How to create your own Blog

What is a Blog anyway?

Here’s a direct description from the Blogger.com website:

“A blog gives you your own voice on the web. It’s a place to collect and share things that you find interesting— whether it’s your political commentary, a personal diary, or links to web sites you want to remember.

Many people use a Blog just to organize their own thoughts or write about their experiences while others command influential, worldwide audiences of thousands. Professional and amateur journalists use blogs to publish breaking news, while personal journalers reveal inner thoughts.

The blogging experience is about not only putting your thoughts on the web, but hearing back from and connecting with other like-minded folks.”

So why do we need to publish a Blog?

Publishing a Blog allows you to instantly create new content-rich web pages. These new pages can be linked to from the home page of your current website, if you have created one already and/or promote the site separately. By creating additional content-rich website pages and promoting them from your home page or through other means, you’ll be accomplishing two important things:

==> You’ll provide more value for your website visitors. This increases the “stickiness” of your website making people stick around longer and ultimately trust you more. On the Internet, trust translate to profits!

==> Search engines LOVE fresh content created through Blogs. By publishing your own Blog and adding fresh content to it on a regular basis, you’ll attract the attention of the major search engines who will list your website in their directories for FREE. That’s right! As soon as you have pages of your Blog in the search engines, you’ll start attracting free qualified traffic to your site without paying a dime for it. This is called “organic listing” Remember, Google Adwords? Imagine running a large and comprehensive Google Adwords campaign without paying anything for it… That’s exactly what you can accomplish by publishing your own Blog!

Are you ready to get started?

Come on… it’s EASY, it’s FREE and it’s FUN!

In fact, you’ll have your own Blog setup in 3 easy steps.

Let’s get started…

Visit the Blogger website.

Once you arrive and look things over, click the “CREATE YOUR BLOG NOW” arrow.

Next, you’ll arrive at the “Create an account” page. Complete the fields on that page.

TIP: For your user name, I suggest using your first and last name combined OR the characters of your domain name without the .com, .net, .org, .ws etc.

Check the “Terms of Service” box and click on the “CONTINUE” arrow.

The next page is the “Name your Blog” page. Enter a title Example: YourName’s Home Business Blog or YourName’s Work at Home Journal or something like that… Be creative!

Now enter your Blog  address. Again, I suggest using the characters of your domain name without the .com, .net, .org, .ws etc. If the name is taken, try the characters of your first and last name combined or anything else you want to be your blog address. Whatever name you decide upon will create your blog URL such as: www.YOUR~BLOGGER~USERNAME.blogspot.com

Next, complete the word verification field by typing the characters you see in the picture above the field.

NOTE: Ignore the “Advanced Setup” option for now. The advanced setup option allows you to add your blog files directly to your Global Domains International hosting account. I strongly advise you against using the advanced setup option at this time (unless you are already extremely comfortable with uploading files to your hosting account). You will have to learn FTP to be comfortable with this. And there are many free tutorials online to do so. Click the “CONTINUE” arrow.

Next, you’ll arrive at the “Choose a template” page. This page allows you to choose a custom look for your blog.

Take a look at the designs available and select one by marking the selection circle inside the blog template image. You can easily change the template later, or even create your own custom template design once your blog is set up.

Once you’ve selected your blog template, click the “CONTINUE” arrow.

Congratulations! Your blog has been created!

Now it’s time to add some content to your Blog…

Now that you have your Blog setup, it’s time to post one of your articles to it. If you haven’t got an article, start writing one now. The next step is to format your article. Some great tutorials of the HTML scriptlanguage can be found HERE  on how to format your article:

Once you have written you first post, click the “Publish Post” button at the end of the page.

Congratulations! You’ve just published your article on your own Blog! Now, every time you have new articles to post, simply repeat the process described above.

At this point, you have the option to view your blog or simply move on and continue adding articles. If you decide to view your Blog first, click the (in a new window) link.

Give yourself a pat on the back. You are a blog publisher now!  Congratulations!!

Now it’s time to tell people about your new Blog.

Andy

The AdSense Arbitrage: Tips, Tricks & Secrets

 I came across a very informative write up today by Michael Wolf  on and the Adsense Arbitrage, I wanted to share it with my readers. The following article derives from his site at http://www.wolf-howl.com/sem/adsense-arbitrage-tips-tricks-secrets/

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If you frequent any of the AdSense forums chances are you’ve come across the phrase ‘AdSense Arbitrage‘, while it’s been around for a while a lot of people don’t understand what it is, or how it works. While I’m not a big player in the arbitrage model I’ve been doing it profitably for a few months, so I can explain how I do it and share a few tips I’ve picked up. In part II AdSense Arbitrage: Keyword Selection I’ll take you through some real keyword options, and in part III AdSense Arbitrage: Automation and Button Pushing I’ll go over some ideas for automating the process I learned recently.

To start let’s take a high level view of what AdSense arbitrage is and how it works. The basic principle is to pay for a low price for keyword in an advertising program like AdWords, Overture Yahoo Search Marketing, or MSN AdCenter and direct users to a page with AdSense or another contextual advertising program on it that has higher payout. You can either bid low on the same term, looking for keywords with a large bid gap (more on that later) or you can bid on very specific keywords with little competiton and drive them to page with ads for a more general and competitive term.

Sounds pretty simple you bid $1 for a keyword, direct the traffic to a landing page with ads that pay $2 sit back and watch the profits roll in right? Well there’s a little more to it than that, it’s not rocket science but the more familiar you are with how both Adwords and AdSense works the more likely you are to succeed. Up until fairly recently most publishers were getting a 60% cut of the adwords price, $0.03 on a $0.05 bid. However now that AdSense has factored in smart pricing it’s a little more complicated. Here’s a decent explanation of smart pricing from Jensense (One poorly converting site can “smart price” an entire AdSense account – JenSense.com)

Google’s smart pricing feature automatically adjusts the cost of a keyword-targeted content click. So if our data shows that a click from a content page is less likely to turn into actionable business results – such as online sales, registrations, phone calls, or newsletter signups – we reduce the price you pay for that click.

The role smart pricing plays in your account varies from one account to the next and is an unknow variable. To keep the math here simple I’m not going to include it, but it is something you should factor into your computations. To keep things simple lets assume you are bidding $1.00 for a keyword. Again to keep things simple lets assume the advertiser is paying $2.00 a keyword, so you’ll get $1.20 a click ($2.00 * 0.6). So you pay $1.00 a click but get $1.20 a click so you make $0.20 every click, not a lot but you’re not really doing any work after you get it running so you’ll make money slowly. The problem is you aren’t going to get a 100% click through rate on your AdSense ads. Lets run some numbers using 100 users coming to your page

Users	Cost Per Acuisition	Total Cost	$ Per Click	CTR	Income	Profit
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	100%	$120	$20
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	90%	$108	$8
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	80%	$96.	-$4
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	70%	$84	-$16
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	60%	$72	-$28
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	50%	$60	-$40
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	40%	$48	-$52
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	30%	$36	-$64
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	20%	$24	-$76
100	$1.00	$100	$1.2	10%	$12	-$88

So what did our little experiment tell us, unless we have a 90% CTR we are going to lose money. While I’m not going to say you can’t achieve a 90% ctr, I am going to say if you did it would be pretty phenomenal. Let’s take a much more realistic CTR of say 30%. If you were able to get the cost down so you were paying $0.25 per click you would be in much better shape

100 leads @ $0.25 = $25
30 clicks at $1.2 = $36
$11 profit

$11 Profit per day isn’t a lot, in fact it’s probably going to cover lunch at the diner and not much else. So you’re going to have to find something with a lot of volume per day or look for a wider bid gap. A bid gap is what occurs when there is a large gap in bid prices for a particular keyword for example:

Bidder 1 – $10.00
Bidder 2 – $9.75
Bidder 3 – $7.00
Bidder 4 – $3.00
Bidder 5 – $1.25

There $4.00 difference between bidder 3 and 4 is a sizeable bid gap, and these are the opportunities you are looking for when you play the arbitrage game. Adwords isn’t much help in revealing bid in fact the best you can get is a kinda close guestimate, using the Overture Bid tool you can get much more accurate bid prices. Let’s assume you are going to bid 1 penny more than bidder number 5 so it will cost you $1.26 for each bid. The top bid is $10.00 so you will get $6.00 per click, so lets run some number again

100 leads @ $1.26 = $126
30 clicks @ $6.00 = $180
$54 dollars profit

Ok $54 dollars is more like it, now you can take your significant other out to dinner. But let’s slow down let’s say you are running a popular sized adsense block, good old 300 x 250. Well that size block displays up to 4 ads. If the user clicks on advertisement #3 forget going out to eat it’s left over mac and cheese for you. If they click on advertisement #4 you’ve lost money, so you better call up mom and see if you can come over for dinner.

The point to here is it may not always be in your best interest to display as many ads as possible, in many cases you can actually make more money by showing less ads, imagine that! You may even want to use single ads like 125 x 125, 180 x 180, 234 x 60 or the double 468 x 60, and 120 x 240. In addition you want to make sure you have the ads in prominant clickable spots (see Maximizing Profits With Website Design and Layout: Part II :). You may also find you have a lot more success using a landing page with no external navigation. By eliminating options the only choices are clicking the advertisements or using the back button. This means your content is going to have to “add value” along the way just be careful how you add value. Lastly if you use multiple ad blocks give each of them their own channel. If one block consistantly gets a higher CTR, have it appear first in the code so it gets the highest priced ad. Position it where ever you want using CSS. Also remember many publishers bid lower prices for contextual ads than search ads, so this could affect your ability to turn a profit, just again another factor to be aware of.

There are some other points to remember as well like cash management. Let’s say you spend $1000 on Adwords, and get $2000 from AdSense, $1000 profit so what’s the problem? You won’t be getting your AdSense check until the end of the month, and chances are your credit card bill will come before your AdSense check arrives, so make sure you can cover the expense. Letting your bill run up and giving the credit card company 18%-22% of your profit just isn’t cool. If you can’t float the money find a 0% interest credit card.

Getting your first campaign up, running and making a profit is definitely the hardest part. You probably are going to have to micromanage it for a week or two. You may even ask yourself is this worth the time? Well remember you’re just on the learning curve, once you’ve learned how to do it for one the second one is easier, the third even easier and by the fourth one hopefully you’ve found your groove. AdSense arbitrage isn’t rocket science but you do have to be on the ball, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

Directory Submitter review

You may or may not know that Website Directory Submission is quickly becoming a very popular and easy way to get quality, one way links to your website.

These kind of links are exactly what the search engines are looking for. The websites with more quality, one way links are typically the sites that rank the highest, period.

With that said, there are several websites dircetory submission programs on the market. The best and easiest to use is a new program created by Brad Callen, called Directory Submitter.

The software currently contains around 1700 website directories, all free. It is the most straightforward program that we’ve come across, in that all you need to do is:

1. Input your website details (i.e. title, description, URL, etc.) into the software

2. Click on the directory you want to submit to

And then the program will automatically fill in your website details. Then, you simply click the submit button and your website is instantly submitted to the directory. Then, you can move to the next directory, go through the list, and by the time you’re finished you’ll have roughly 1500 one way links pointing to your website.

I can’t think of an easier way to get links. Of course, if you’re going to get links this quickly, it’s important to vary your website title (anchor text) every 20-30 links or so, to make things look more natural to the search engines.

You can do this very easily via Directory Submitter when you create your project in the beginning.

The software is constantly being updated and their is an incredible community of users established that all work together to make the software better and better, so you know you’re getting great value for the money.

To check out the software, go here: Directory Submitter

HyperVRE – Best tool for your adsense website

By now I’m sure you’ve heard some great things about Matt Callen’s new viral marketing and website building software, HyperVRE.

But if not, I wanted to fill you in on what all the great talk is about, and tell you briefly about some of the new features that Matt’s added to the latest update to HyperVRE.

As if the software wasn’t already extremely powerful, Matt just keeps adding more and more requested features to it. Anyway, here is a brief list of what the software can do for you:

- Generate thousands of fresh, unique content-rich webpages from highly-targeted keyword lists of your choice

- Keep your webpages fresh with unique content by placing several rotating RSS feeds to ensure that all webpages are unique and highly related to the topic

- Exponentially increase your profits by giving away the software with YOUR affiliate links branded into it. The viral potential of this program is endless…

- Promote ANY ClickBank, Amazon, or PayDotCom product of your choice. In fact, you’re not even limited to these 3 affiliate programs. You can promote ANY affiliate product of YOUR choice!

- Earn quick money by automatically publishing AdSense ads on your site

- Create a long-lasting passive income with literally an infinite potential, including AdSense and Affiliate Marketing

Plus way more than I can list here…

Oh yeah… and the best part about this software – it’s Free… at least for now anyway.

Matt’s got several demos at the website to show you exactly what the softare can do for you, so I highly suggest that you take a few minutes
from whatever you’re doing right now, and go check ‘em out.

I can’t understand how this will be free for much longer. So if I were you, I’d at least go see what it’s all about now.

==> http://www.hypervre.com/

All the best,
Andy

http://www.hypervre.com/

Project Black Mask

It’s real, I didn’t even know HOW big. Get yourself over to http://www.website4wealth.com/cmask and see for yourself.

What I told you about, just 24 hours ago, was based on seeing a pre-launch, unfinished version of “Google’s Dirty Little Secret.”

But just this morning… at 12:01 AM… I was lucky enough to get my hands on the final version.

I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up all night, devouring the material. I learned stuff I never imagined.

I almost accidentally called what I learned, “tricks” but these aren’t little gimmicks that will make you a few dimes for a little while. This is a brand new way to make money with AdSense.

After reading just half the book, all I can say is, “WOW!”

It’s finally available, so you can read the secret page yourself by going to http://www.website4wealth.com/cmask.

Let me tell you, this “Insider” is an interesting character. A dark and secret sort… but one with the kind of knowledge I’ve never seen before. And I guarantee you haven’t either.

And you know how some guys out there write books that are supposed to reveal the secrets, but they keep the real secrets to themselves?

Not this guy… He’s revealing so much, it’s like he has a vendetta against someone at Google!

He shows step by step, exactly how he…

–Sucks $10,000 PER DAY out of Adsense.
–Plies his nasty practices while never being detected by the powers that be… or his competition!
–Follows a simple blueprint that can make him INSTANT money anytime he needs it.

And he shows you in simple language, exactly how you can do it too!

See for yourself. The link is http://www.website4wealth.com/cmask. If I were you, I’d go there right now, because depending on what time you’re reading this, the floodgates may have already been opened.

And how would you feel if you missed out on what could be the single greatest money making opportunity you’ll ever be offered?

You know, I just read back what I wrote above, and I think my theory of the “Insider” having a vendetta against Google, isn’t right.

It can’t be.

Because I’m pretty sure Google knows he’s doing it. I’m convinced he’s ripping off Adsense, and they’re just sitting back and letting him steal THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS everyday!

Why?

Because his tactics make Google… HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS… maybe even MILLIONS daily.

Listen… I already know this package is probably going to be the single most important investment you make this year…

…and the thing about investments is, you have to strike while the iron is… cheap!

I spoke to Chris from DayJobKiller and even though “Google’s Dirty Little Secret” has only been out less than an hour, he’s already talking about raising the price.

So get in now, while the getting is good.

I’ll even sweeten the pot to guarantee you’re getting a better deal than most everyone else.

I’m going to give you 2  special exclusive bonuses if you order through my link.  Now these aren’t bonuses everyone will be getting. These are being offered by ME personally. Only those reading this very email will get these bonuses.

If you order in the next 48 hours (only at http://www.website4wealth.com/cmask), I not only guarantee you the pre-raised… bona fide… rock bottom… lowest price this will ever be offered at, but I’ll also throw in…

(List personal bonus offers here)

So stop checking your email already. Get over to http://www.website4wealth.com/cmask and don’t so much as blink your eyes before you make it to the bottom of that page.

I’m sitting here thinking of something else to say, when all that comes to me is something I said earlier… “Wow!”

To Your Success…

Andy

PS – Remember, you have to act fast by clicking and ordering from this page http://www.website4wealth.com/cmask, in order to be guaranteed the lowest price, AND to get the exclusive bonuses I’m offering!

Why does Google remember information about searches?

Google recently announced a new policy to anonymize our server logs after 18–24 months. Google are the only leading search company to have taken this step publicly. Google believe it’s an important part of our commitment to respect user privacy while balancing a number of important factors.

In developing this policy, Google spoke with various privacy advocates, regulators and others about how long they think the period should be. There is a wide spectrum of views on this – some think data should be preserved for longer, others think it should be anonymized almost immediately. Google spent a great deal of time sorting this out and thought Google’d explain some of the things that prompted us to decide on 18-24 months.

Three factors were critical. One was maintaining our ability to continue to improve the quality of their search services. Another was to protect their systems and their users from fraud and abuse. The third was complying—and anticipating compliance—with possible data retention requirements. Here’s a bit more about each of these:

• Improve the services: Search companies like Google are constantly trying to improve the quality of their search services. Analyzing logs data is an important tool to help our engineers refine search quality and build helpful new services. Take the example of Google Spell Checker. Google’s spell checking software automatically looks at your query and checks to see if you are using the most common version of a word’s spelling. If it calculates that you’re likely to generate more relevant search results with an alternative spelling, it will ask “Did you mean: (more common spelling)?” Google can offer this service by looking at spelling corrections that people do or do not click on. Similarly, with logs, Googlecan improve our search results: if we know that people are clicking on the #1 result we’re doing something right, and if they’re hitting next page or reformulating their query, Google’re doing something wrong. The ability of a search company to continue to improve its services is essential, and represents a normal and expected use of such data.

• Maintain security and prevent fraud and abuse: It is standard among Internet companies to retain server logs with IP addresses as one of an array of tools to protect the system from security attacks. For example, their computers can analyze logging patterns in order to identify, investigate and defend against malicious access and exploitation attempts. Data protection laws around the world require Internet companies to maintain adequate security measures to protect the personal data of their users. Immediate deletion of IP addresses from Google logs would make their systems more vulnerable to security attacks, putting the personal data of Google users at greater risk. Historical logs information can also be a useful tool to help us detect and prevent phishing, scripting attacks, and spam, including query click spam and ads click spam.

• Comply with legal obligations to retain data: Search companies like Google are also subject to laws that sometimes conflict with data protection regulations, like data retention for law enforcement purposes. For example, Google may be subject to the EU Data Retention Directive, which was passed last year, in the wake of the Madrid and London terrorist bombings, to help law enforcement in the investigation and prosecution of “serious crime”. The Directive requires all EU Member States to pass data retention laws by 2009 with retention for periods between 6 and 24 months. Since these laws do not yet exist, and are only now being proposed and debated, it is too early to know the final retention time periods, the jurisdictional impact, and the scope of applicability. It’s therefore too early to state whether such laws would apply to particular Google services, and if so, which ones. In the U.S., the Department of Justice and others have similarly called for 24-month data retention laws.

At the same time, regulators in other parts of governments have argued for shorter retention periods, reflecting the conflicts in every country between privacy and data protection objectives on the one hand, and law enforcement objectives on the other. Companies like Google are trying to be responsible corporate citizens, and sometimes Google are told to do different things by different government entities, or to follow conflicting legal obligations. It’s hard enough to get different government entities to talk to each other inside one country. When you multiply this by all the countries where Google must comply with the laws, the potential conflicts are enormous. Nonetheless, Google is committed to providing its users around the world with one consistent high level of data protection.

It’s also worth reiterating that Google do not ask their users for their names, address, or phone numbers to use most of our services. For those who want to see what their logs history looks like, Google offer transparent access via a Google Account to their own personal Web History.

Finally, Google maintain rigorous internal controls of our logs database. We look forward to an ongoing discussion with privacy stakeholders around the world as we pursue a common goal of improving privacy protections for everyone on the Internet.

Click here for Official Google Blog  

What Is Google PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters

I came across a great write up by  Google pagerank by Danny Sullivan of http://searchengineland.com/ I decided to repost this great write up to share with everyone here.

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Several times in the past few months, I’ve written about new Google features where PageRank was involved. Unfortunately, Google itself has very poor information about PageRank that I could use for those wanting to learn more about it. To solve that, here’s a guide to PageRank, designed for searchers and site owners alike.

This is fairly long article. To help, you can jump to particular sections of key interest, if you like:

• Google’s Definition: PageRank As Votes
• Recent Google Edits Emphasize PageRank Just One Of Many Factors
• PageRank For Searchers: Google Toolbar
• PR Stands For PageRank, Not Public Relations
• PageRank In The Google Directory
• PageRank For SEOs
• Seeing PageRank In Search Rankings
• PageRank Versus “Toolbar” PageRank
• PageRank Tech Talk
• Conclusion (Especially For Those Thinking I Don’t Have Time To Read)

Google’s Definition: PageRank As Votes

Let’s start with what Google says. In a nutshell, it considers links to be like votes. In addition, it considers that some votes are more important than others. PageRank is Google’s system of counting link votes and determining which pages are most important based on them. These scores are then used along with many other things to determine if a page will rank well in a search.

Don’t like me speaking for Google? No worries. When Google talks about PageRank at its site, it often links to the Google Technology page, which says:

The heart of our software is PageRankâ„¢, a system for ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. And while we have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to play a central role in many of our web search tools.

PageRank Explained

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also 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.” Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages’ relative importance.

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 dozens of 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.

Recent Google Edits Emphasize PageRank Just One Of Many Factors

What’s with the bold and strikeout text? Between when I started this article and when I finished it today, I noticed that this key page had been updated for the first time in years. Bold shows what I found to be added. Strikeout shows what was removed.

Another key PageRank reference was also updated on the Google corporate philosophy page:

Google works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting links on websites to help determine which other sites offer content of value. Google assesses the importance of every web page using a variety of techniques, including its patented PageRankâ„¢ algorithm which analyzes which sites have been “voted” the best sources of information by other pages across the web. Instead of relying on a group of editors or solely on the frequency with which certain terms appear, Google ranks every web page using a breakthrough technique called PageRankâ„¢. PageRank evaluates all of the sites linking to a web page and assigns them a value, based in part on the sites linking to them. By analyzing the full structure of the web, Google is able to determine which sites have been “voted” the best sources of information by those most interested in the information they offer. This technique actually improves as the web gets bigger, as each new site is another point of information and another vote to be counted.

The changes are interesting. Google is somewhat qualifying that PageRank is important but not the sole factor in how pages are ranked. That’s good, because as I’ll explain, too many people have fixated on PageRank scores for too long.

PageRank For Searchers: Google Toolbar

Let’s start with how PageRank is used by Google for searchers. First and foremost, it is one of many factors used for ranking pages. You can’t see PageRank when you search (ordinarily, that is. further below I’ll explain how you CAN see it), but behind the scenes, it helps in part to decide if a page will show up in the top search results or not.

Most searchers encounter PageRank through the Google Toolbar. The toolbar has a “PageRank meter” that Google itself fails to fully explain in its online help files. For example, when writing my Google Search History Expands, Becomes Web History article last week, I spent some time going through all the Google Toolbar help files to find a good explanation to link to about the meter. This was the best I found, a short mention that says:

Wondering whether a new website is worth your time? Use the Toolbar’s PageRankâ„¢ display to tell you how Google assesses the importance of the page you’re viewing.

Here’s how it works. If you’ve installed the Google Toolbar, you MAY have the PageRank meter installed. If so, you’ll see it as shown below:

See that big long green bar? That’s the PageRank meter. If you hover over it with your mouse, it will actually show you the PageRank score for the page you are visiting, like this:

Not bad — Google’s home page has a PageRank score of 10! See this part:

(10/10)

That’s Google telling you first the score of the page you’re looking at (10) and the maximum value a page can have overall (10). Google is perfect!

Showing both numbers makes more sense when you get to less perfect pages. Here’s Search Engine Land:

See how we are a 7/10? That means we have a PageRank of 7 out of 10 possible points. Less than perfect. Sniff, sniff. It’s OK. That’s a great score for the home page of a web site that’s only four months old.

Notice how the bar also isn’t all green, in the way it was completely “full” with Google? Instead, like a thermometer, it is only partially filled 7/10ths of the way, to visually represent the page’s PageRank score.

Here’s another page:

Ouch! Zero! This is a terrible page! Actually, no. In this case, I tried to reach a page that doesn’t exist at Search Engine Land. That gave me an error. Since the page doesn’t exist, Google has no PageRank score to report back. That’s why you get a 0 out of 10 score for it. Notice also how the meter has no green, to show no PageRank for the page.

Many searchers may have never seen the PageRank meter. That’s because by default, until last week, it was never switched on. You had to manually choose to do it, and it was mostly search engine optimization people that did so. [Postscript: Google's Matt Cutts, after reading this, commented: "A lot of regular people choose to opt-in to PageRank as well. I believe the quantity of people that opt-in to see PageRank is much larger than the set of active SEOs."]

Google Search History Expands, Becomes Web History explains how many more searchers will soon begin seeing PageRank scores. This is because in some cases, the Google Toolbar will get downloaded with it enabled. In other cases, Google will encourage you to switch the meter on. Read the article to understand more.

Don’t have the PageRank meter switched on and you do want it? Happy with the privacy issues my article explains (as does Google itself)? Click on the Settings menu item in the toolbar, then choose Options, then the More tab, then in the “Even more buttons” area, tick the “PageRank and Page Info” button. Now the meter is enabled.

PR Stands For PageRank, Not Public Relations

Speaking of search engine optimization people, those SEOs are the group that created the acronym you might occasionally hear: PR, for PageRank.

For example, the Google’s home page that was PageRank 10 out of 10 would be shorted to PR10. Search Engine Land, with 7 out of 10, is PR7. That error page? PR0.

PageRank In The Google Directory

Did you know there’s a place in Google where pages are listed because human editors have selected them, rather than Google’s crawling of the web? It’s called the Google Directory, and it’s based on work done by editors at the Open Directory Project.

When Google added the Open Directory’s information to its site back in March 2000, the key difference was that the Google Directory edition sorted listings according to PageRank score.

For example, compare the category about search blogs at Google to the Open Directory:

These are exactly the same categories, Google on the left, the Open Directory on the right. The should be nearly identical. They aren’t for two key reasons.

First, Google is WAY out of date. You can see the Open Directory has many more listings than Google shows. Google probably hasn’t bothered to grab the most recent listings from the Open Directory for months. That’s not surprising. Once a key part of Google, the Google Directory was dropped from the Google home page and relegated to the More Google Products page back in March 2004. It’s not a priority. In addition, the Open Directory itself has been down or not making new information available for download on occasion.

The other key difference is that the listings in the Google Directory are sorted by PageRank. See how under the “Web Pages” bar in the Google Directory, each site has a PageRank meter image next to it? For searchers, that shows the page’s PageRank score. As explained in the Google Directory’s help pages:

The green ratings bars are a measure of the importance Google’s assessment of the importance of a web page, as determined by Google’s patented PageRank technology and other factors. These PageRank bars tell you at a glance whether other people on the web consider Google considers a page to be a high-quality site worth checking out. Google itself does not evaluate or endorse websites. Rather, we measure what others on the web feel is important enough to deserve a link. And because Google does not accept payment for placement within our results, the information you see when you conduct a search is based on totally objective criteria.

(Like the other help pages above, I found the Google PageRank information for the Google Directory has recently been updated, so bold shows what’s new, strikeout what was removed).

PageRank For SEOs

I’ve covered the two main ways that PageRank is visible to searchers plus mentioned that behind the scenes, it is one of many factors that helps rank web pages. How pages are ranked is, of course, of keen interest to SEOs.

Sadly — so, so sadly — far too many SEOs fixated on the PageRank meter when it came out first through the Google Directory and then later in December 2000 via the Google Toolbar. They focused on getting links from high PR pages without realizing that PageRank alone wasn’t enough.

As I wrote back in 2002:

The issue of links and search engines, in particular the perception of Google’s use of links, has gotten out of hand. For many, the original reason of linking has been lost out of the desire to simply do whatever they believe Google might like.

All major crawler-based search engines leverage links from across of the web, but none of them report a static “importance” score in the way Google does via its Google Toolbar. That score, while a great resource for surfers, has also provided one of the few windows into how Google ranks web pages. Some webmasters, desperate to get inside Google, keep flying into that window like confused birds, smacking their heads and losing their orientation….

Site owners are using the toolbar to find “good” sites that they should get links from, regardless of the fact that link context is also important, not to mention many, many other factors that are used by Google to rank a web page. Other site owners, getting a gray PR0 toolbar for their site, immediate assume the worst, that they’ve been blacklisted.

Enough, please, enough. Forget the Google Toolbar meter. Forget about worrying over “good” links and “bad” links according to Google. Just forget Google, when it comes to link building.

PageRank is only a score that represents the importance of a page, as Google estimates it (By the way, that estimate of importance is considered to be Google’s opinion and protected in the US by the First Amendment. When Google was once sued over altering PageRank scores for some sites, a US court ruled: “PageRanks are opinions–opinions of the significance of particular Web sites as they correspond to a search query….the court concludes Google’s PageRanks are entitled to full constitutional protection.)

Get a link to your pages from an high PR page and yes, some of that PageRank importance is transmitted to your page. But that’s doesn’t take into account the context of the link — the words in the link — the anchor text. If you don’t understand anchor text, Google Now Reporting Anchor Text Phrases from me last month will take you by the hand and explain it more.

Here’s a fast overview. Say you’re Nike and want to rank for the word “shoes.” You get hundreds of PR9 pages to link to you this way:

• Nike

Excellent! All those pages are going to send tons and tons of PageRank your way! You’ll be seen as important! But important for what? Google’s going to look at the word in the link itself as a key signal to determine that. The word says “Nike,” so happy day, Nike ranks for its name!

Now let’s say you’re Zappos. Not being as big as Nike, you don’t get links from all those PR9 sites. You get them instead from a mix of PR4, PR5 and PR6 sites. They all link to you like this:

• Zappos For Shoes

The importance of the links is less, true. But they do have some importance. They carry some weight. Plus, what they say — the relevancy of the words — is key. They’re pointing at you and saying the word “shoes” in the links. That’s going to help you rank better for the word “shoes,” almost certainly much better than all those links Nike has.

Don’t believe me? Google Declares Stephen Colbert As Greatest Living American explains how the words in the links to Colbert Nation (rather than the PageRank from those links) recently shot that site up in the ranking for “greatest living american,” while Google Kills Bush’s Miserable Failure Search & Other Google Bombs and George W. Bush: A Failure Once Again, According To Google explain how the words in links used to have an impact for George W. Bush ranking on “miserable failure.”

Seeing PageRank In Search Rankings

Still don’t believe me, that PageRank isn’t the most important thing when it comes to ranking well on Google? Here’s a way I’ve been proving it for years. Search for something, then see if anything below the top ranked page has a PageRank score higher than the top listing. If so (and it is so), that shows PageRank is not the most important factor.

Let’s illustrate it. Here’s a search for movies:

See how the search results have PageRank meters in them? I used the PageRank Search tool at SEO Chat to make that happen. See how Movies.com — listed first — has a PR8 score while the Internet Movie Database has a PR9? The page with a lower PageRank still got the higher search rank!

Like seeing these scores in your results? Google doesn’t make that an option for searchers. Seem odd? It makes sense and underscores my key point.

PageRank is one of many, many factors used to produce search rankings. Highlighting PageRank in search results doesn’t help the searcher. That’s because Google uses another system to show the most important pages for a particular search you do. It lists them in order of importance for what you searched on. Adding PageRank scores to search results would just confuse people. They’d wonder why pages with lower scores were outranking higher scored pages.

In contrast, if you’re looking at a single page, such as when you are surfing the web, you no longer want the search ranking but rather an idea of how important or reputable that page might be. This is where PageRank makes more sense.

Of course, SEOs and others may want PageRank in search results. The tool above is just one of many that does this (got a favorite? written a favorite? add them to the comments below). For a browser-based tool, try SEO For Firefox from SEO Book.

PageRank Versus “Toolbar” PageRank

Those PageRank scores that you can see? Those are often referred to as “toolbar” PageRank. This is different from what’s often called “internal” PageRank.

Internal PageRank are the PageRank scores that Google uses as part of its ranking algorithm. Those scores are constantly being updated. In contrast, the PageRank scores that Google allows the world to see — Toolbar PageRank — is a snapshot of internal PageRank taken every few months.

What’s important here? If you’re a brand new site, you’ll likely have a low or no PageRank score reported in the Google Toolbar. That might concern you, even though it will mostly impact whether you get crawled regularly (the higher your PageRank, the more likely Google will regularly revisit your pages). It does also have an impact on your ranking ability, of course.

It’s likely that after a few weeks, you’ll have gained some internal PageRank. You might see more traffic, as a result. But outwardly, the Google Toolbar PageRank meter will still show your same old depressing score. Then a snapshot will be made, and the better score you get will reflect what’s already been happening behind the scenes.

More info on PageRank from Google’s Matt Cutts explain more about this and other aspects of PageRank. You can also try the Future PageRank tool if you hear from various sources that a PageRank update is in progress for the toolbar. It might give you an early glimpse at your score to come.

PageRank Tech Talk

PageRank gets its name from Google cofounder Larry Page. You can read the original ranking system to calculate PageRank here, if you want. Check out the original paper about how Google worked here, while you’re at it. But for dissecting how Google works today, these documents from 1998 and 2000 won’t help you much. Still, they’ve been pored over, analyzed and unfortunately sometimes spouted as the gospel of how Google operates now.

If you still feel compelled to know more about PageRank — at least how it used to work, certainly check out Phil Craven’s longstanding Google’s PageRank Explained article, as well as The Google Pagerank Algorithm and How It Works from Ian Rogers.

Wikipedia, naturally, has an entry about PageRank with more resources you might be interested in. It also covers how some sites using redirection can fake a higher PageRank score than they really have. And since we’re getting all technical — PageRank really isn’t an actual 0 to 10 scale, not behind the scenes. Internal scores are greatly simplified to match up to that system used for visible reporting.

How does Google collect and rank results? from Matt Cutts, which he wrote for Google Librarian Central, is also a good read on the basics of how Google ranks pages, using PageRank as one part of that process.

Conclusion (Especially For Those Thinking I Don’t Have Time To Read)

There much more I could write about PageRank, but I hope this gives you a good introduction and some clarity about it. The key points to remember:

• PageRank tells how important a page is, relatively speaking, compared to other pages.
• PageRank is just one of MANY ranking factors used to determine ranking in search results.
• High PageRank does NOT guarantee a high search ranking for any particular term. If it did, then PR10 sites like Adobe would always show up for any search you do. They don’t.
• The anchor text of a link is often far more important than whether it’s on a high PageRank page.
• If you really want to know what are the most important, relevant pages to get links from, forget PageRank. Think search rank. Search for the words you’d like to rank for. See what pages come up tops in Google. Those are the most important and relevant pages you want to seek links from. That’s because Google is explicitly telling you that on the topic you searched for, these are the best.

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