Is PageRank Important?
Just Enough Knowledge to be Dangerous
One of the bigger problems with learning in the field of SEO is that there are a lot of people who have a nugget of information. And they spread it far and wide without the proper context needed to evaluate the potential risks and rewards of any given strategy. So new SEOs end up thinking topic x is the most important, then topic y, then topic z. And then someone debunks one of those. Many false facts are taken as truths when the people with a nugget of information (that they found from some source) spread it as fact.
Accurate Answers Need Context
As the structure of the web changes and search engine relevancy algorithms change then so must the field of SEO. This means that the right answer to questions can change frequently, and information from many years ago may not be correct. Does PageRank matter? When I first got in SEO it was crucially important, but over the years other pieces of the relevancy algorithms (like domain age, domain name, domain trust, domain extension, link anchor text, searcher location, search query chains, word relationships, search personalization, other user data, result re-ranking based on local inter-connectivity, input from 10,000+ remote quality raters, and even a wide array of penalties & filters) have been layered over the top of the core relevancy algorithm.
If that sounds like a lot, it is because it is!
Yes, PageRank is important to driving indexing, but for rankings it is nowhere near as important as it once was. SEO has become a much more refined art. In an October 2009 interview, Google’s Amit Singal stated:
No one should feel, if I dismantle the current search system, someone will get upset. That’s the wrong environment. When I came, I dismantled [Google cofounders] Larry and Sergey’s whole ranking system. That was the whole idea. I just said, That’s how I think it should be done, and Sergey
said, Great!
Great SEO Service is Interactive
Search keeps innovating – as it must. Each layer of innovation creates new challenges and new opportunities.
Not only does SEO strategy change over time, but it also varies from site to site. A large corporate site has a different set of strengths and weaknesses than a small local business website. The best SEO advice must incorporate all of the following
Where you are
where you want to be
the resources you have to bridge the gap between the above 2 (domain names, brand, social relations, public relations, capital, etc.)
what the competition is doing
your strengths and weaknesses relative to your market
That is why having an interactive SEO Community is so important. It allows us to look for competitive strengths and weaknesses, and offer useful tips that fit your market, your website, and your business.
Even Search Engineers Don’t Know All the Search Algorithms
The algorithms are so complex that sometimes even leading search engineers working for Google are uncertain of what is going on. Search engineers can’t know every bit of code because Google has made over 450 algorithm changes in a single year.
When I first wrote about a new algorithmic anomaly that I (and others) saw, I got flamed with some pretty nasty words on public SEO sites…a few of which are highlighted below:
SEO Company.
The above people were:
Confident
rude
wrong
And that is part of the reason I stopped sharing as much research publicly. Sharing publicly meant…
Spending long hours of research and writing (for free)
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