The Matthias Chronicles

Monday, August 4, 2008, 2:17 AM

Google's infamous rank of 'Unranked'

By Mar Matthias Darin

In my last post, Carol asked the following to be explained, Now if someone could explain what Google won't give me any page rank at all that would be nice. I hope to do that in this article.

Google's page rank is a mystery to quite a few people. So lets start by figuring out how Google comes up with its magic numbers by looking at a simplified explanation of its mysterious black magic we refer to as Page Rank or PR.

I will use three tiers of sites that will describe how the PR equations work, Site-A, Site-B, and Site-C. Why three sites? Because that's how Google works to calculate PR. Site-A is the web page in question (your site), Site-B is one of the web sites that Site-A has external links to, and finally, Site-C is a web site the Site-B links to.

So we end up with a layout like this for our example:

Now here's where thing get weird. Site-A's PR depends on Site-B, and Site-B's PR depends on Site-C. What this means is that Google actually starts with Site-C and works backwards for calculating each site's PR, but only after all sites are spidered or crawled. I stopped at Site-C for simplicity, but Google crawls all sites involved in the Site-A links. This means that if Fox News, CNN, or some other very large site is involved, you could wait quite a while for Google to finish crawling that many links.

Talk about the highway to hell... Thinking about all the sites I link to and then thinking about all the sites that they link to easily yields several hundred thousand links. Thats just for this blog. Thats the basic process that occurs for getting a page rank.

Thats not the end of this roller coaster though. After all this, Google now has to check whether a site is in good standing or if it is even listed in its index. If a site is not listed, its unranked. A site can all be considered unranked while Google completes its calculations and crawling of linked web sites.

The more links a web site in this crazy chain that Google has to crawl, the longer the process takes. In this regard, too many links can be bad. However; too few links means not enough information to give a page rank. This is a catch-22 where a site has to have just the right number of links.

Domains that only have one year registrations seem to remain unranked indefinitely. I believe this is due to the fact that a single complete crawl may well take a year. It is important to remember that Google has to factor in retries for sites that may be temporarily down, domains that have expired, and new domains with very little presence.

It does help dramatically to have your domain registered for three or more years and the highest PR goes to those that are registered for ten years. The higher the registration period of a domain, the more commitment to that domain. One year domain registrations are considered nothing more then throw aways. This is very true with many registrars that offer a year for only a couple of buck.

The best advise regarding why a page is stuck in the land of the unranked is to scrutinize your links. It is very possible that you have linked to an unranked site and be patient. Bottom line is not to worry about the page rank and focus on the content.

One other point that can lead a page into the world of the unranked is lack of originality. A site must be original. Duplicated content will land a page into this area as well if the duplicated content is excessive. PayPerPost falls into this area as well as mass web scrapping.

So having good content and original content will lead a page into the ranks of the ranked. PR 0 is still a rank and a starting point...

Comments from Margaret

Your information on how G ranks websites is interesting. My PR0 site is 18 months old now, however my 9 month old site is a PR1. The PR0 site has over 2000 backlinks; the PR1 site has maybe 200.

The only difference is the PR0 is not a niche site. The PR1 site is.

I'm still in the dark as to how G ranks sites despite your excellent article.

Comments from Hilary

My site has a PR of 3 and I've only been blogging since January. Perhaps it helps to be on Blogger which is owned by Google?

I've also built a small but solid blogroll of other people's sites that link back to me. I've stayed away from link farms. All my links are with folks I've personally communicated with on various social sites that cater to the various niches related to my business and/or life. Each and every link is what the SEO's define as "quality."

I was pleasantly surprised at my page rank, for being such a noooobie!

Comments from Steve Bents

Great Post. I was very confused about PR as well. I really enjoyed your description of how it works and what it looks for. Thanks for the great post.

Comments from carol

Thank you Matthias. This makes sense. I will focus on content and comment to those blogs I enjoy like your.

Another question: Is leaving a comment the same as a link?

Comments from Mizi

Hi. Really liked your last posts, specially this one. I had just a vague idea on how they crall sites. I still don't understand the chain, does it stop on the site C (which site A linked to) or it continues to the sites that site C is linked?

Best Regards.

Comments from Mar Matthias Darin

Thank you to everyone for commenting.

Margaret: The PR1 blog has links that rate better then the PR0 blog. Remember that the PR you receive is weighted on the sites you link to. So if you link to PR0 sites, you will receive a PR0 from Google. Keep in mind that this is a game of averages. 2000 averages are lower then 200, but 2000 are more accurate and can weather extreme shifts better.

Hilary: You have what has been refered to as the "sweet" spot. All of your links are related to you and you are in a niche market which means less duplicated content and high originality.

Steve Bents and Carol: You're welcome and I'm glad it helped.

Carol: Only if a blog follows the link. But be careful, because if you just drop a link rather then a relavent comment to the article, it can hurt your PR.

Mizi: Thank you. The chain doesn't stop until Google runs out of links. Site-C would link to Site-D and Site-D would link to Site-E. Site-A's PR depends on Site-B and Site-C, but Site-C depends on Site-D and Site-E. So Site-C has to be calculated bedore Site-A can be calculated.