As of Friday a Google PageRank update has been rolling out across Google Data Centres. At present, Page Rank updates are visible at most DC's, but not at every single one; some data centres continue to use a slightly older infrastructure for a few query types, and so will take much longer to update their Page Ranks.Every quarter, Google takes an imprint of their PageRank internal values and makes them available in the Google Toolbar. The new set of PageRank values replace the last updated page ranks, and these began rolling out on Friday the 29th of September. As of Monday the second of October, most of these Page Rank updates will be complete for various geographic centres from 10.00 GMT.
By way of clarification, PageRank is Google's way of determining a page's importance. It is important because it is one of the factors that determines a page's ranking in its search results. As with anything to do with Google and its various algorithms, there is always a degree of speculation as to what the contributing factors in this determination are. With the example of PageRank, bigmouthmedia knows for a fact the following are key aspects:
- Inbound Links - Votes that you have received from other pages
- High Quality Sites linking to your site
The above factors are particularly affected by:
- The measurable strength of a brand
- The traffic that a particular site receives
- The quality of the website's design (for example use of pop ups could have a negative effect)
- The relevancy (to your site's theme) of the pages linking to your site and the PageRank of these pages
It pays to keep these in mind when considering PageRank in many contexts. Overall, the best advice in assessing PageRank is to ignore it and focus on the variables that control it: for example, keep producing content that other sites want to link to. Page Rank is just one of the many methods Google uses to determine a page's relevance or importance, and is only one component of the larger picture when it comes to achieving Google rankings. The Google PageRank update will be completed within the next few days.
