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PageRank (PR) is one of the most important concepts in Internet marketing. It is widely considered as the most important factor in the Google search relevancy algorithm that determines ranking of websites on Google's search results. Having a high PageRank is a must if you wish to attract visitors or customers to your website.

The PageRank principle is simple

The higher the PR of your site the higher will be its search engine position. So the goal is to get lots of sites linking to your site. But quality is much more important than quantity. The higher the PR of the sites that link to yours the more they boost your sites PR.

When planning your effort, always remember than one link from a PR-6 or PR-7 site is worth indefinitely more than hundreds of links from PR-0 or PR-1 sites.

In addition, you should aim to include your link on pages with as few other links as possible. Pages with over 25 links have little value. Additional factors that go into the algorithm include the amount of different sites that point to yours (10 links from 10 different sites count much more than 10 links from the same site) and the inclusion of your keywords in the text of the links.

As a general rule of thumb, a one-way, high PageRank link will give your site a PR two points below that of the linking page. So a link from a PR-8 site should get your site a PR-6. However, at the lower end of the scale, I have seen a PR-5 turn a new PR-0 site into a PR-4.

The effects of having a high PageRank

Most industries, market niches and business sectors only have a PR5 or PR6 site as the top ranking result. The implication is that you can dominate a niche or local market on search engines without investing too much money or time. For example, you can buy keyword rich text links on networks of sites that have a PR of 8-9 for $ 500-2,000 a month. Doing this is likely to get you a PR of 6 or 7 right out the gate. The implication is that your site will appear as number one when users search Google for key phrases related to your market niche.

Where to start

Before starting to actually work on improving your PR, be sure to install the Google Toolbar on your browser. The Toolbar shows a value (on a log scale) of 0-10 for each website that corresponds to the underlying PR of that page. The average website with little or no marketing support is typically PR1 to PR3. Google is updating the PR level it displays in the Google Toolbar about once every three months so patience is required until you can see the results of any PR building campaign.

Since PR is all about links you'll have to know who already links to you. You can either use the Google Toolbar by selecting "Backward Links" or type in Google 'link:www.yourpage.com'

The easy ways

There are two easy ways to get a site with high PageRank:

Buy one ' at any given time there are thousands of websites offered for sale on ebay and other sites with moderately high PR. You can buy one in an industry of your choosing and adapt it to your needs.
When your site is new you will have a PR of 0. But that's not a problem if you, or a close friend, own another site with a high PR. Lets say the other site has a PR5 website. If you link to your new site from all the pages of the high PR site, then the new site would automatically get at least a PR4. If you don't own a high PR site and neither do your friends, don't worry. There are other options.

Buy Links with High PageRank

You can easily buy PR buy renting text links from sites that have high PR. Links can be acquired through numerous intermediary sites such as Linkadage.com, Linkauctions.com or Text-Link-Ads.com.

Typical rates for high PR links are:

PR5 text link: $7-20/mo.
PR6 text link: $25-$50/mo.
PR7 text link: $65-$100/mo.
PR8 text link: $100-200/mo.
PR9 text link: $ 700-1300/mo.

But buying links is best if used as a short term strategy to support a campaign for several months. For long terms purposes, move away from the pay for high PR links and seek other methods such as high quality reciprocal link partners, directory listings or improved content.

Directory Links

The most popular directories are Yahoo and DMOZ. But paying $ 299 a year for inclusion in Yahoo's directory is usually not a wise investment since too many sites are listed in each page and the PR benefit you'll receive is inadequate. Inclusion in the DMOZ is free and important but unfortunately most sites get rejected or ignored.

You should seek those directories that have a high PR on their homepage but more important also on the category that interests you. The PR your website will receive from inclusion on these directories is also a function of the number of other links on the page where your site's link will appear. The fewer links, the higher the PR you will receive. So your top priorities are directories with high PR and few other links in the relevant category page. Visit Directoryarchives.com to find lists of niche directories to submit your link.

Some of the older directories have over time built up a PR6 or PR7. But the smaller and newer directories typically buy their PR through text links ads on more popular sites. In turn they typically charge a $ 25-40 registration fee. Some of these newer directories have smaller category structures which mean that you may buy a link that will deliver a PR4 or PR5 that may last many years for that one time fee.

Copy your Competitors

It's quite easy to find out where your competitors get their links from. If you don't know who your top competitors are, all you have to do is query Google for the main key phrases in your market and the result page will list your top competitors. Next, Visit the homepage of each competitor, and in the Page Info dropdown box of the Google Toolbar, select "Backward Links". You will then see a list of pages that link to the page you are visiting. It won't list every page, but will list all the ones worth getting a link from. Write down the URLs linking to each competitor and continue until you have some one hundred URLs from about 10 competitors. Than, send a personalized email to the owner or webmaster of each of these sites requesting a link or a reciprocal link.

Link exchanges

A common practice to increase PR is to exchange links with other sites, a practice also known as reciprocal linking. You can start by looking in a directory such as About.com or DMOZ for reputable sites with a topic somehow related to yours. If at all possible, your partner's link page must be accessible from their homepage, have a decent PR and not contain too many outbound links. Open each URL to learn a little bit about each site and find a contact email and than send a personalized email asking for a reciprocal link.

In addition you should set up a links page that is easily accessible on your site to offer reciprocal linking opportunity.

You should note however that link exchanges and reciprocal linking are slowly becoming a thing of the past as this technique has been abused, and search engines have increased their capabilities to detect it. There is strong evidence that search engines give more weight to one-way links (such as links from directories or from articles).

Writing articles

This is a great way to get links from important pages with high PR and it is successfully used by many top marketers. Basically, you write articles related to your field, and allow others to publish them for free in websites and newsletters. At the end of your article, you include a resource box (a small bio) with a link to your website. The link should include the full URL spelled out (http:// ') since some sites copy just the text and delete the links. Now you'll have to publicize your articles by finding sites that post articles. Type your main keywords + 'articles' in Google to find potential sites. Before spending the time to send your articles check each site to verify it has a PR of at least 4.

As your articles get published, your links will spread like wildfire and your PR will increase. The bonus is that many of the sites that publish articles are respectable portals or news sites and such sites are likely to have a high PR.

Getting Links without Even Asking

My favorite way to get links (but the most time-consuming) is to simply have the best site on the Internet in any specific niche. Even if you think there is nothing unique about your website try to find a small niche where you can specialize. Interestingly enough, if your site is focused around a theme and is well written, providing tons of useful information and is constantly updated, you often won't have to seek out links at all. Other sites will simply link to yours. The better your content, the more one-way links and reciprocal link offer you will get over time.

Guest Book Signings

Another linking strategy is guestbook signings, as most community-based sites allow free signature links in forum posts. So participating in popular forums related to your industry is likely to increase your PR. You can search the web the old fashioned way. Find a guestbook, drop a note with your URL or signature and move on, or you can pay a guestbook signing service a few dollars to auto-sign your name and site URL in several thousand guestbooks.

Keep in mind, that this technique is questionable since there is a dispute among search engine optimization specialists if this technique is effective or not. It is speculated that search engines may apply filters to prevent guestbook links from increasing PR.

Get a Blog
Blogs are the newest hot trend on the Internet and are also valuable as an online marketing tool. They make it simple for the average joe to write online and even add content to their site on a daily basis with just a few clicks of the mouse. This dramatically changes the way information is shared and distributed. With blogs anyone can easily become a source of valuable information. The search engine companies recognize this and make it a point to spider the blog networks on a regular basis.

There are in fact several blog programs available that you can either load into your own domain with ease or that you can use from a third-party, remotely-hosted server. One popular service is Blogger.com by Google. Adding a blog by Blogger to your new website will ensure it gets spidered within days.

There are actually a few ways to get one-way inbound links with blogs. The first way is simply to host a blog on your website and update it frequently. People tend to link to blogs because they provide content that is constantly being updated. The second way is to submit it to blog directories. Just like website directories, there are tons of blog directories you can submit to for free. Just do a search on Google for "blog directory" and you will find them. The third way of getting inbound links with a blog is to host it somewhere other than on your website. Then, provide a link from your blog to your website. After you have done that, you can submit your blog to directories for the extra page rank and added exposure.