Search Engine Optimization Studies

Google PageRank - Link Reputation

Google's search engine program performance a type of link analyis to evaluate hyperlinks and their meaning. A link to a particular Web site or Web page is considered a recommendation of that site. But how does it draw meaning from a link? It draws that meaning from text inside links, alt tags, text surrounding the hyperlink, and from an analysis of the content of the two pages linked to each other.

When the two page's content is similar and when they link back to each other, the search engine considers this a sign of high relevancy. However, the documents can't be duplicates or the search engine's "redundancy" filter will exclude one of the documents from the index. They can either delete the page, refuse to include it or downgrade its PageRank to zero.

Google is not always successful in its filtering of duplicates, but their people take a dim view of any they find. Sometimes, duplicates are considered a deliberate attempt to spam the index and depending on how severe Google's reviewer's consider the attempt, your site could face penalties. Google seems to solve this issue by awarding demerit points instead of outright ousting from the index. Legally, that is safer for them.

Intelligent Link Popularity Strategy

The key to good hyperlinking is to have many links in the body copy of your page. These links should be applied to text such as in these examples:

Music, online music, free mp3 music or free online music

The search engine will not only determine the content of your page from these links. It will also examine other features such as title tags, keywords in urls and page names, heading tags, menu boxes and alt tags. From this collective analysis, the search engine program assesses a link relevancy score. The keywords associated with the link are stored in a field in their database. Exact matches of keywords are always more powerful than a partial match. For instance, the word music is an exact match for the keyword phrase "music." It's simple, a straight one to one match.

Where it becomes complex is where there is only a partial match between the keywords used by the searcher and the link reputation a Web page has. Link reputation remember, is attached to the page, not the site. Google is a page oriented search engine.

The reason a domain name or root level of the site (e.g., www.domain-name.com) comes up ranking high in search results is mostly because of the fact that Yahoo and ODP link to that address. Most links between Web sites point to the root level of the domain, not to a specific page. That's where most Web sites PageRank comes from. If all links to your Web site point to a sub page (www.domain-name.com/products.html) on your site, that page will come up ranking high.

Do a search on Google right now for "free music." The third highest ranking page is www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp/freemusic.html. That's because links point to that page and also because the page title has the words "free music" in it and the page name has the words free music in it.

Free Music main page
Free Music. ... Statement about published information created by me. The Free Music
Ring JOIN | NEXT | SKIP | PREV. Free Music || Ram Samudrala || me@ram.org
Description: Supports the Free Music Philosophy, the idea that all people should have the freedom to copy, distribute,...
Category: Society > Issues > Intellectual Property > Music Freedom
www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp/freemusic.html - 4k

Google is indicating that it found the link at its own Society > Issues > Intellectual Property > Music Freedom directory and this is that listing below:

Free Music - http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp/freemusic.html
Supports the Free Music Philosophy, the idea that all people should have the freedom to copy, distribute, and modify music for personal, noncommercial purposes. FAQ, articles, suggested further reading, links to related sites.

The hyperlink on the listing clearly says "free music." The description also has the url and body copy with the word free and music present. All three available criteria then are satisfied. Since the PageRank of the Google directory page is high, it is a powerful PageRanking boost for the www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp/freemusic.html page. How does the Google, Society > Issues > Intellectual Property > Music Freedom directory get a high ranking itself?

Well, it has 6 important links from within the Google Web directory linking to it and one link from the ODP directory. We might surmise that multiple directory listings do provide a significant PageRank boost. It also has another page http://linart.net/archive/msg01038.html linking to it that has the phrase free music sprinkled throughout the body copy.

This gives the , Society > Issues > Intellectual Property > Music Freedom directory a lot of PageRank of its own.

Is PageRank an absolute measure regardless of what category of business or service your Web site is about? (See PageRank Part 3 ).

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