Understanding Google PageRank [Infographic]
How Google PageRank is like running for Prom King/Queen – an interesting but worthy analogy.
We are all becoming more and more aware of the importance of HIGH QUALITY backlinks. It is paramount to moving up in the Google PageRank athon. Discounted by some, I believe that at the very least, understanding Google PageRank is something that all internet marketers, small businesses, start-up companies and entrepreneurs need to embrace. Like it or not, Google is THE search engine authority and nothing they do, control, run, endorse should be taken lightly.
So back to understanding Google PageRank. This infographic actually does a great job explaining how it works using the analogy of votes for prom king/queen.
It is not necessarily the amount of votes, but it is the QUALITY of votes, or in our case, backlinks. (Oh and no offense to the marching band and drama club the infographic makes reference to). 
A lot of people and companies are struggling to understand the type of backlinks they need to help increase their PageRank and move them up the search engine rankings. More importantly, some people/companies don’t realize that poor quality links can actually HARM them.
Then there are the links that cancel each other out – which I personally don’t agree with. If I am in an industry where I work with people who provide a service or product to me or visa-versa but aren’t direct competitors, then why not link to each other and get credit for it. If I am using the company for my business, I obviously believe in their product and think they are worthy of a backlink – but who am I to make the rules?
Ok, so Google PageRank is on a scale of 0-10. The higher your site’s PageRank the better. A majority of sites have a PageRank below 4. Anything above a pagerank of 4 is considered very good. It is not easy to accomplish this mission. It takes many high quality backlinks from relevant websites along with great content on your site to get you there.
Basically, Google wants to know that people like you. That they like you so much they are willing to link to your site and share your content on their site and with others. Google figures if they are doing this you must have something share worthy on your pages.
But do not underestimate Google. Their algorithms are so refined that it can absolutely determine poor quality back links from rich quality, and if you have too many of the poor backlinks, Google will suspect spam and move you back down the pagerank scale and more than likely your search engine ranking will suffer, too.
With the implementation of Panda and Penguin it is more important than ever before to take the time to research and put out good, relevant copy so people will want to spread the word about your site or blog, etc.
That’s the aim of Google – authentic, high quality information to give to their search engine users. In fact, without it 70% of search engine users would be extremely frustrated and spend endless amounts of hours trying to find something relevant to our keyword search.
So, as much as some people curse the new Panda and Penguin algorithm updates, it only makes a better search experience for Google search users – which I happen to be, and chances are, you are too.
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Fun infographic, and thanks for stressing that quality backlinks are what is needed.
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