09/02/2011
By Matt Roberts, Linkdex
PAGE RANK AND LINK JUICE EXPLAINED
I’d like to introduce and explain an important new concept to you. The concept of Page Rank and what has come to be known as Link Juice.
Page Rank is a Google patent that was designed to provide a measure of a page’s relative importance on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. It is one of the many ranking factors Google uses to rank websites.
The main way of acquiring Page Rank is through the acquisition of links from other websites with Page Rank to share. This is where the concept of Link Juice comes from.
Link Juice provides a way of illustrating and conceptualizing how Page Rank flows between pages and websites.
Now let me take the idea further. Stick with it, it will all make sense in a moment if it hasn’t already.
If you’ve been busy building links from other websites, every page on your website has a different amount of Link Juice contained within, and every link you add to the page is like connecting a pipe that allows juice to flow between pages.
Because every page has a different amount of Page Rank, different pages can transfer different amounts of Link Juice to other pages. The more links, or should I say pipes, you add from each page the smaller the fraction of the available Link Juice can be transferred to each page.
Normally your homepage has the highest Page Rank and therefore the largest amount of Link Juice to transfer.
Any link from your homepage transfers that juice to the page it is connected to. Links from the homepage should therefore be used wisely and directed to the pages that are the most competitive, and that you want to rank most highly for.
This concept is how your pages link together, the number of internal links used and the text you use in the link is important. It also illustrates why links from other websites are so important to anyone wanting to rank higher. It’s never been an easy topic to explain, how did I do?
Link Juice Actions
You’ve read how internal links pass Keyword Relevance and Page Rank / Authority to other pages as well as helping users navigate through your site. What you now need to do is:
• Check if you have optimized your links from your homepage to direct Link Juice to your most important pages?
• Check if your most important pages have more internal links than the others?
• Check if your internal link anchors are relevant and consistent with the page you’re linking to and your keyword strategy?
• Build more links from other websites
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