Search Engine Myths Debunked - Myths Six, Seven, and Eight
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A PageRank of 0 means that you’ve been banned (Google-specific)
Nope, this is another myth -- so there’s hope yet for those of you with PageRank 0 sites who fear the worst!
If you’ve recently been added to the Google index, you’ll likely start with a PageRank of 0. (Note, also, that this is different from having no PageRank; a PageRank of 0 is represented by a white bar in the Google Toolbar and no PageRank is represented by a gray one.)
If you do have a PageRank of 0 and are concerned that you may have been penalized, look objectively at your site. If you’ve dropped to a PageRank of 0 without a significant change in links or have a lower PageRank than your incoming links would suggest you deserve, you may have been banned.
Don’t worry, though; contacting Google or any other engine in question can get you unbanned!
Sites will be penalized for being listed in link farms.
Search engines are fair. I would venture to say that there are no instances in which you’ll be penalized for something beyond your control.
It’s pretty logical, really, and it’s the reason sites won’t be castigated for linking to link farms. You can’t control who links to you, and so you won’t be penalized for receiving links.
That said, operating a link farm is a different story. Bob Massa found out for himself last year, when his SearchKing had its PageRank lowered by Google. Check out SearchEngineWatch’s article “Google Sued over PageRank Decrease.”
PageRank is determined solely by the number of incoming links
This is something of a half-truth -- the general concept is there, but a grasp of the specifics is not.
PageRank is determined by four things: the number of incoming links, the “quality” of incoming links (i.e., the PageRank of the sites linking to you), the number of outgoing links on a page linking to you, and the number of outgoing links on your site.
To understand this, let’s eliminate some variables and make some grossly over-generalized assumptions; let’s assume here that only one variable exists. If all incoming links have the same PageRank and everything else remains the same, the higher the number of incoming links, the better. If everything else remains constant, the higher the PageRank of sites linking to yours, the higher your PageRank will be.
Two more: if two sites with equal PageRank link to you, the one with fewer outgoing links will benefit you more. And, finally, your PageRank will be higher if you link to fewer people; each link involves “sharing” some of your PageRank.
Conclusion
Ah, here we are!
Hopefully you picked up something along the way; we didn’t cover all the commonly held misconceptions that exist, but you should know enough to avoid some of the common errors made by explorers in the world of search engine optimization.
And remember -- there are plenty of resources available! Next time you find yourself not knowing something you’d like to know, don’t fall into the trap of believing the myth; do the research!
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