.........but contrary to popular belief it’s not the deciding factor. Several other factors, such as keyword density and placement, relevance, and content, are also considered by the search engines. Some believe these play an equally important role in website ranking. If you don’t believe it just do your own test, pick a few keywords and see how the top five sites rank in PR, I’ll bet you find that a lot of times the top site has a lower PR than sites below it.

That’s a good question. It obviously plays a part, simply because the criteria used to determine your PR is the criteria used to even get indexed in the search engines these days. There was a time not too long ago when it was believed that your Meta Tags had the most to do with your ranking. Now, at least these post-Google days, it’s the links that play a major part.  If you don’t have any links pointing to your site you will be ignored by Google. I believe they call it “missed” but it still amounts to the same thing doesn’t it?

There are many people making a lucrative living offering SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services to people like you and me. They have made it their business to know and understand the algorithms of the search engines. However, Google has never completely divulged the secrets of theirs, so optimizing for their site is still hit and miss. That said, the SEO people still have a world of knowledge and secrets to help your site in the search engine rankings despite Google’s elusiveness.