I was sitting in front of my computer last night, getting ready to do some research for a project that I was working on. A friend of mine promotes various events around the country so he asked me to help him out with the "finding of stuff", as he puts it, or gathering information as I call it. 
For whatever strange reason, I am passionate about doing research. Not scientific research, although I am sure that is exciting as well, I am talking about information research. The ability to locate something that can help with a business plan, research paper, or some other type of periodical, is rewarding to me.
While working on my friend`s research project, I invariably began with the gold standard of search engines, Google. Beyond their ability to offer keyword related ads that appear in the sidebar in which they overcharge with pay-per-click prices, Google really does a nice job when it comes to the "free" results.
These "free" results are based on the search criteria that a user enters into the search box. Those terms, better known as keywords, are then run through the top secret Google algorithm. It is this algorithm that indexes every page on the internet in the order by keyword importance. So in other words, although you may find two web sites that have good information on lets say stem cell research, one site will appear higher on the search rankings then another based on the Google algorithm.
The Google ranking system, or more commonly known as page rank, is the numerical ranking system by which Google orders every page on the internet. Although no one but the Google founders really knows the exact mathematical computation of the algorithm, all experts do agree to the fact that page rank is based on popularity and importance.
So how does one's web page become popular? Very simply put, when Google crawls the internet it counts the number of links from other web sites that point to another. When Google sees a web site point to another in the form of a link, it marks the site being pointed to as being important. In other words why would a site point to another if there wasn't something in there that had value?
That is the basic definition. The algorithm gets a bit more complicated. Let's say your website has a link pointing to it from the NY Times. We have all heard of the NY Times. It is the most read newspaper in the country, and their website receives literally millions of page hits a day. In the Google algorithm not all links are created equal. Each link is given a weight value or the value of the page that it sits on. So for instance in our example above, the NY Times website has a Google page rank of 9. The highest your site can be is a 10 and the lowest is a 0. So as you can see with a Google page rank of 9, Google looks very favorable upon the NY Times.
A link from the NY Times to your website would carry more weight and more importance than that of another site whose page rank is 0. Having a link from a web site whose rank is 0 is not a bad thing; it just means you will need more of them to matter in the Google algorithm, whereas having a link from a web site with a page rank of 9 will increase your own page rank faster.
The first question that might pop into your mind is how in the world do I get other websites to point back to mine? Although I won't go into complete detail with each example in this article, here are few you can try right away.
Join a forum, social network, groups, clubs etc., on the internet that is related to your website. Join in the discussions and in your signature line (which most sites allow), post your web site link with a description of it. Each time you post in a conversation, your link is posted as well. Do not spam. That is the fastest way to get banned and lose credibility.
Write article content for other websites. You have a website about something. You should be spreading your knowledge to everyone. A good way of doing that is to write articles on the subject that people will read, find interesting and learn from. Then at the bottom of each article write what is called a resource box. In this resource box, write a short description of you, your website and then post a link to your website so people reading your article can check it out.
Finally, another good way, but a bit more time consuming is to find websites that are similar in content to yours and ask them to exchange links with you. In other words ask them to post a link on their site to your site and then you will do the same. These are called reciprocal links.
So there you have it. That is Google's page rank in its basic form and some ways to help improve your own site.
By: Bruce A. Tucker
About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online advertising and social network medium where you can promote your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.
Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.
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