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{"id":705,"date":"2024-02-20T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherylroll.com\/forget-pagerank-focus-on-ranking-437676\/"},"modified":"2024-02-20T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T15:00:00","slug":"forget-pagerank-focus-on-ranking-437676","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherylroll.com\/forget-pagerank-focus-on-ranking-437676\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget PageRank: Here\u2019s why you should focus on ranking instead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite new trends and innovative tools like AI stealing the limelight occasionally, many competitive industries continue to focus their SEO<\/a> efforts primarily on building PageRank-passing link building. <\/p>\n

The basic assumption is that accumulating more PageRank-passing backlinks will eventually boost rankings and drive converting traffic to the website. <\/p>\n

However, following this strategy is often dangerous due to potential Google Search violations. More importantly, it almost always distracts from much more sustainable ways of growing organic Google and Bing traffic to the website.<\/p>\n

You don’t know PageRank<\/h2>\n
Since its introduction 25 years ago, PageRank<\/a> has been on SEOs’ minds – and understandably so, since Google has been using PageRank for its internal calculations ever since and continues to do so. <\/p>\n
However, it is important to understand that the PageRank value of any website or webpage is elusive. It changes constantly every moment as Google crawls the web and the fresh data is incorporated. Google does not share the current PageRank value with the interested public or the website’s verified owner. <\/p>\n
For third parties, there is no<\/strong> way of reverse engineering the value or rebuilding Google’s infrastructure and algorithms. Service providers circumnavigate this challenge by offering alternative rank names and values, presumably representative of what Google uses internally. <\/p>\n
There is no way to compare their calculations against the actual PageRank scores inside the Google Index. <\/p>\n
In addition, Google does not utilize any trust or reputation rank values calculated by third parties either. Third-party alternative ranks do not reliably gauge backlink value. <\/p>\n
Simply put, PageRank-passing link buyers can’t estimate whether any particular backlink will boost the website visibility in Google. Therefore, focusing on building PageRank-passing backlinks is akin to gambling and hoping to hit the jackpot.<\/p>\n
There are other problems with an SEO strategy based on PageRank-passing link building, too. It requires continued and growing efforts, binding ever-increasing budgets to link building. <\/p>\n
For companies with finite resources, this means that over time, budgets allocated to other areas, such as infrastructure, code base, performance, content publication, marketing or brand building drop. In consequence, often, more important website SEO signals worsen or become inconsistent. <\/p>\n
The fact that building backlinks that pass PageRank to manipulate rankings represents a Google Search Essentials<\/a> (formerly known as Google Webmaster Guidelines) violation, which when detected, can lead to a manual penalty<\/a>, poses yet another problem.<\/p>\n
In short, an SEO strategy focused on buying PageRank-passing backlinks can work. Still, it remains an expensive guessing game that ultimately can lead to a dramatic traffic loss<\/a> when Google finds out.<\/p>\n
There are much better SEO alternatives, though. How to allocate an SEO budget for the highest ROI depends on an individual website. <\/p>\n
Factors that play a role include:<\/p>\n
\n
The volume of landing pages.<\/li>\n
Unique selling proposition.<\/li>\n
Performance.<\/li>\n
Brand.<\/li>\n
The technical acumen of the team responsible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
There are safer SEO bets than PageRank-passing link building.<\/p>\n
Traffic link building<\/h2>\n
Website owners focused on PageRank-passing links for years can transition to building links for converting traffic<\/a>. <\/p>\n
This strategy, aptly proposed by former Google engineer and Search Engine Land contributor Fili Wiese<\/a>, requires far fewer links, allows for instant ROI measurement and, importantly, does not risk any Google penalties. <\/p>\n
Given how problematic a Google penalty can be for website operators relying primarily on Google traffic, the latter point should give serious grounds for consideration. <\/p>\n
Performance<\/h2>\n
Given other factors being roughly comparable any website will grow in rankings in Google for relevant queries if it performs faster than its competitors. <\/p>\n
Google consistently focuses on their users’ experiences as part of their business model. Because users prefer faster-loading websites, fast websites notoriously outperform their slower competitors in Google Search.<\/p>\n
Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.<\/p>\n
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