PageRank Information Among Singaporeans

First up, I stumbled upon this site that has blogs of thousands of people. I'm assuming they're at least from Singapore if not Malaysia. What's important is, they're from somewhere near me, and sadly enough, the information that they have regarding PageRank is horrendous. I am going to explain in the simplest terms possible what PageRank means or is for.


What is PageRank?

The article regarding PageRank should give you some idea. But for the benefit of those who just can't understand or are too lazy to click on the link, here is my explaination in simplest of terms.

PageRank is an algorithm.

What is an algorithm?
It is a set of methods that one uses for a solution to a problem.

The problem in this case is "the relevancy of results of search queries on search engines is very bad".

The algorithm to solve this problem?
PageRank, developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.


<PageRank is basically giving a ranking to a certain webpage depending on the number of votes to it.

Read up "Search Engines And Links" to get a clearer idea on what links mean on the web. I mean it. Its important if you're to understand what is going on.


Anyway, so Votes in this case simply refers to links.
A simple analogy to real life : If many people talk about something, that thing has to be good doesnt it? When people talk about something, its referred to as a vote. Which in turn is referred to as a link.

So in layman terms, PageRank is the ranking given to a certain webpage with regards to the amount of links it has connected to it.

So therefore, to answer the question of what PageRank is in simple terms :
The more links to a webpage, the higher its PageRank.

PS : (Of course, the calculation of PageRank is alot more complicated than that. But I'm trying to keep things simple here.)


So you already know what PageRank is. Now I'm going to tell you what PageRank is NOT.


What PageRank is NOT

PageRank is not the ranking given to a webpage with regards to search queries. For example, a website with a PageRank of 8 might not be anywhere in the first or second pages of a certain term. Why? Because the links that are pointing to it are a lot, but come from a lot of sites that are not relevant to the webpage with a PR of 8.

It makes much sense to note now, that if a page has a lot of links, it would get a high PR. But to get a high PR as well as rank high on the SERPs, a webpage has to garner alot of RELEVANT LINKS.


What do I mean by relevant links?


If your webpage is regarding "Cats", dont go to a "Dog" webpage and get a link with the anchor text, "Dogs" pointing to your page. Gaining a high PageRank it will do, but placing your webpage high in the SERPs for the term "Cats" it will not.

Get what I'm saying now?


I would not deny that having links pointing to your site is important in Search Engine Optimization but from what I've read on Singaporean blogs, the idea is that PageRank is the all important factor that determines your ranking on the SERPs. Which it is definitely not.


I will repeat this one last time.


PageRank is the measure of how popular a webpage is on the web. Through counting the amount of valid links (non-paid) to it.
PageRank is NOT the measure of your ranking on the SERPs.



That is basically the simplest form of PageRank I can provide for beginners. If you still have doubts or queries, dont be afraid to leave a comment or email.

I will talk about how to increase your PageRank AS WELL as your rankings on the SERPs in the future posts.



Read the post before this to understand how its possible to rank high on the SERPs without having any PageRank at all. ;) Hope that this post helps fellow Singaporeans to understand PageRank.

Till then,

Jasa, Singapore SEO Consultant