We wrote just the other day that PageRank was still one of the top factors when it comes to search engine rankings, but now Google is trying to back off from that idea a bit. In the latest Google Webmaster Help video, Matt Cutts discusses PageRank and his take is that it’s just not that important anymore. Currently, it’s only updated sporadically, and those updates may start to come even slower. Let’s take a look at what he had to say, and how it’s going to affect your SEO.
Here’s what Matt had to say about the current status of PageRank:
It’s only updated periodically so you know for a while we would update it relatively often, now we’ll update it a few times a year. Over time the toolbar PageRank is getting less usage just because recent versions of Internet Explorer don’t really let you install toolbars that easily and Chrome doesn’t have the toolbar, so over time the PageRank indicator will probably start to go away a little bit. But it’s also the case that we only update this information every few months so it does take time in order to show up.
Did you catch the interesting part? He specifically mentions that, over time, PageRank will start to “go away a little bit” meaning it won’t be as important a factor as now. After all, it’s already updated slowly, and if those updates come even slower, how valuable a signal can it really be?
Matt Cutts also gives advice on how to keep your PageRank high. Can you guess what it is? (Hint: It’s great content!)
Make sure that a lot of people know about your content to know that high quality content because if a lot of people are linking to your site and those people who are linking to you have high PageRank then you’ll be more likely to have higher page rank as well. So it’s not just the quality of your content, the quality content is a little bit determining how much people want to link to you and then that will determine your PageRank but PageRank doesn’t look at the quality of the text on your site its look at the number of links and the quality of those links and how they point to your website.
Once again, the way to rank is with good, natural links. The way to acquire good, natural links is by creating good, quality content. It’s been true all year and you can bet that it will never go out of style, so start really focusing on the content you’re delivering.