Online Marketing Glossary: Algorithm
Algorithm:
- A set of mathematical equations or rules that a search engine uses to rank the content contained within its index in response to a particular search query.
The algorithm is what powers search engines, and also provides websites with page ranks, Alexa rankings, Technorati authority, etc. The algorithm often takes into account inbound links, outbound links, where the inbounds are coming from, where the outbounds are going to, number, quality, etc.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Alexa Rankings & Google PageRank
What do they mean to you? I’m never sure how much weight to give to third party rankings like Alexa and Google PageRank. Let’s review…
Interesting… isn’t it? I know that it’s a higher ranking than another site of mine, FoodAskew.net, which has a ranking of 1,147,532. To give you some scale, Google has an Alexa ranking of 2, AffiliateSummit.com has a ranking of 104,661, and Facebook has a ranking of 5.
Alexa ranks all the sites on the web based on their traffic and that’s how the ranking comes up. I guess I should be happy in the range I’m in, but what can be done to increase your ranking? More traffic, as far as I can tell.
Page Rank is another beast all together. According to Wikipedia,
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is also called the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E).
Much more complicated, and for the life of me I cannot figure out how to boost my page rank. I know by checking that my page rank is 0. I can’t understand it considering that I have a decent number of inbound links as well as outbound links that aren’t affiliate links. Perhaps it’s because most the links are direct post links and not to just the domain? Someone who knows more about this has yet to tell me.
So how much weight should be put on these numbers? Different people across the web say different things. I like to believe that as long as I’m putting out good content, it doesn’t matter. I focus on bringing more traffic to my site right now because the more eyes that see it, the more likely it is that they’ll come back.
But, I’m far from being an expert on this. What’s your opinion?
To find your own Alexa Ranking, go to www.Alexa.com. Use this tool to check your Google PR:
| Check Page Rank of any web site pages instantly: |
| This free page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service |
Free Toolsday for June 10th
OK it’s TECHNICALLY still the 10th here in California, so here’s this week’s free tool.
SEO Quake
is an extension for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. It’s a great tool for webmasters to improve their websites, but also a terrific tool for an affiliate manager doing due diligence on the websites their affiliates list.
My favorite feature is the Whois tool. I use this to check the registrant information on websites on affiliate applications before I approve them. I use the whois data to try to weed out the shadier side of affiliates registering with websites that do not belong to them.
As with most toolbars or extensions, which features you include are completely customizable. Another great feature for the SEM/SEO minded is the page rank button and the other Alexa rankings and Google index numbers.
Of course, there are tons of features of the toolbar that I haven’t even explored! So go check it out at www.SEOquake.com and tell me what your most useful feature of the toolbar is!
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