Is Google PageRank still important and are backlinks still a good idea?
Is Google PageRank still important and are backlinks still a good idea? This is a question that is still often asked. PageRank was the first algorithm used by Google. It is a link analysis system that gives a 0 - 10 score. It figured out the relative importance of a website, based on the number of in-bound links. The name comes from Larry Page, one of Google's founders.
Google stated: "PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites."
At the time of writing (May 2015) PageRank would appear to be still used by Google itself. However, the thinking behind backlinks has moved on as they are far less important than they used to be. Personally, I have always thought that backlinks are a poor indication of page quality because it is relatively...