Understanding the Google’s PageRank

To determine the importance of a web page, Google uses a link analysis algorithm and assigns a numerical value to it ranging from 0-10. A PageRank of value (10) is the highest while (0) is the lowest rank that a web page can get. This is the basic and simplest definition of Google’s PageRank which otherwise involves a set procedure of calculation. PageRank is significant as it shows the importance of a page in search results.
Calculation of PageRank:
In order to calculate Page Rank, Google takes into account all the inbound links to a website and include links within the site as well as those links coming from outside. It takes each link as a vote or support to the site. If a page has a high number of votes, the relative importance of the page becomes high. But one thing which must be noted is that Google considers only quality links to the site and may impose penalty if it finds any deviation. A PageRank is generally calculated using the following equation:
PR (A) = (1-d) + d (PR (T1) / C (T1) + … + PR (Tn) / C (Tn))
Where,
PR (A) = PageRank of the site A,
PR (Ti) = PageRank of these pages with a link to the page
C (Ti) = number of outbound links on the page and Ti
D = factor in the depreciation can be set between 0 and 1
As a high PageRank increases the favorability on search results, so optimizers adopt several means to achieve a suitable PageRank, some of which are acceptable and some unacceptable to search engine Google.
Ethical Ways of improving PageRank
Content- If a website has a good and quality content; it is bound to be successful. Google gives much importance to this factor and ranks accordingly. So efforts should be directed towards developing relevant & user-friendly content using the relevant keywords in appropriate quantity. If all these are fulfilled, a page is sure to get a high rank.
Back Links- Google duly considers as to how a site is important for other sites implying, on the basis of back links, Google will decide its PageRank. Substantial quality links from relevant sites will help in gaining a good PageRank.
Use Social Media Tools- Develop links to various relevant Blogs and Forums as they offer get high visibility and Google takes them favorably. Creation of Blogs and Blog posts have become popular means of attracting visitors.

Web Directories and Reference Sites- It is advantageous to link the site to several web directories and reference sites to improve your rank
Unethical Ways of Improving PageRank
Buying and Selling of Links- To improve PageRank, webmasters often indulge in the wrong practice of selling or buying links of high PageRank sites which is strictly prohibited by Google.
Keywords Stuffing- In order to increase the relevancy of the sites for search engine result pages, webmasters often bombard the pages with excess keywords in its content. The technique may yield results for a short time but Google is smart enough to check this
Doorway Pages- This involves the creation of fake pages intended to trick search engine spiders to index the site and give it a high rank
Link Farming- Link farming is another unethical way to improve rank. Here webmasters create link farms or web pages which consist of irrelevant links in large quantity to attract search engines which often rank on the basis of number of links. But Google takes them as Spam and gives (0) ranking.