get is a link from their “diluted” page, then go for it, but a link on the homepage is worth much more in the long term.
2. How many links are on the page you are being linked from? If what you are taking part in is a “I’ll trade you a link for me putting a link on my site” type deal, chances are you are going to get stuck on a “links” page. The more outbound links that single page has, the more diluted the cred it will give you is. Think of it as the Jock saying “oh yeah, I know a bunch of cool guys that can fix your computer. Julian, Rob, Andrew, Nate, Archa, Jake, Micheal, Justin, Gary, Bob,…” you get the idea. Doesn’t have the weight.
3. How is the link formed? Best way possible? You want your link to have your target keywords in the actual <a></a> tags. “Custom Wine Racks” is much better than “for custom wine racks visit this site“

Getting the Links.

This is of course the hardest part, actually getting the links. Your best bet is to do it the same way you should have in high school, instead of building Duke Nukem levels in your spare time. Socialize with the other webmasters. If you identify sites that would benefit from a link from your site, get in contact with them and offer to put a link up on your site in turn for them linking to yours. This is considered a clean way of raising rank, as you are creating something that would serve your user as well. Sometimes you can get lucky and some one’s blog will be interested in your website and post a link on there. No matter how you make the connections, you have to do it. But what ever you do, do NOT use a link farm. Link farms are sites that just put up a bunch of links to other sites… very very bad. Google identifies these farms and penalizes anyone that appears to be using there service. So stay away.

So. Get out there, have a few digital cocktails, find something on common with your fellow webmaster (possibly a passion for commander keen 4) and call in a few favors.

p.s. thats not me.

… nor my girlfriend.