The Google PageRank Does Not Change on My Blog?
My PR has not Increased even though I have a lot of Backlinks? What can I do?
This is a question a couple my friends have asked me about sites they have been working hard on over the past couple months. Several of them have told me they spend several hours each week backlinking and they still do not see a visible change in their Google PageRank.
This is completely normal. Google Page Rank can be hard to understand, because of the many functions of the Google search engine or “Googlebot”. The reason Google likes to keep this information “secret” is think of all the ways people could exploit the Google search algorithm if they knew exactly how it worked.
Page Rank Factors to Consider
There are several things you need to know about the way that Google PageRank is calculated to get the most out of the work you put into your site.
For a detailed guide covering all aspects of Google page rank and how it works, check out:
Google PageRank: What Do We Know About It?
(The terms “Actual” and “Visible” that I will be using are terms I created and are not official Google names.)
Actual PageRank
The first thing you need to be aware of is that Google Page Rank is calculated all the time, every minute of everyday. It is such a big task that it needs to be constantly evaluated to give sites an accurate ranking.
This type calculation should be considered the “actual pagerank”. It is the type of PR that actually affects the amount of organic traffic you get to your site each day. Most people mistake this number for the “visible pagerank” they can see in the Google toolbar.
Visible PageRank
Visible pagerank does not have an impact on anything other than bragging rights and a gauge for pricing when selling advertising space on your website.
Because true page rank is calculated all the time, any changes you make to your site that will eventually increase the PR number displayed in the Google toolbar, will have a positive daily affect on your site and the amount of organic traffic that flows to it.
Visible PageRank is only updated every couple months by Google, because they spend the majority of their time calculating the actual pageranks of sites. If Google spent all it’s time updating the information you see on the Google toolbar they wouldn’t get anything else done.
For a good idea of when the next Google PageRank update will occur (and the times between past updates) check out the following site for a great guide with detailed information:
“Well then I should be able to judge this based on my number of backlinks right?”
Yes and no. Backlinks are constantly being tallied and spidered, much in the same way page rank is constantly being evaluated. Estimates state that is can take up to 2 full months of Google spidering the web to get an accurate idea of the amount of backlinks pointing towards your site.
Once again, you need to be patient to see these numbers displayed in SEO toolbars and results.
Your best bet for gauging the effectiveness of SEO improvements that you make to your site is by using Alexa. (imho)
Alexa - The Web Information Company
Alexa? I have heard that Alexa rank is useless?
Alexa Rank is about as useful as Google “Toolbar” PageRank (visible pagerank) in that the only thing it affects is bragging rights or potential value for ads sold on your website.
The reason Alexa Rank is useful is because the Alexa Toolbar functions similar to the way Google Toolbar does.
Users install a Toolbar that gathers statistics on websites and creates an overall picture of how valuable that site is on the internet. The benefit of Alexa is that they update their visible numbers on a weekly basis rather than Google that can take months to display this information.
Because there is a quicker turn around on the information being displayed you can use Alexa to judge the effectiveness of various SEO tactics you are using on your website. As your Alexa rank improves you can tell the changes you are implementing are having a positive effect on your overall site ranking.
This can help you judge what methods are most helping your site, and which ones are not worth your time.
Overview
This guide is a general rant than anything else. I am by no means an expert on SEO or Google PageRank. These are just things I have picked up from researching different topics online, and tracking changes I have made to Pseudorant.
The key is to be patient and stay the course. The more you work on your site the more it will payoff in the long run.
I hope you enjoyed this article and thanks for checking out Pseudorant. We appreciate the support!
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