Page rank is important, but what is it?

Page rank is a system for ranking web pages and was developed by Google.  Page Rank relies on linking to determine a web page’s value.  Let’s say your web page has a link on it to Amazon.com.  This link would get Amazon.com one vote.  But this isn’t the end.  Google also analyzes your web page.  If it finds your web page to be important, the vote is weighted heavier.

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 considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, 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.” Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages’ relative importance.

All links are not created equal.  Having an incoming link from a link farm could penalize you.  Recently, Google has taken steps to penalize paid text links as well.  Although I have no idea how they can determine what is a paid text link and what is not.

To create more inbound links to your page, try exchanging links with other relevant sites.