What is the Past, Present, and Future of Google PageRank?

If you have been in SEO for more than a couple of years, you must have a fair knowledge of page rank.

So, what is it? PageRank is a link analysis algorithm. The Google Internet search engine uses a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web. This is done with the purpose of measuring its relative importance within the set. However, the algorithm can be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and explanations.

In simple words, it is the way of measuring the importance of web pages. Furthermore, this blog will discuss what the top SEO experts of India have to say about the past, present, and future of Google PageRank. Have a read ahead.

Google PageRank: It’s a System to Rank the Web Pages

PageRank is a system that ranks web pages. It was developed by Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, at Standford University. Furthermore, in simple words, this system is all about links.

The higher the PageRank of your link, the better will be your domain authority. Its algorithm shows us the importance of a web page by analyzing the quality and quantity of the links.

How Did Everything Start: A Brief Explanation of Its Past

The internet is an ever-changing field. Google announces thousands of updates each year. What was trending five years ago might be outdated today. Similarly, PageRank started to become outdated, too. High PR did not actually correlate with better rankings. A company could easily hire a spammy SEO company to build thousands of links and increase its PR scores.

However, in 2005, Google tried to restrict everyone from link manipulation, but nothing took effect. In 2009, Google detected PR information using Webmaster tools, now known as Search Console. In 2013, Matt Cutts announced that the PR’s pipelines were broken, and an update in PR was no longer important in the eyes of Google. All the future updates were ceased. The public could no longer see the updated version of PageRank.

In 2016, Google made Penguin a part of its core ranking algorithm. If Penguin penalized a website, people had to rely on the best SEO experts in India to examine their link profiles and remove any toxic links carefully.

Today, this feature is working on a real-time basis dealing with spam successfully. Moreover, Google always emphasizes on quality rather than the quantity of the links.

What Does the Present Scenario Tell Us?

Even though there are no PR updates, the domain authority is still important to Google. Links are continuing to play a vital role in the authority of a website. Google has about 200 ranking factors, and a small part of PageRank still holds some gravity.

According to LinkedIn, most companies had spent about 65.6 billion dollars in search engine optimization back in 2016. This spending increased by a whopping 79.27 billion dollars in 2020.

Hence, PageRank does matter in the present scenario. It is one of the factors that Google considers while determining which results to show at the top of its search engine listings.  

Moreover, your page needs to be relevant to whatever the search is. If someone searches for home decor and your page is about plumbing services. It will not appear in SERP at all, no matter how high its PR is.

Just because there is no toolbar that gives us the PR of a web page, it doesn’t mean that it is not used. Back in 2017, Google’s Gary Lllyes confirmed on Twitter that they were still using PageRank. It has never gone away, and understanding how it works will only better your SEO.

Understanding How PageRank Works

In reality, PageRank is fascinating. It’s something that every link-builder should understand in-depth. So, how does it work?

The Calculation Behind It

Suppose Webpage Z is getting links from Pages X and Y. In the formula given below, PR Z is the PageRank of Page Z. Similarly, PR (X) and PR (Y) are the PageRank for Pages X and Y.

Whereas,

L (X) is the total number of outbound links from Page X, and L (Y) is of Page Y. Consider ‘d’ as a damping factor. It is the probability of a user clicking a link, generally set to 0.85.

Simply, if you want to calculate the PR of Page Z, then it has two links, one from Page X and the other from Page Y. So, input all the information about the respective pages, and you’ll get the PR for Page Z.

Similarly, if Page A was receiving links from numerous pages, then its PageRank will be calculated by the same calculation method mentioned above.

Will It Continue to Matter in the Future?

Will PageRank disappear all of a sudden in the future? Will it continue to matter in the long run? Read it for yourself.

As per the Yandex experiment of 2014, the search engines announced that they would drop backlinks from their algorithm to stop link spamming. They wanted to put their primary focus on quality website creation.

But in a year or so, Yandex confirmed that backlinks were back in their system again. Backlinks are one of the most reliable authority criteria needed to form the initial SERP.

Google is exploring more about machine learning. This means it’s a movement towards semantic search and better use of structured data. Moreover, this top search engine won’t discard something they have invested tens of years developing.

You need to optimize content based on what target audiences want to see. This will attract links better than anything else. You will be able to attract viewers to your site who will eventually turn into customers.

Considering the importance of PageRank in the overall ranking process, you can build an omnichannel marketing strategy, which gathers leads through several phases.

Hence, in the near future, PageRank won’t disappear at all. Instead, it will continue to matter in the world of search engine optimization.

PageRank is the Heart of SEO’s Best Practices Today

 You must remember PageRank is the heart of SEO’s best practices today. It is the reason why backlinks matter and why many optimization experts pay attention to internal linking. However, if you want to build good domain authority and PR, you can rely on the SEO services by India’s top listing directories, mentioning your budget, requisites, etc.