Google had previously pinpointed that the PageRank status does not affect a website’s ranking. Following its official removal, this green status bar will now be a thing of the past.
Google has confirmed with SearchEngineLand that it will remove the Toolbar PageRank in the coming weeks.
The PageRank was created by Larry Page and Sergei Brin in 1997. It is an algorithm that evaluates the importance of a webpage based on its inbound links. The more inbound links a page has, the higher it is weighted and the better its PageRank is.
Figure 1: PageRank display in the Google Toolbar
Initially, the PageRank score formed the basis for the ranking algorithm. With time, other factors became more important for the analysis. These were integrated in the algorithm, and the PageRank gradually lost its significance.
The green status bar in the Google Toolbar has always made most website operators consider the page rank a constant key figure for a page’s ranking. However, Google no longer updates the PageRank score regularly. The update intervals kept on increasing. As it stands, Google hasn’t updated the PageRank display in the Google Toolbar in over 10 months.
The OnPageRank (OPR) is used by OnPage.org to show the importance of a page within a website.
Figure 2: The OPR in OnPage.org Zoom
The OPR reflects a page’s internal link juice within the website. The higher the OPR, the more interlinked the page is within the website.
In addition to inbound internal links, OnPage.org also takes into account internal nofollow links, inbound canonical tags, and rel next/prev references in order to easily identify and outline the strongest and weakest URLs in the domain.
Figure 3: Factors considered when calculating the OPR
Many inbound links and other references are usually the key to a well-linked page and, hence, a high OPR. Visitors on a website are more likely to view pages that are well-linked. Pages that have a much lower OPR due to their low number of inbound links are much harder to find.
In general, it is advisable to ensure a strong internal linking. You should make sure that the most important pages have a high OPR. To improve the OPR of your pages, simply add links or references from other strongly-linked, thematically-relevant pages.
A solid internal linking has the following advantages:
The best way to monitor improvements in your rankings is with the new OnPage.org Keywords Module.
The PageRank was the original concept that the Google Algorithm was based on. And even though the Google PageRank status will soon be removed, one can only assume that Google will continue to use the PageRank internally.
You can use smart tools, such as OnPage.org ;), to find out how strong your pages are and keep track of the link distribution on your website.
Published on 03/15/2016 by Stephan Walcher.
Stephan Walcher is a SEO specialist who has been active in the online marketing field since 2007. He has worked as an in-house SEO specialist for MSN and Bing, as head of SEO consulting at Catbird Seat online marketing agency, as senior SEO manager at 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH, and later as Head of Product Management at Ryte. In January 2017, he joined the One Advertising AG in January as Team-Leader Travel SEO.