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I am going to attempt to tackle explaining Google Rankings here in as few words as possible. My plan is not to bore or confuse you with tons of terms; instead in 500 words I am going to tell you what you need to know to make sure that your websites get the rankings you want and deserve. First, we are going to work with the assumption that you know what Google is and why having an excellent ranking is important.

First, what we are dealing with today is Google Page Rank, also known as PR. This is a feature that Google uses to score a website. It is based on the external and internal linking of a webpage. It also bases the rank on the page criteria of the web page that is being linked to the webpage and the webpage that is being linked from. So what does that mean, it means that your ranking is going to be impacted by the pages you link to and the pages that link back to you. You can very easily see what your PR is if you download the Google Toolbar. It will actually tell you the PR of every webpage you visit. I highly recommend that you down load this bar because the only way that you can improve your ranking is to know what your website and the pages in your site are currently ranked.

We discussed the linking, both external an internal. Briefly here is what you need to know. The first type of linking is Internal Linking. Internal linking looks at the pages within your website. You home page will typically have highest PR. You want to make sure that you are linking your webpages together in a themed approach that will stress the importance of decreasing the linking that is done between 2nd and 3rd level directories and pages. A good source to refer to so that you can understand this concept is “Surviving the Google Update”.

Then there is External Linking, this plays the most important role in determining your page ranking. Unfortunately this is the facet of your website that you have the least amount of control over. Why, because you can not possibly make a webmaster link to your site. “The actual amount of effect that Google’s PageRank has on the ranking of a website or web pages is debated, and it is probably safe to say that Google will not be letting us know anytime soon.” Source

I can tell you what every webmaster out there knows is this. That they higher your PR is the more frequent your website will be crawled and refreshed. You want the spiders to visit your site, and you want them to come often. But it isn’t about being linked to hundreds of sites, it is about being linked to the sites that Google deems worthy. This is where the page criteria comes into play, “When Google is determining the PR of Page A by evaluating the votes, or links, from Page B and others, it will also take into account the on page criteria and title tags of Page B and other links that are pointing to Page A. If Page A’s target keywords and theme are “widgets” then this is what Google will look for in the external links that are pointing to your site. If Page B, C, and D all have a high PR (above 6), and all have the keyword “widgets” in the on page criteria and title tag, Google will notice this and use these links when determining Page A’s Page Rank.” Source

This means that you want to think about the pages you are contacting that you want to link to. The websites that you are contacting should have the same theme as your site and it should have relevant content. So if your website deals with fishnet stockings and you are linked to a website that has an excellent PR in the bait and tackle niche… it is not going to help your PR at all. While the PR is high, the content is not relevant to your site.

Basically, there are three steps you must follow to help increase your Google PR:

1.Have a solid website.
2.Make sure that your internal links are themed based to minimize sub directories.
3.Make sure that your external links have a high ranking and are relevant to your website.

Neil Bartlett is the founder of ProArticle.com. Pro Article provides writers with Tips and Techniques for improving their writing skills. To learn more INSTANTLY grab his FREE report “10 Tips For Successful Online Writing”

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