Is PageRank still important?

[Dimaeiya333]

Yes. Although Google does not openly refer to it by its original name “PageRank”, the algorithm is still as important as ever when it comes to ranking web pages in search engine results,

But make no mistake, the ranking algorithm does not exist or operate in the same way as it did in the 2000s and early 2010s.

You see, according to the 1999 paper “ The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web ,” published in 1999 by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, PageRank was created in 1998 to organize the web by ranking search engine results based on their importance to the web user.

This is the same principle that governs Google’s PageRank algorithm today. Its goal is to put users at the center of the Google search experience, so that the pages they find most useful appear at the top of the SERPs.

But then, listen to this. While the underlying concept remains the same, a lot has changed since then in terms of the definition of “important pages.”

The PageRank algorithm we once knew largely determined the importance of a web page based on the total number of backlinks.

For example, 20 inbound links to the same web page meant that it would get a higher PageRank score than its counterparts that had the same volume of SEO keywords but fewer backlinks.

However, the current PageRank algorithm has evolved beyond prioritizing backlink volume alone. While it still performs quantitative analysis, ranking results are primarily dictated by qualitative analysis.

John Mueller about page rank
John Muller's comments on Google's PageRank algorithm on Twitter.

You will find, for example, that the influence of backlinks on search engine results depends largely on the relative authority of the referring domains, the anchor text terms, the ratio of Nofollow to Dofollow links, the context of the links, the number of broken links, etc.

But the complexities don't end there. While the original PageRank existed as a standalone algorithm for the most part, the current version works in conjunction with 200 ranking factors .

And with that, we can settle this debate once and for all. It's clear that Google PageRank isn't dead. The company has never pulled the plug on it.

Rather, what happened in 2016 is that the publicly accessible version was discontinued media directors email database and replaced by an even more sophisticated PageRank algorithm, whose scoring mechanisms remain closely guarded by Google.

A Brief History of Google PageRank


The history of Google PageRank dates back to 1996, when Sergey Brin and Larry Page created the algorithm as part of a study of the inner workings of search engines.

The two had the brilliant idea that information on the web could be systematically sorted by ranking content based on link popularity. Web pages that attracted the most links would be considered the most popular and would therefore rank above the rest.

For the brand, the two merged Larry's surname with the verb "Rank" to form the compound word "PageRank." The ownership rights, in turn, went to his alma mater, Stanford University.

Yes, that's right, it was Stanford University that was awarded the patent for PageRank, which was registered under US patent number 6,285,999 on January 9, 1998. This happened after Sergey and Larry requested help from their university's Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) to commercialize the revolutionary algorithm.

At first, the two, along with Stanford's OTL, tried to sell PageRank to the Internet giants of Silicon Valley. But, fortunately or unfortunately, no one could match their asking price of one million dollars.