Do you know how Google determines which website should rank higher on its result pages? It checks for backlinks and quality content of a website. Thus it has defined some set of rules known as algorithms used for rankings.
PageRank (PR) is a Google algorithm used to rank web pages in their search engine results. PageRank algorithm is used to measure the relevancy of website pages. This algorithm counts the number of quality links to a page. Thus, it is in use to determine how important the website is. Now PageRank is not the only algorithm used for getting search results. It is the first and well-known algorithm that was used by Google in the past. But, from September 2019, PageRank and all related patents are not much in use.
Let us understand this more. If we talk about information retrieval from Google. What could be the basic rule Google will give back your results? For instance, if any user enters the query, Oxford International Learning School. What they expect is that the first SERP should have its official website. But what would Google's algorithm do? It would try to find pages that have the word Oxford International the most number of times. Also, it should include Learning and School to be common words. But is it necessary that Oxford's website would have this word many times? Besides this, there are many articles on International Learning Schools that might have this keyword many times. So, these web pages can achieve a higher rank than the official learning school website. But, does Google have to face this challenge anymore now? The answer is No! It is so because they have come up with an algorithm known as PageRank.
But now, the need of the hour is to have a lot of high-quality links. So, you must have the knowledge of the types of backlinks that are valuable. Each quality backlink is considered as a vote for determining the SERP rank. Thus it is also called PageRank of that site. Analyze your backlinks health by knowing best tool to check backlinks.
Moreover, Google tends to change its algorithms frequently. At some time in the past, any type of backlinking would result in positive SEO results. That means, sites could improve their PageRank by using low-quality links. But some years ago, the search engines became smart enough to change their tactics. Now all types of backlinking no longer impacts result being SEO positive. Google has caught all the wrongs and released several algorithms to deal with this. So, these modifications would improve the quality of the search results. These algorithms were then named Google Panda, Google Penguin, and Google Hummingbird.
Google Panda: It was begin in 2011. From its launch, it has become Google’s core ranking signal. This algorithm states that rankings should be focused more on the quality of content on a site. And it should not concentrate on the quality or quantity of its backlinks. Google's Panda filters websites with low-quality content. One of Google’s Panda algorithm's primary targets was content farms. These sites find spammy content that tends to rank because of the duplication. Now, Google provides high-quality content through the Google Panda algorithm. It does it by removing content farms and spamming websites. Recognizing shallow content is a very tricky process for search engines. But, Google is advancing its metrics to determine the importance of a website. This allows Google to provide an excellent user experience.
Google Penguin: Google's Penguin algorithm began in 2012. It was set up to lower the site's ranking that used unnatural link-building. It filters out spammy backlinks used by any website for getting a higher ranking on the SERP. Google only supports backlinks that are not editorially placed. Unnatural links are self-made links, that are internal references by the web pages. Such tactics are categorized under Grey Hat SEM techniques involve false increasing backlinks. It is done by manipulating the number of links pointing to the page. Moreover, these are commonly described as link schemes. This algorithm also brings down web pages that populated large numbers of keywords. Practices done like this to manipulate ranks tend to decrease their rankings.
