Search Engine Optimization Or Page Rank – You Decide

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

What is more important, search engine optimization or Page Rank? Can they be separated? After a careful analysis of several web site pages I believe they can be separated and that one is more important than the other. However, look at some of the factors and you decide.

It should be remembered that web sites are not ranked, only the individual pages within a web site. You will often find that different pages will have totally different Page Rank scores and that newer pages will have a ranking of either zero or ‘unranked’. How is it then that a new page with a Page Rank of ‘unranked’ can appear at the top of the search engine results page? The answer of course is through search engine optimization.

The difficulty for many web site owners is that search engines rate pages based on importance. However the importance is measured using many factors and a web page can appear at the top of the search results for one keyword or key phrase and yet that same page can appear on page ten if an another keyword or key phrase is used.

The reality is that each page is ranked based on keywords more than anything else. Search engine optimization is used to promote pages and this is done by promoting keywords. When seeking inbound links the preferred link is through a keyword or key phrase. When developing internal links we use keywords and key phrases. It is how well each of these keywords are optimized that will determine the placement on a search engine results page.

Obviously, Page Rank is linked to search engine optimization. However Page Rank is only an indication of where that particular page is placed at one particular time. The reality is the true Page Rank is a floating number that can be very different based on the keyword used.

Search engine optimization is now important not on a site wide basis, but on a page wide basis. Each individual page needs to be treated as a single entity and optimized for the keywords relevant to that page, not to the site. By using page based search engine optimization techniques you can dramatically improve that pages placement within the search engine search results pages.