2. The Mysterious PageRank

You might hear a lot of people talk about Google's PageRank, bragging about attaining the misty heights of rank 7 or 8 or speaking reverently of sites that have achieved 9 or 10. PageRanks range from (sites that have been penalized or not ranked) to 10 (reserved for only the most popular sites, such as Yahoo! and Google itself). The only place where you can actually see the PageRank of a given URL is the Google Toolbar [Hack #60], though you can get some idea of popularity from the Google Directory. Listings in the Google Directory contain a green bar next to them, providing a good idea of a listing's popularity without giving an exact number.

Google has never provided the entire formula for their PageRank, so all you will find in this book is conjecture. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the formula is changing all the time; as millions of people try myriad methods to increase their page ranking, Google has to take these efforts into account and (sometimes) react against them.

Why is PageRank so important? Because Google uses that as one aspect of determining how a given URL will rank among millions of possible search results. But that's only one aspect. The other aspects are determined via Google's ranking algorithm.

3. The Equally Mysterious Ranking Algorithm

If you thought Google was tight-lipped about how it determines PageRank, it's an absolute oyster when it comes to the ranking algorithm, the way that Google determines the order of search results. This book can give you some ideas, but again, these ideas are conjecture, and again, the algorithm is constantly changing. Your best bet is to create a content-rich web site and update it often. Google appreciates good content.

Of course, being listed in Google's index is not the only way to tell visitors about your site. You also have the option to advertise on Google.

4. Keeping Up with Google's Changes

With Google having such a leading position in the search engine world and so many webmasters looking to Google for traffic, you might guess that there's a lot of discussion about Google in various places around the Web. And you'd be right! My favorite place for Google news and gossip is Webmaster World (http://www.webmasterworld.com). It's not often that the terms civilized and online forums go together, but they do in this case. Discourse on this site is friendly, informative, and generally flame-free. I have learned a lot from this site.

There are also a few weblogs focused on Google and searching in general:

Google Weblog (http://google.blogspace.com) keeps on top of everything Google, from the newest search syntax to Google's holiday logos (http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html).

Google Blog (http://www.google.com/googleblog) is the official Google weblog and features announcements, pointers, and behind-the-scenes commentary from the Googleplex.

John Battelle's Searchblog (http://battellemedia.com) covers search in all forms.

5. In a Word: Relax

One of the things that I have learned is that a lot of people spend a lot of time worrying about how Google works, and further, they worry about how they can get the highest possible ranking.

I can appreciate their concern because search engine traffic means a lot to an online business. But the rest of us should just relax. As long as we concentrate on content that's good for visitors (and not just spiders), Google's ranking algorithms will appreciate our sites.

Google's perception of your site has become increasingly more important, which means that you're going to have to be sure that your site abides by the Google rules or risks not being picked up. If you're very concerned about search-engine traffic, you're going to have to make sure that your site is optimized for luring in Google spiders and being indexed effectively. And if you're concerned that Google should not index some parts of your site, you need to understand the ins and outs of configuring your robots.txt file to reflect your preferences.