Using Page Rank

So what precisely is page rank used for and what can we learn from this?

Take a search on my business name - Janric. It returns (today) 21,200 results. Not only is my own website listed up there, but also professional directories that I'm listed in, Suduko puzzles (???), another business with the same name in another country and many, many more, including some of my customers' sites where Janric is mentioned.

Even typing Janric Web Design gets almost 5,000 pages - and this page will also be added to that list soon! So, what are the most relevant results to my search?

Well I'm glad to say that in both cases my home page is top. You would hope so in the second case, but when it's just Janric alone, maybe that's not so much to be expected.

Well what has had to happen is that Google has examined the page and links into the pages and seen that Janric is relevant to them. It's used its on page and off page factors to decide to list my site highly, then if there has been any doubt, the PR4 of the home page has put it to the top.

But it's not the highest PR page with the words Janric on it. A customer's site is PR5 and that has Webdesign by Janric on the bottom of every page. And it doesn't appear at all towards the top of the search results. Google has correctly ordered the results. It is interesting to note though that the link text is standalone - not in a paragraph. A customer's site with a lower PR that has webdesign by janric in a copyright statement at the bottom does appear higher up. So a link within a short paragraph is showing more weighting than a link on it's own from a much higher PR page. Makes you wonder if link directories are worth the effort...

But this example shows that page rank alone is not enough to get you listed top on Google - other factors are important. Only when everything else is equal does PR matter.