Fun with PageRank

MinnPost.com: Fun with Google PageRank"

It's really interesting that the Google PageRank scale is logarithmic. That means a page with a value of 10 is 10 times more "popular" than one with a value of 9. Wow. Check out the list:

10
Google
CNN

9
New York Times
Twitter

8
Facebook

7
Star Tribune
MinnPost (!)
MPR
Drudge Report

6
WCCO-TV
Fox9
KARE11
The Uptake
Minnesota Independent
Minnesota Democrats Exposed
Braublog

5
KSTP-TV
Politics in Minnesota
Secrets of the City
MnPublius
Finance and Commerce
Mediation
Norwegianity

4
Twincities.com (Pioneer Press)
City Pages

3
City Pages Blotter
Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal

Why is this important? Well if you look on the web there are sites and people that specialize in getting a webpage a high PageRank value. Working the system much?

http://wistechnology.com/articles/5928/

how to beat the system. We learn't how page rank can be flawed but even with some technology there are still ways around it. Essentially by using particular keywords or even creating fake-links a website can boost its potential such that it comes up closer to the top in a search.

In accordance to a discussion in class, there are different ways to increase page rank calculated by google. There are some standard, ethical techniques, and then there are some ways to circumvent the system in an unethical manor. Interestingly enough, this website talks about some different methods of increasing page rank:
http://www.techeguide.com/2009/04/achieve-google-page-rank-easily.html

The first point stated is that a "high quality back link" is the much more effective than numerous "irrelevant back links". A legitimate way to increase page rank is to get a hyperlink on an official webpage. These webpages create credible links that are taken into consideration in the google page rank calculator. In contrast to this method, there are other ways to increase page rank by mainly creating unofficial links through forums, blogs, or stray websites unrelated to the respective page. For instance, a method discussed in this webpage refers to "yahoo answer", a website created by yahoo to answer questions. By answering a question and providing a link to your page, you are in essence creating a back link, which will increase your site's page rank. The struggle to market and advertise a webpage through google's page rank is becoming an art that now requires skill and new methods to "artificially" increase page rank.

Among the same lines, there are many sites dedicated to teaching people how to "increase their pagerank."

For example,

http://www.pr10.com/

This one is interesting because it offers tips that are unusual. In fact, I doubt most people even think of them. For example, using invisible text or linking your "subsites" in different ways to increase the pagerank of all the sites individually.

http://www.seoco.co.uk/search-engine-articles/pagerank.html

This article even includes a "PageRank" predictor and a "PageRank" checking tool--especially fun to play around with.

The problem with a lot of the tips to increase PageRank by internally changing your page is that google knows what these are, and can check for them when it is running the PageRank algorithm. Google is really smart when it comes to this stuff, because their business model relies on accurate PageRanks. The only sure way to increase your PageRank is to have really good content, and to have a lot of links from external sites pointing to your site.

On that topic: www.pjmccoy.com

This sounds like a never-ending arms race to me. I always think that a better way to sort web pages is to build statistics based on the real, dynamic Internet traffic. Maybe this is not feasible now because of the Internet infrastructure we currently have, but it is definitely a direction of research worth looking into.