Wednesday, July 15, 2009

PageRank

PageRank is an algorithm used by the Google Internet search engine to assign a numerical weighting to each web page. It is a trademark of Google. PageRank results from a "ballot" among all the other pages on the World Wide Web about how important a page is. A hyperlink to a page counts as a vote of support. PageRank is a number between 0 and 10. The most popular web pages have a PageRank of 10. The higher the PageRank the better chances this page has for appearing on the first SERP. Google has not disclosed the exact method for determining the PageRank value but it is based on links to the webpage. A page that is linked to by many pages with high PageRank receives a high rank itself. The Google Toolbar displays the current page's PageRank. See the example:

Interesting fact is that PageRank has been named after one of the two Google founders, Larry Page.

PageRank and SERP are related but different terms. SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page and consists of a list of links to web pages displayed as a result of search query. The order of the listed links is determined by their SERP rank. The SERP rank of a web page depends on a relatively large and continuously adjusted set of factors including PageRank.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is aimed at achieving high SERP ranks for a website.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Google Closing In

What Percent of Your Traffic is From Google?

Last month, Hitwise reported that Google comprised 72.4 percent of all U.S. searches carried out in the four weeks concluding April 25, 2009. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com picked up 16.3 percent, 5.78 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively. For Google that represents a 7% year over year change.
The other 49 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for only 1.4 percent of U.S. searches.

In April 2008, 14% of the traffic to our website - ProceedInnovative.com - was from Google organic searches.
In April 2009 it was 34%! In that same month only 4% was from Yahoo.

What else did Hitwise say about April ’09 compared to April ‘08?
- Lengthier search terms, averaging five to more than eight words long, have risen 7 percent.
- Business and Finance, Sports and Online Video categories displayed double-digit escalations in their share of traffic arriving directly from search engines.

What does this mean for my website marketing?
Three things:
- It’s all about Google.
- Go for the long tail.
- If you can get your site to come up in Google for long tail search terms, it could become a goldmine.

How about you? What percent of your traffic is from Google?

Do you optimize for the short tail or the long tail? Send us your comments.