Is HomePage PageRank Important In SEO?

High HomePage PageRank (HPR) does not ensure high positioning of webpages competing for a keyword but if a website does not have sufficient HPR for that keyword, it will have no chance of top page positioning on Google.

Keyword Difficulty and Keyword Difficulty Programs

Keyword difficulty is an indication of the strength of competing websites for a keyword.

There are a number of keyword difficulty programs. With one recent exception, the scoring systems have been unspecified with no means to identify the competitive strength of a website competing for a keyword. Before entering any competition, it is advisable to know your strength relative to that of your opponents.

As search engine optimisation (SEO) involves a competition for keywords, optimizers need means to identify keyword difficulty and a credible way to determine the competitive strength of a website that might wish to compete for that keyword. High quality SEO is the scientific application of search engine approved methods to increase targeted traffic to a website.

The Crucial Interim Step for SEO Success.

The majority of SEO and keyword related programs imply that any website can successfully compete for any chosen keyword and they suggest a two step process:

• Choose your keywords
• Optimise your webpages for all those keywords.

The author takes the view that there is a crucial interim step that has not been previously discussed in the literature. That interim step is the identification of those keywords that a website has even a chance of top page positioning on a search engine results page (SERP) and in particular the top Google SERP.

SEO involves time, effort and usually financial expense. If no attempt is made to focus SEO efforts on keywords that are within range for a website most of these efforts will be wasted chasing rainbows. There is no value in competing for keywords that are well out of range for a website having any chance of reaching the top SERP.

HomePage PageRank Keyword Difficulty (HPR-KD)

There is compelling, verifiable and published evidence that the top factor in the Google algorithm is HomePage PageRank. The second factor (G-Factor 2) is the boost to the effective HPR given to HomePages that are competing for a keyword. This boost increases the effective competitive strength of HomePages with HPR0-4 up to 5. There is no discernible increase for HomePages with HPR5 or above.

HPR-KD for a keyword is calculated by averaging the HPRs, including the G-Factor 2 adjustment, of the webpages on the top Google SERP. Guidelines are available indicating the minimum HPR required to have any chance of top page positioning on Google for a keyword depending on the HPR-KD. HomePages competing for a keyword have a better chance of succeeding than internal webpages because of the G-Factor 2. The guidelines, therefore, include two columns for minimum required HPR - one for HomePages and one for internal webpages. Internal pages on a newly indexed website will not reach the top Google SERP for any useful keywords as their associated HPR is 0.

The vast majority of small to medium sized business websites have HPRs of 3 or less which significantly limits those keywords in range for top positioning on Google. Those with HPR 2 or less may be able to compete for keywords with low HPR-KD with their HomePages, because of the second Google factor.

Whereas, we know that a newly indexed website has an HPR close to 0.0, we cannot at first sight look at more mature and successful websites with the same degree of accuracy.

An HPR of 4 requires about 2,500 average value links from other websites whereas an HPR5 requires 75,000 such links. We will see both as PR4 as we are not privileged to the decimal information known to Google. There is a large difference in the competitive strength of a website with an HPR of 4.01, as known to Google, and another with HPR 4.99.

Enormous insight is provided on a website's authority, as Google sees it, when there is a change in HPR following a PageRank update. One of my websites recently moved from HPR3 to HPR4 and another dropped from HPR4 to HPR3. Neither suddenly changed positioning in Google's SERPS for the keywords being monitored. The changes in HPR of both websites show that they have HPRs in the region 3.9-4.0 and this allows new avenues for future research.

HPR-KD in SEO Practice

When choosing keywords for the theme of a webpage, care must be taken to determine if the website has what it takes to achieve top page positioning on search engines. This will depend on:

· Whether it is the HomePage or an internal page.

· The HPR of the website.

· The HPR-KD of the keyword for the relevant Google domain (Google.com; Google.co.uk etc).

Targeting keywords that are in range allows a website to be found and potentially acquire natural links. In addition, if the website has high quality content that is well presented, Google Panda will pick this up by favorable user signals and could well gradually elevate the webpages up the SERPs. Whilst it may seem tempting to target keywords that have higher search volumes, if they are out of range for the website, top positioning will not be achieved and the website's authority development will be unnecessarily slow.

It is unlikely that a small or medium sized business website will ever acquire HPR5 or higher, Websites with HPR5 or more are in the privileged position to be able to compete successfully for relatively high keyword difficulty keywords. Good luck to them.

David Viniker MD FRCOG is a doctor trained to practice evidence based medicine. He has applied the principles of evidence based practice to SEO. David believes that HomePage PageRank (HPR) is the top factor in the Google positioning algorithm and that Google provides a boosting adjustment to the HPR of HomePages that are competing for a keyword (G-Factor 2). He has developed a new, essential keyword tool - http://www.KeywordSEOPro.com which calculates keyword difficulty for a long list of keywords based on average HomePage PageRank (HPR-KD) of the URLs on the top Google search engine results page (SERP) for each keyword, including the G-Factor 2 boost. Guidelines have been produced indicating the minimum HPR required for a website to have a chance to achieve top page positioning for both HomePages and internal webpages depending on the HPR-KD of the keywords. His website http://www.firstwebsitedesign.com provides valuable information for beginners and intermediates in website design.

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