Whether it's your first website or your tenth, Google PageRank is probably of great interest to you. Google is one of the biggest search engines out there and as such has some of the most sophisticated content-crawlers that are always on the lookout for 'good' websites. The software used in PageRank takes into account the quality and the popularity of the site and ranks it according to these two factors. Essentially, PageRank is what chooses which websites appear at the top of the search results and understanding this process will likely improve much of your content.

As mentioned, PageRank looks at two main factors: the quality and the popularity of the site. Gone are the easy days of SEO when mere keyword density got you to the top. Google did everyone a favor, however, with this more sophisticated filtration system; no one wants to be going through tons of spam while searching for the best food to feed their pet turtle.

So let's start with popularity. This is determined, according to the Google software, by the number of links leading to the page. So the more sites that link to yours, for instance, the more popular your site is deemed. These are also known as 'back links' and the more back links a site has, the higher it will appear in the rankings.

It doesn't end there, however. There is weighted ranking as well and that can be easily illustrated using the following example. Consider two websites, A and B, which are essentially the same in all respects. There is just one major difference. Website A is linked to many, lesser ranked websites while B is linked to maybe one or two higher ranked sites. You can probably guess which one is going to come out on top (website B) but if A gets linked to even one more higher ranking website, then it's going to be a close call.

Then there is the quality of your content. If there are too many keywords, PageRank picks up on that and considers your article 'spam'. Again, you're way down on the bottom of the list or not on it at all. In fact, something else that can get you banned from many search engines, and especially Google, is link farming. You may have come across, at one point or another, a page with nothing but links on it. This is a 'link farm' created merely to provide back links for websites and be counted as a vote of popularity where the Google crawlers are concerned. These are also considered spam, however, and if you've been found on several link farms, you can get banned.

If you are careful, credible and considerate as a content writer, chances are you won't have to worry much about getting a good Google ranking. Keep your keyword density in check and write about topics you know. This will help you avoid spamming and, together with staying away from link farms, give you favorable results with PageRank.

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