how does PageRank work?
Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2025 8:30 am
The new patent sought to give a ranking score to a web page based on how far it was from a set of seeds. That said, this patent makes no reference to PageRank (or claims that there is an updated version of the algorithm).
Rather, the SEO community has understood that it acts as a PageRank modifier based on proximity to the seed set of sites.
PageRank Updated graphic
Understanding How PageRank Works
Simply put, PageRank is fascinating.
It's something any SEO (or link builder) should understand in depth, if only to provide some context around why links remain one of Google's most important ranking factors .
When the patent was first filed and Google’s initial algorithm was kazakhstan mobile database developed, it was based on the theory that a link from one website to another acted as a vote of trust and authority. And therefore, the more links (votes) pointing to a page, the more it should be trusted and thus rank higher in the rankings.
But, as defined in the original paper, "PageRank extends this idea by not counting links on all pages equally and by normalizing by the number of links on a page."
A link is not just a direct vote. The authority of the page is also taken into account. A link from a PageRank of 6 definitely has a higher authority vote than one from a page with a PageRank of 6.
And this flow of PageRank between pages is often referred to by SEOs as "link juice."
Let's take a look at the calculations behind PageRank:
"We assume that page A has T1...Tn pointing to it (e.g. citations). The parameter d is a damping factor that can be set between 0 and 1. Typically, we set d to 0.85. There are more details about d in the next section. Also, C(A) is defined as the number of links outbound from page A. And so, the PageRank of a page A is given as follows.
Rather, the SEO community has understood that it acts as a PageRank modifier based on proximity to the seed set of sites.
PageRank Updated graphic
Understanding How PageRank Works
Simply put, PageRank is fascinating.
It's something any SEO (or link builder) should understand in depth, if only to provide some context around why links remain one of Google's most important ranking factors .
When the patent was first filed and Google’s initial algorithm was kazakhstan mobile database developed, it was based on the theory that a link from one website to another acted as a vote of trust and authority. And therefore, the more links (votes) pointing to a page, the more it should be trusted and thus rank higher in the rankings.
But, as defined in the original paper, "PageRank extends this idea by not counting links on all pages equally and by normalizing by the number of links on a page."
A link is not just a direct vote. The authority of the page is also taken into account. A link from a PageRank of 6 definitely has a higher authority vote than one from a page with a PageRank of 6.
And this flow of PageRank between pages is often referred to by SEOs as "link juice."
Let's take a look at the calculations behind PageRank:
"We assume that page A has T1...Tn pointing to it (e.g. citations). The parameter d is a damping factor that can be set between 0 and 1. Typically, we set d to 0.85. There are more details about d in the next section. Also, C(A) is defined as the number of links outbound from page A. And so, the PageRank of a page A is given as follows.