PageRank
PageRank is an algorithm used by Google to measure the importance and quality of a page to help rank it within search results. As a key element to Google’s algorithm, it is important to understand how PageRank is determined and how it is used. We cover this within our SEO Office Hours takeaways below, along with further insights from Google.
To learn more about search engines, read our introductory guide: How Do Search Engines Work?
Multiple Links From a Page to Another Count Once
Multiple links from one page to another are only counted once for PageRank, even if the anchor text is different. He is vague on the impact of the separate anchor text.
Re-use Old URLs for Updated Content
For pages which are updated annually, or when a new product model is released, it makes more sense to keep the same URL and update the content, otherwise you may see the old page ranking instead of the new one as it has better ranking signals. If you need to keep the old content, you can republish it on a new archive URL.
Don’t Use Nofollow for PageRank Sculpting
John says it’s OK to use nofollow internally to prevent things like a calendar being crawled, but recommends against it for PageRank sculpting and says it won’t change anything.
Hreflang Doesn’t Pass PageRank
Hreflang doesn’t passPageRank. You can still choose to link the pages together to pass PageRank.
Status Codes and Disavows are Not Permanent
404 and 410 do not have permanent effects. If you change them back to 200 then the pages will become indexed again, or redirects will start to pass PageRank. Disavow also isn’t permanent, so if you remove the URLs from the disavow file they will start to pass PageRank, although this won’t happen until the URLs are recrawled.
Redirects Do Not Lose PageRank
Google say there is no PageRank loss for 301 or 302 redirects.
Googlebot Requires a Consistent Response for Different User Agents
You need to provide the same response for all users based in the US, including Googlebot, or the content might not be indexed.
PageRank to 404 Pages is Lost
Any PageRank acquired for pages which return a 404 is lost.
New Pages Are Ranked Higher to Gather Signals
New pages are sometimes shown in search results and given an opportunity to perform, which may change when they gain more ranking signals.
Noindex Pages Won’t Be Crawled Eventually
If a page is Noindex for a long time, Google may stop crawling the page so it can’t pass PageRank.