Does PageRank influence your Google Rankings?

There have been many posts about PageRank and how it matters to the Google rankings of a webpage. Steve Rubel wrote an article stating that “PageRank is the Ultimate Measure of Online Influence” which has been widely disputed and rightly so as Rubel’s article was discussing the other type of PageRank, which contains flaws for tracking influence.

So, what is PageRank?

As mentioned there are two types of PageRank and they are different in how they work and influence ranking online.

1. PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that is used by Google search engines that assigns a number weighing to each element of hyperlinked documents on a web page. This algorithm is named after Larry Page and its purposes are for measuring importance of a webpage.
2. Google toolbar PageRank is a tool where you can roll your cursor over the PageRank button and you will be told the importance of the webpage which is represented by integers 1 through 10.

The PageRank algorithm is a numerical formula.

The PageRank of a website equals the PageRank of inbound links and the number of links on the page.

Google Toolbar PageRank can’t measure PageRank on websites as they aren’t all equal. The reason it isn’t a measure that can influence your Google Ranking is because it is updated every few months compared to Larry’s PageRank that is computed continually.

The Toolbar can be fooled with linking techniques such as link schemes and paid links. Working with a savvy link builder or SEO specialist you will be able to influence your online presence with Google by building quality links. A website with more quality links will influence compared to those that don’t contain backlinks.

Google has hundreds of signals to measure PageRank and when measuring online influence PageRank isn’t necessarily related to ranking and online success.

How do you measure your online success?

It really depends on who you are and what you do. If you sell bathrooms you would measure your online influence and success by measuring how many enquiries translate to quotes and conversions, however if you are an information source such as blog you might look at your online influence in regards to followers, or daily visitors.

In conclusion PageRank is not something that will determine your online influence to Google as a whole or your measure your success as it will be determined by a number of factors including traffic, content, headings, engagement as well as your page load speed to name only a few.

The only way PageRank as such would solely measure your online success and influence is if it was comparing two identical websites.