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What is PageRank, and how does it compare to AdWords for SEO?
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Q: I had a question about page rank, what does it exactly mean and how important is it? How does it compare to SEO, meaning how does page rank compare to ad words and where your website places on googles search?
Answer: -
Oh, the Google semantics! There are some very different terms here with very different meanings. Unfortunately, they have similar sounding names, and it is easy to get confused.
- Rank of Google or SERP or Search Engine Rank - this refers to whether for a given search, such as Medical Malpractice Attorney San Francisco your company places in the top ten, top twenty or whatever. Your 'rank' is measured as a position with 1, being Page 1 Position 1, 10 being page 1 position 10, etc. This is all about whether people see you at all when doing a Google search. SERP stands for 'Search Engine Results Page.'
- PageRank - this is Google's special algorithm and stands for roughly your 'authority' on the Web. Pages such as CNN.com or Wikipedia.org have very high PageRanks (10), whereas small websites can have a PageRank of zero or perhaps 1. This measures how authoritative your website is, and can be very roughly seen by the Google Toolbar. It is useful because a) it tells you how valuable a link is from a particular site (higher PageRank links count for more), and b) behind-the-scenes, pages that have higher PageRanks tend to score higher in the SERP results (See above). You influence and grow your own PageRank by getting incoming links from other high ranking PageRank sites.
- AdWords - this is Google's paid advertising program, Pay-per-click. Your results in natural search (SERP Rank) and your (PageRank) have NOTHING to do with how your AdWords campaign works. This is a totally separate paid track on Google.
It's confusing that there are so many different terms, and the name PageRank is terribly confusing in and of itself. But that is historically how this developed and so we are stuck with these terms.
Hope this helps!
- Jason
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