Behind the Scenes of Google PageRank and other SEO Ranking Tools

The center of the search engine universe has become Google’s effective search tool. The California-based company has revolutionized the methods and mathematical processes used to achieve effective rankings for billions of web sites. The reason why Google has risen so quickly as an authority on the relevancy and popularity of web sites is the company’s PageRank tool. This tool was developed by Google co-founder Larry Page in his days at Stanford University as a graduate student. PageRank’s approach to ranking web sites should be used by website designers and SEO firms as a play book for optimization.

Millions of Internet users are familiar with PageRank from Google’s Toolbar application. PageRank offers each website a rank from zero to 10 based on a scale from least popular to most popular. This simple measurement is achieved through a complex web of “votes” cast every time a visitor sees a website and a website links to a particular online page.

The PageRank “voting” system is more than a simple one link, one “vote” system that would place a premium on “black hat” SEO methods. Google has refined its PageRank formulas to account for relevancy and popularity of web sites that link to other web sites. An online shoe store that solicits links and visits from businesses outside of its industry may not see their search results rise quickly. An online university that receives incoming links from think tanks, government agencies and recruiting firms benefit from the popularity of their visitors.

There is a partial role for backlink volume in PageRank’s calculations. Google has learned from experience that placing high importance on link volume leads to unsavory design methods that bypass good content for higher rankings. It is important to know, however, that web sites receiving high volumes of backlinks from related web sites aren’t punished for the actions of a few enterprising designers unfamiliar with search engine policies.

Website designers need to use SEO assessment tools like Google PageRank to their advantages when optimizing online content. A designer should look at top-ranked web sites that are available with his ideal keywords to learn how to improve his content pages. The first page of Google search results in fields as diverse as chemical engineering, shoe design and automobile manufacturing feature pages that meet the search engine’s high standards.
Another wise move for website developers seeking education on SEO matters is clicking through a few banner advertisements. These advertisements use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising instead of organic SEO to get website links out to online searchers. A designer will notice that many, though not all, of these web sites have fundamental design and content issues that preclude organic searches from taking place.

The future of Google PageRank and other SEO assessment tools portends several trends for online businesses and website designers. Every online user with a website will need to stay alert of his ranking online to make sure that algorithm changes do not affect search results greatly. Small businesses with niche products and services need to get creative with meta tagging, photo tagging and organic SEO development to remain consistent with search engine policies. The biggest trend in website ranking will be the evolution of tools to weed out “black hat” SEO methods. Designers that use cloaking and redirection are target number one for search engines that want to compete with Google for search engine supremacy.