In the internet marketing world the expression "Page Rank", oftentimes referred to as "PR", is common. So common in fact that when talking with those not on the inside track of internet marketing, I notice blank faces when I mention page rank. So, just exactly what the heck is it? Page Rank is Google's rating of a page on a scale of 0-10. The whole mechanism runs on incomming links. The more incomming, quality links to a site, the better the page rank.

So, how does one see what a pages rank is? Go to Google and download their toolbar. You will see the page rank, green horizontal slider bar there. This little meter has reached near religious proportions in some circles. So sites that have achieved a high page rank, say a 7, actually charge big bucks for a link from that page to another site.

As will all things, perhaps page rank has had its day. I found the below comments to be quite interesting. My take? With internet marketing, all factors must be considered. I will continue to pay attention to page rank as a way to guage progress of a certain kind with my sites. But it is just one factor of about a gazillion that one has to monitor.

WebProWorld :: Google's Broken Heart: PageRank Under Attack: "Daniel Brandt, Google-Watch creator, pointed out that the monthly crawl update cycle, which he believes was related to PageRank, 'stopped 12 months ago.'

'This crawling pattern,' he said, 'characterized Google from at least 2000 to April, 2003, but it hasn't happened that way for the last 12 months.'

Another indicator that 'classic PageRank' is no longer a part of Google's algorithm is, 'in the last year there has been much more emphasis on, and rapid turn-around for, fresh content. Anything that is fresh cannot be assigned an accurate PageRank, because for the classic PageRank formula, the entire web has to be calculated at the same point in time.'

Brandt also mentioned that, 'the toolbar has been showing somewhat erratic PageRank values for the last year. The backlinks shown by Google have also been erratic. There is very little consistency between the number of backlinks shown and the PageRank value shown on the toolbar.'

'The phenomenon of Google bombing,' said Brandt, 'shows that anchor text in links is much more important than the mere fact of a link itself. The classic PageRank formula had nothing to do with either page content or anchor text. It was a score that was precomputed, and available before the content of the page or anchor text was even considered.'

Fathom, a well established SEO contributor to forums around the web, said, 'to see 'value' in any attribute, technique or tactic you simply cannot look at any individiual components and say 'that one works' and use that one to gain advantage, that's simply foolish and PageRank Development fits in this category.' "

A Standard for Robot Exclusion: "Examples
The following example '/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots should visit any URL starting with '/cyberworld/map/' or '/tmp/', or /foo.html:


# robots.txt for http://www.example.com/

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
Disallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear
Disallow: /foo.html



This example '/robots.txt' file specifies that no robots should visit any URL starting with '/cyberworld/map/', except the robot called 'cybermapper':


# robots.txt for http://www.example.com/

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space

# Cybermapper knows where to go.
User-agent: cybermapper
Disallow:



This example indicates that no robots should visit this site further:


# go away
User-agent: *
Disallow: /"

This is Google's guide to making a successful webpage. A must page to study and re-visit regularly.

Google Information for Webmasters: "Webmaster Guidelines
Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site, which is the best way to ensure you'll be included in Google's results. Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the 'Quality Guidelines,' which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index. Once a site has been removed, it will no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google's partner sites.
Design and Content Guidelines:

• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.


• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.


• Create a useful, information-rich site and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.


• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.


• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.


• Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.


• Check for broken links and correct HTML.


• If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a '?' character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them small.


• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100). "

I have only put a part of the page here. Follow the link above to see the page in it's entirety.

Utility Sites that I use

• All about Search Engine Robots and how to communicate with them: The Web Robots FAQ: "The Web Robots FAQ...
  These frequently asked questions about Web robots. "


• How to show different fonts in a webpage: Microsoft WEFT 3 - bringing OpenType font embedding to the Web: "The Web Embedding Fonts Tool 'WEFT', lets Web authors create 'font objects' that are linked to their Web pages so that when an Internet Explorer user views the pages they'll see them displayed in the font style contained within the font object."


• A Site full of Flash Recipes: Internet Cross

Some HTML basics

I stumbled across this in the Webmasterworld Forums. Sometimes I really appreciate when the basics are revisited. I think that with this question, the posters there were addressing a question that everyone that learns HTML has at one time or another. Read on...

"SuzyUK once gave a wonderful explanation, where, if I recall correctly, she likened div's to shelves in a supermarket and span's to boxes on the shelves.
Thus div's may contain other div's and div's may contain's. But span's may not contain div's.
Until that explanation I never properly understood what 'inline' was supposed to mean. "

"The div tag is a block-level element (defaults to display: block) and can include block-level and inline elements
the span tag is an inline element (defaults to display: inline) and can only include inline elements
see www.htmlhelp.com "

The poster was here referring to HTML-speak with "display:block" etc... In CSS, there is the attribute "display" and there are, I think, 4 options of how the tag can be forced to show itself if you put in the "display:block" etc... attributes. You can even put in a "display:none" and you get nothing. This can be nifty for making something appear on mouseover etc...

There are three basic methods to getting positions in the search engines. Organic, For Pay, and Real World. I almost always go after the organic for a number of reasons.

1) it is free... well not really free. The resulting position and all clicks received from an organic campaign are free. An organic campaign is actually quite expensive initially because you have to pay someone like me to do it. But after the initial push, there your site is, appearing for the select keywords and phrases all due to it's own merit.

2) another reason that I really like the organic marketing approach is that the search engines now require that your site be of extremely high quality in order to rank well. So, persuing an organic campaign demands of both the web site constructor and it's owner that the site be really good.

One of the factors in getting a good organic ranking (there are a myriad of factors, we are just going to focus on one at the moment) is linking. I found the below article which I think well explains the importance of, and the correct way to implement, a good linking campaign.

Reciprocal Linking is Dead Long Live Link Popularity: "If you're struggling to get more reciprocal links for your website, I have some good news. Reciprocal linking as a search engine optimization tactic is dead. It's a huge waste of time and it doesn't work.

But don't confuse reciprocal linking with link popularity.

Link popularity continues to be one of the most important aspects of any successful search engine optimization campaign. But the way it's done is changing dramatically.

Up until now, webmasters have been scouring the web trying to find sites that are willing to swap links in order to help boost their rankings. But as soon as they find a link swapping partner, what do they do? They bury their partner's link while expecting the partner to place their link front and center on a highly ranked page, thank you very much.

It seems like a hopeless situation; both parties want to deep six the other's link, rendering it virtually invisible to search engine spiders and human traffic. I think I can safely say that this is NOT what Google had in mind when it included link popularity in its algorithm.

But I have found a solution to this fruitless effort we call reciprocal linking.

My search for the solution began right at Google's doorstep. Let's take a quick peak at what Google says about link popularity and how it works:

Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote.

Hmm... and all this time webmasters were focusing on high numbers of incoming links, period.

(Google) analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

So, how do you know if Google considers a page “important” enough for you to pursue a link on it? The answer is PageRank Score. (Downloading the Google toolbar will allow you to see any site’s PageRank Score.) If the page in question has a Google PageRank Score of six or higher, it’s a real good candidate.

Does that mean you place your link on any web site that has a PageRank Score of 6 or higher? No, and here is why according to Google:

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

Getting a link from an important site that’s relevant is the key. And the payoff for you will be more than just higher rankings.

Many site owners and marketers have forgotten that a well-placed quality link can actually bring them business. I mean, generating leads and sales is the reason you want to rank highly in the search engines in the first place, right?

So I have a fairly radical proposal for you.

In my opinion, its time to stop trying to get a free ride in the reciprocal linking game. It’s time to start looking for quality sites that will post your linking ad... and be prepared to pay for it.

Yes, I said pay for it.

Because at the end of the day, it’s far better for your business to have a few links on important, relevant web pages than it is to have hundreds of irrelevant, low traffic, low PageRank sites linking to you.

Why? Because having your ad appear on a site that Google considers important and relevant can not only improve your rankings but can also attract targeted traffic that converts into leads and sales. (This assumes that all other search engine optimization strategies are in place and working, i.e.: spider-friendly HTML code, strong content, and proper registration with the right search engines and directories.)

Another bonus: With this linking strategy, you don’t have to give anyone a reciprocal link or maintain a link farm or “resources” page on your site. All links flow one way – your way.

I have found many potential linking sites that charge anywhere from nothing to $25 a year to hundreds per month. Yes, the rates vary wildly but your choice of link partner should not be based solely on cost. You need to consider all these factors:

1) Is the linking site important according to Google’s criteria?

2) Is it relevant to your site?

3) Does it have the quantity and quality of traffic you need?

4) Is it affordable to you?

5) Does it accept linking ads?

Do some research and make a list of sites that meet the above criteria. Then review the list and start working with the ones that fit your budget. Don’t be too shy to negotiate with sellers; there’s lots of ad space competition out there and you may be able to cut yourself a better deal.

Once you’ve found the right linking ad partners at the right price, any fees they charge will likely be repaid to you in more targeted traffic, higher PageRank Score, and higher search engine placement. This all leads to more sales.

But possibly the greatest benefit of using this strategy is the dramatic reduction in headaches caused by trying to find hundreds of link partners that only end up burying your reciprocal link.