Boosting Your Blog's PageRank

I can always count on Joan Stewart to ask good blogging questions.  Today, I received this from her:

I’m frustrated that my blog has a page ranking of only 3, despite a ton of content. I am sure that’s because I don’t have a lot of inbound links, which seem to be the Number One factor that the search engines consider when it comes to page rank.

I’ve set up Google Alerts for specific keywords, and I spend a lot of time posting comments at relevant blogs that deal with my topic---one way to get more inbound links to the blog.

This morning, I checked my Alexa traffic for my blog and discovered that I only have 60 inbound links to my blog. That can’t be right. In the last 3 months alone, I’ll bet I’ve posted comments at at least 100 blogs. So how come those don’t show up in the Alexa stats?

Any other tips for getting a high page rank or more inbound links?

First, when I checked the page-rank for Joan's blog, I got a 5/10 which is pretty damn good.  So, I'm not sure why she gets a 3 and I get a 5.  That's beyond my knowledge and experience.

Second, it's my understanding that Alexa is not the most reliable for counting inbound links.  When I checked Joan's inbound links on Alexa, it was 60. When I checked on Google (links: www.publicityhound.net), the number is 366. 

Third, based on an earlier question from Joan, we've learned that links in comments on some blog platforms often have "no follow tags" (see the discussion and comments on no follow tags here) which would give Joan no SEO juice.

So, how do you get a higher page-rank?  It's very tough, especially once you get to 4 or 5. Because of the complexity of how page-rank is calculated, I cannot go in to it because it's over my head.  However, it's my understanding that getting a PR6 is much harder to get than a PR5 which is much harder than PR4 and those PR6 and higher pages are rare.

How do you get more inbound links?  Beyond commenting on other people's blogs, other bloggers need to link to your blog in the body of their blog posts; or other sites need to link to your blog.  A link from a higher ranked, relevant site is going to do more for your page rank than a PR2 linking to a PR5.  A link from a PR6 site to a PR5 site is going to give you more juice.

The bottom line is this: write excellent, valuable, useful, informative content.  If people like it, they will link to it.  All this stuff takes time.  I've been blogging for 2 1/2 years and both primary blogs have a PR5.

I'd be most happy and grateful for comments, corrections and clarification on any of the info I've written.

Comments

[Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound]

Denise, thanks so much for the thorough explanation.

Everything you've said makes sense.

You said you got a page rank of 5/10 when you checked my blog. A few months ago, I was complaining about my page ranking to my web guy. We both called up my blog at the same moment. He got a 5/10 and I got a 3/10. Weird.

I'll be watching closely to see if anybody posts other comments here that will help unravel the mystery.

Now I gotta go blog...

[tammy vitale]

How do you check links on google? thanks

[John Easton]

I agree with everything Denise said above. I would also add that Joan might want to talk to some bloggers who have PR6 rankings and get some additional insight from them.

John Easton

[Denise aka The Blog Squad]

For Tammy: to check number of links to your blog or site, in Google search type:

links: www.buildabetterblog.com

(use your own URL, of course)

[Angie Pedersen]

You mentioned "other bloggers need to link to your blog in the body of their blog posts; or other sites need to link to your blog. A link from a higher ranked, relevant site is going to do more for your page rank..."

Something to try: when I write a post that I think might appeal to a particular blogger (and his/her audience), I'll email the blogger with a link to my post. It's just a little "heads up" on a topic s/he may want to include on their blog. Kind of like a manually-executed trackback. Fairly often they are interested in the topic, and I get another incoming link. Better yet, I also get an implied endorsement for my blog and my writing.

[pittfall]

"First, when I checked the page-rank for Joan's blog, I got a 5/10 which is pretty damn good. So, I'm not sure why she gets a 3 and I get a 5. That's beyond my knowledge and experience."

My first question, as a professional SEO, is why does it matter?

PageRank does not equal organic index placement.

"Second, it's my understanding that Alexa is not the most reliable for counting inbound links."

Inbound links are important to both PageRank and organic placement. The best source for inbound links that I have found is Yahoo! The query that you will want to use is "link:http://www.domain.com" and another important part of PageRank is time. The longer you have been there, the greater chance to build it.

"Third, based on an earlier question from Joan, we've learned that links in comments on some blog platforms often have "no follow tags" (see the discussion and comments on no follow tags here) which would give Joan no SEO juice."

The "no follow" tag will not pass value (according to Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Ask), but Yahoo! will still show you the links to your domain for "no follow" links.

Links are an important aspect of SEO, however, it is not the only thing. Build links in directories, both regular and niche (there are many blog directories) get a little help from friends (other bloggers) and keep up with quality content.

Comments on blogs may not send you link juice, but it can send you visitors. That is your chance to pick up new readers. New readers that can write about topics that you have blogged about and can get you links from others.

PageRank is always changing, but Google only updates it to toolbars 3-4 times a year. Here is a recent post from Matt Cutts (Google Engineer) http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/xmas-list-from-pandia/:
"...on #7, we slowed down external PageRank updates because if you do them more often than every 3-4 months, SEOs pay too much attention to the PageRank bar, and not enough to the over 100 other factors that go into our scoring."

Here is more information about PageRank:
http://the-blog-life.blogspot.com/2006/08/page-rank-explained-by-creators.html

Feel free to ask me questions. I will try to check back over the next few days to respond.

Thank you.

[Joe]

I also have the impression referenced in the post that Page Rank is not a linear progression. I am under the impression it is logarithmic, kind of like the Richter Scale, where a 6 is much more than '1' better than a 5. I have one site which is a 5, where we have a competitor who is a *much* bigger company which is a 6. It's easy to get too focused on page rank, since it appears to be grading us on our efforts, and we crave feedback like that. But in the long run you need to worry more about building lots of interesting content which is the sort of stuff people will be searching for, and then trust that over time the brains at Google will enable them to find you.

[Kian Ann]

My blog has a PR of 0! But then again, I think what is more important is the readership, not the Alexa ranking or the Page Rank. :)

We sometimes get caught up with all the ratings stuff - that we don't realise Google doesn't run the Internet. ;)

[Mitch]

I've been trying something a little different lately with my blog. I've started including links to the things I've been talking about throughout my posts. If I'm referencing a news story, I link to it. If I mention a person, I link to it. The only rule I've set up for myself is to not link to the same source twice in one story. The thing about page rank, though, is that Google doesn't run its algorithms on a weekly schedule, so I have no real idea whether this is a good thing or a time waster, since it now takes longer for most posts to appear. I could just be satisfied with my 4 ranking, but I'd like to give it a boost wherever possible.

[Denise aka The Blog Squad]

First, thanks for all the comments and clarity.

Second, to Mitch, outbound links are great and important to include in blog posts. However they will not contribute to your PR or Alexa ranking. It's inbound link (links from other websites or blogs to your blog) that affect PageRank.

Where you can get a boost from outbound links is when someone you write about or link to, checks out your blog because you linked to them. They in turn may link to your blog. So you can create traffic, a new blogger relationship, and maybe an inbound link from your new friend.