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by: RobinPorter
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Many webmasters were up in arms back in October as Google seemingly reduced their Pagerank. This affected many millions of websites. Panic resulted as many webmasters were greatly concerned as to why this had happened and how they could restore their precious Pagerank back to their website.

Why did this happen?

First lets take a look at Pagerank and how it is calculated. Pagerank is understood to be calculated according to the number and quality of incoming links to a website. It's a complex formula that only Google knows, also taking into account the importance of the page that the link originates from. Pagerank is calculated on a scale of 1 to 10 but it is not a linear scale ie getting from 8 to 9 is a lot, lot harder than getting from 7 to 8.Other factors it is also thought to include are ones such as the authority and trust of a website.

It is wrongly believed by many webmasters that Pagerank is the main critical factor that determines their search engine ranking positions ( SERPS). Realistically, there are a huge amount of factors that Google looks at to determine the SERPS, Pagerank is just one of them, however, it can be a deciding factor if all other things are equal.

The result over the last few years has turned many webmasters into Pagerank junkies. They obsess about their Pagerank, about getting links from other sites with higher Pagerank, they decline to link to sites with lower Pagerank etc etc. This has led to a whole industry of websites buying and selling links according to the Pagerank of the link page. And this is what has infuriated sleeping dragon over at Google.

Broadly it has been described that this readjustment of the Pagerank cause is as a result of Google penalising websites that are involved in the buying and selling of text links, with the aim of passing on Pagerank and hence improving their better SERPS.

Also it is suspected that sites have lost Pagerank due to bad linking, broken linking and other general errors. The thought behind this is to do with Trust and Authority - Google thinks that a site with broken links and links to "bad neighbourhoods" is not one that should get a high trust score.

So was this the definitive reason for the Pagerank meltdown?

Unlikely, as it is not believed that this was the sole underlying reason, as various sites were affected that had no involvement in buying or selling links. It is more probable that this was a complete overhaul or readjustments of Google's Pagerank scoring systems, which has led to a complete broad reassessment. The fact that so many experts point to the trading of links as a reason, is a theory that Google are probably pleased to let us believe. Basically, they do not like the buying and selling of links for the purposes of increasing SERPS, so they're happy for us to believe that they've applied penalties to this which they hope will then deter webmasters from doing this in future. The true reasons will probably never be known.

So how can you increase your site's pagerank?

- Continue to engage in an ongoing campaign of link building, obtaining links from sites with a similar theme to yours. Don't get too concerned about Pagerank.

- Steer clear of the dubious strategies that Google dislike such as buying and selling of text links. If you must buy text links, ensure the "no follow" tag is inserted in the link. That said, it is much safer to totally avoid them.

- Check your site for broken links - including links to other sites, and make sure you don't link to sites that may be considered bad - such as spammy sites and those involved in selling text links.

Too many urban myths exist concerning Pagerank and the truth is it is not the "be all and end all". Try to just concentrate on optimising your site and building incoming links, getting good content and applying a good relevant theme to your website and let everyone else worry about Pagerank. Because ultimately, it just isn't that important.

About the Author

Robin Porter is CEO of Arpey Internet, a Kent web design company that provides corporate web design services

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