Importance of Google PageRank in search rankings: Does Google Pagerank really affect search ranking and traffic?

What is a PageRank

You will understand the importance of Google PageRank in search rankings afterward lets first discover what Google PageRank actually is; Google PageRank is assigned a rank to the pages that are published on the web ranging from 0 to 10, this is an automated system which determines the rank of the page in Google search engine. Based on search results for some specific searches Google analyzes the search result standings and assign it the score ranging from 0 to 10 higher PageRank results in further upward appearance in search results. This is commonly known to understand PageRank in Google.

Factors affecting PageRank

Experts relate Google PageRank to many factors including;

Content

The amount of content and the quality of content is important in this factor, Google loves quality content that has Headings, sub-headings, images, quotes, internal links, infographics, video links, and the length of content, lengthy content above 1000 words have more weightage over the 500-word article.

Backlinks

Backlinks are very important in determining PageRank also the quality of backlinks counts too. For instance, if you have 20 backlinks from authoritative websites it worth more than 100 backlinks from average websites. PageRank is directly proportional to the backlinks, more backlinks mean higher PageRank.

Domain age

Domain age is another critical factor that is important in assigning PageRank. If your website is around the web for a while Google acknowledges that and gives your more exposure to search rankings. The older domain are considered experienced and have valuable content to show to the users.

Domain authority

Domain authority again depends on several factors including –

• Content quality
• Page Rank of Domain
• Linking domains and inbound links
• internal links
• Social sharing and popularity

“Above mentioned is all theory, now what is in practice”

Behind the scenes

Now I am going to tell you what really is happening behind the scenes regarding Google PageRank. In this case, two websites are chosen to analyze the real situation. The first website is socialmediatoday.com and the second website is hightoken.com

Socialmediatoday.com

PageRank: 3

Alexa Traffic Rank: 6924

Domain age:  8 years and a few months

Domain authority: 86.73

Linking root domains: 89197

Total links: 119,997

According to Rank Signals

PageRank: 3

Unique domain links: 22K

Alexa Traffic Rank: 6,748

Social shares:  Facebook 4481, Twitter 56K, Google plus 154K

Hightoken.com

PageRank: 4

Alexa Traffic Rank: 443524

Domain age:  4 months

Domain Authority: 37.14

Linking root domains: 0

Total Links:  145

According to Rank Signals

PageRank: 4

Unique Domain links: 21

Alexa Traffic Rank: 545,766

Social Shares:  Facebook 0, Twitter 1, Google plus 0

Why hightoken.com have higher PageRank than socialmediatoday.com

Socialmedia.com is far better than hightoken.com in all cases except the PageRank.

When I first checked PageRank of hightoken.com a few weeks earlier it had the same PageRank of 4 but it had 100’s of unique domain links and most of them were from .edu and .gov sites. As you can see in the image above the first few links are shown as removed. The site has lost hundreds of backlinks in a short period of time and still losing the rest of the backlinks quickly. As Google PageRank takes a lot of time to update most probably in the next update the PageRank of hightoken.com will drop.

Wait a minute what does it mean?

It shows that the site was involved in getting .edu and .gov backlinks by whatever means which gave it a PageRank 4 in just a few months ignoring all other factors.

What we have learned so far?

PageRank is not determined by domain age

There is a huge difference in 4 months old domain and 8 years old domain. Domain age might have impact in search rankings but not on PageRank. 4 months old domain has a PageRank of 4 while 8 years old domain has a PageRank of 3. “ARE U KIDDING ME?”

PageRank is not determined by Social sharing

socialmediatoday.com has 1000’s of shares on social media and still got PageRank 3 on the other hand hightoken.com has almost zero share and got PageRank 4 “WHAT ?”

PageRank is not determined by quality content

Socialmediatoday.com has much more quality content with PageRank 3 then hightoken.com with PageRank 4 “Ohh come on”

PageRank is only determined by Backlinks

Even though fewer backlinks from authoritative domains e.g. .edu and .gov domains will increase PageRank phenomenally. But this PageRank increase would bring any fruitful results in search rankings and traffic?

PageRank is not important what important is Alexa Traffic Rank

While having PageRank 4 the hightoken.com website has the Alexa Traffic Rank of 545,766 which means the website is getting traffic which is not more than 35,000 visitors per month. However, socialmediatoday.com with PageRank of 3 has Alexa Traffic Rank of 6,748 is worth of getting 249,1980 monthly unique visits.

Bottomline

PageRank only increases with the quality and authoritative backlinks but it doesn’t really affect search ranking and traffic much, only focusing on getting backlinks and improving PageRank will not help you appearing higher in search rankings and increasing your website traffic. Monitoring Alexa Traffic Rank and try to increase traffic from different sources such as; social sharing, emails, and referrals would give you a better standing in search results and improve your traffic.