In my last article, I wrote about getting your site indexed, and the relevancy of; content, the amount of content, and keywords, according to Google’s algorithms. In this article, I am going to talk about; the age of a site, page ranking, and back links.
Age of a Site
It seems Google likes older sites better than new ones. They will give a higher preference to older sites verses new ones, in order to help eliminate spam blogs and all the sites created on a daily basis, from dominating its index. With the proper SEO technique this can be defeated.
Page Ranking
Google has come up with a system to rate pages on a website according to their importance. Every site has a ranking from zero to ten. The higher the number, the more important Google thinks your site is. If you are fortunate enough to get a ten, you will definitely be on the first page of the search engines. If you have a new blog or website, you have a very low ranking because it’s possible Google hasn’t found it yet, but if it has, you will be indexed for the topic you write about or the niche you’re in. If a person searches for your post or site, they would probably find it several hundred pages deep in the search listings. This is almost like not being listed at all, because who looks through hundreds of search pages to find what they are looking for. Most people find what they want by only looking two or three pages deep when doing a search. The goal is to be on the first page to get the most traffic to your site. All sites start out at zero, the longer a site is up and running plus the original content you place on it will get you a higher ranking, but not much, maybe a two or so. If you want to get a higher ranking quicker, you need to get back links. So in order to get on the first page, you need a good page ranking and back links. Google has to think your site is important enough to put you on the first page of the searches.
Back Links
So what are back links? They are links on other websites, forums, directories or blogs that lead people back to your site when they click on your link embedded in their site. The more sites that have a link pointing back to your site, the more important it seems be. If other sites are sending you traffic, then you must be an authority on your topic or niche. When Google sees this, they will rank your page higher because you must be important and knowledgeable in your field. The higher the ranking, the higher up on the search pages you will be.
One thing must be clarified though. The sites that have your back link must be relevant to your topic. If your topic is tires, and a back link comes from a food site, Google will ignore that link because it has no relevance to your site. However, if the link comes from an auto site or mechanic site, etc Google will see it as relevant.
Another factor is the ranking of the site that has your link. If you get a lot of back links from sites that have a zero ranking, then this will give you a page rank of one or two. If you get links from sites ranked five or higher, you may get a ranking of four or five. If you get a link from a seven or higher page rank you will rise in the rankings very quickly and the age of your site is irrelevant. In general you will get a higher page rank if you get back links from a higher ranking site than yours.
Just remember to only get links that are relevant to your site. If Google finds you getting links from non relevant sites, they could ignore them or drop you in the rankings.
One more thing about relevant links. Some relevant sites may want to trade links with you; however, you will gain more from one way links. When they link with you and you with them, this is called two way linking. This usually doesn’t help you much, unless the other site has a higher page rank. Most of the time they won’t want a link from you anyway, because there is nothing in it for them. When other sites give you a link without getting one in return, Google sees this as relevance to your importance, and ranks you a little higher. A higher ranking means a higher listing on the search pages which leads to more traffic, which means more chances to make money!
Well that’s it for now.
Take care,
Jamie
