Also referred to as a PR score, Google issues a page rank to every web page that it indexes. The score is presented on a scale of 0 – 10 with 10 being the maximum available. The quickest way to obtain the PR of every page you visit is to install the Google tool bar as this supplies the score ‘on the fly’ as you visit each page. A simple search for ‘Google PR checker’ offers numerous alternative tools that will report the page rank of a web page if you would rather not install the Google tool bar.

How a page rank score is decided

Google spiders the internet and views web links as votes. A link from page 1 to page 2 is interpreted as a vote for page 2 by page 1. By taking part in link exchanges you are not only creating increased ways for your site to be found by human users, but also influencing your page rank. Pages with higher page ranks pass on a higher score than those with a lower score.

An easy to understand analogy is the school playground. Those children that hang around with the popular kids receive instant popularity.

This philosophy applies to how your page rank is determined. Your score will be much higher if you get 100 links from pages boasting a score of 8 to 10 than it will if you get the same number of links from pages with a score of 1 - 2.

Should I ignore sites with a low PR?

Not at all, every vote counts. I would accept every link that I am offered to our site as this has two benefits, as we explained earlier. You will find link exchanges harder to establish with high PR sites if you are still building yours. Do not allow this to dishearten you though, you will reap the benefits in time.

Will a high PR guarantee results?

Unfortunately not, you still need to keep on top of other aspects of optimising your site for search engines, but your page rank is something that you can influence with very little technical know how.

Methods for increasing links

There are dozens of ways that you can increase the number of links to your home page, here are a few to help you on your way:

• Create meaningful, worthwhile content and maybe others will link to your content
• Actively seek link exchanges with other web site owners
• Participate in forums and add your site address to your signature
• Regularly add content to your site, every page should feature a link to your home page (You need to make sure every page of your site can be indexed by search bots)
• Set up your own blog and link every entry to your web site
• Paid inbound links, however this method is viewed as unethical

Links 

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• Castus Article - Search Engine Cache
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