PageRank, influence, and the silo
Published by on December 16th, 2008 Comments Off
We are, of course, talking about Google toolbar Page Rank. Either obsess over it or regard it with indifference, it is the only bit of clear feedback Google provides about your site that has some level of stability (though merely because it only updates every quarter) and to an extent, predictability.
In a nutshell, just to catch you up to speed, PageRank has no direct relationship with how or where your site appears in Google’s search results. But that does not mean it has no value.
A web page temperature guage
PageRank (PR) has a direct association with the number of incoming links to your webpage, and to some extent is also affected by the number of outgoing links from that webpage. Incoming links increase PR, while outgoing “leak” it.
One of the most important factors in gaining search result visibility is the number of incoming links to a page from elsewhere. See the connection? If your PR is increasing, that’s a good indicator of the general health of your site or page. If it is decreasing, get out there and build more links!
Page rank sculpting and the passing of influence
With the number and potency of incoming links as important as they (currently) are, it is easy to see how PR can be considered an indicator of influence and authority. High PR pages “pass on” PR to those pages into which they link. This is easily tested: have several high PR pages point to a low PR page – using your selected keywords in the correct manner, of course – and watch not only that page’s PR increase, but also watch it climb the SERPs. You may not achieve the ultimate goal, but you will see positive movement.
With a large site containing many pages that have their own PR, it is possible to “push” this PR influence to target pages, thus raising thir SERPs visibility purely with internal linking. Internal linking… now is not that a great deal easier than external?
Creating silos, or living in the PR culdesac
PR “leaks” out to pages when you link to them. The rate of leakage is low so there is no fear of completely draining a page’s PR. Controlling the “Flow” of influence within a website is a very potent tool in building higher SERP visibility.
Silo pages take all the incoming PR they can get their grubby little hands on and hold it tight, not letting a single drop seep out particularly outside the site, but also within it. To build the influence and authority of a particular page on your site, have many incoming links to it while reducing its outgoing links to an absolute minimum. If you do need to link out, use the “nofollow” attribute to prevent passing (leaking) the PR influence.
There is some discussion around fears that silo pages may appear to be unnatural entities to a search engine and may be penalised as a result. In experiments with directly managing the PR flow around a site,I have not personally seen this, in fact, very much the opposite.
Do not keep it all in the family
Internal linking to control the PR flow around a site is increasingly important to ensure the pages you want to float higher in the SERPs, do. But it must never be an exclusive linking technique.
Incoming links from elsewhere remain vital, particularly from unconnected sites with highly relevant content – and a big, juicy PR to boot. Such links are hard to acquire, but when combined with strong management or internal linking, may land you within striking distance of the top.
