PageRank Explained
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the
web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an
individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link
from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But,
Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links
a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the
vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important"
weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank,
which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of
course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't
match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated
text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important
and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number
of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects
of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking
to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.
