To calculate the
PageRank for a page, all of its inbound links are taken into account.
These are links from within the site and links from outside the site.
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))
That's the equation that calculates a page's PageRank. It's the
original one that was published when PageRank was being developed, and
it is probable that Google uses a variation of it but they aren't
telling us what it is. It doesn't matter though, as this equation is
good enough.
In the equation 't1 - tn' are pages linking to page A, 'C' is the
number of outbound links that a page has and 'd' is a damping factor,
usually set to 0.85.
We can think of it in a simpler way:-
a page's PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (a "share" of the PageRank of every page that links to it)
"share" = the linking page's PageRank divided by the number of outbound links on the page.
A page "votes" an amount of PageRank onto each page that it links
to. The amount of PageRank that it has to vote with is a little less
than its own PageRank value (its own value * 0.85). This value is shared
equally between all the pages that it links to.
From this, we could conclude that a link from a page with PR4 and
5 outbound links is worth more than a link from a page with PR8 and 100
outbound links. The PageRank of a page that links to yours is important
but the number of links on that page is also important. The more links
there are on a page, the less PageRank value your page will receive from
it.
If the PageRank value differences between PR1, PR2,.....PR10 were
equal then that conclusion would hold up, but many people believe that
the values between PR1 and PR10 (the maximum) are set on a logarithmic
scale, and there is very good reason for believing it. Nobody outside
Google knows for sure one way or the other, but the chances are high
that the scale is logarithmic, or similar. If so, it means that it takes
a lot more additional PageRank for a page to move up to the next
PageRank level that it did to move up from the previous PageRank level.
The result is that it reverses the previous conclusion, so that a link
from a PR8 page that has lots of outbound links is worth more than a
link from a PR4 page that has only a few outbound links.
Whichever scale Google uses, we can be sure of one thing. A link
from another site increases our site's PageRank. Just remember to avoid
links from link farms.
Note that when a page votes its PageRank value to other pages,
its own PageRank is not reduced by the value that it is voting. The page
doing the voting doesn't give away its PageRank and end up with
nothing. It isn't a transfer of PageRank. It is simply a vote according
to the page's PageRank value. It's like a shareholders meeting where
each shareholder votes according to the number of shares held, but the
shares themselves aren't given away. Even so, pages do lose some
PageRank indirectly, as we'll see later.
Ok so far? Good. Now we'll look at how the calculations are actually done.
For a page's calculation, its existing PageRank (if it has any)
is abandoned completely and a fresh calculation is done where the page
relies solely on the PageRank "voted" for it by its current inbound
links, which may have changed since the last time the page's PageRank
was calculated.
The equation shows clearly how a page's PageRank is arrived at.
But what isn't immediately obvious is that it can't work if the
calculation is done just once. Suppose we have 2 pages, A and B, which
link to each other, and neither have any other links of any kind. This
is what happens:-
Step 1: Calculate page A's PageRank from the value of its inbound links
Page A now has a new PageRank value. The calculation used the
value of the inbound link from page B. But page B has an inbound link
(from page A) and its new PageRank value hasn't been worked out yet, so
page A's new PageRank value is based on inaccurate data and can't be
accurate.
Step 2: Calculate page B's PageRank from the value of its inbound links
Page B now has a new PageRank value, but it can't be accurate
because the calculation used the new PageRank value of the inbound link
from page A, which is inaccurate.
It's a Catch 22 situation. We can't work out A's PageRank until
we know B's PageRank, and we can't work out B's PageRank until we know
A's PageRank.
Now that both pages have newly calculated PageRank values, can't
we just run the calculations again to arrive at accurate values? No. We
can run the calculations again using the new values and the results will
be more accurate, but we will always be using inaccurate values for the
calculations, so the results will always be inaccurate.
The problem is overcome by repeating the calculations many times.
Each time produces slightly more accurate values. In fact, total
accuracy can never be achieved because the calculations are always based
on inaccurate values. 40 to 50 iterations are sufficient to reach a
point where any further iterations wouldn't produce enough of a change
to the values to matter. This is precisiely what Google does at each
update, and it's the reason why the updates take so long.
One thing to bear in mind is that the results we get from the calculations are
proportions.
The figures must then be set against a scale (known only to Google) to
arrive at each page's actual PageRank. Even so, we can use the
calculations to channel the PageRank within a site around its pages so
that certain pages receive a higher proportion of it than others.
NOTE:
You may come across explanations of PageRank where the same equation
is stated but the result of each iteration of the calculation is
added
to the page's existing PageRank. The new value (result + existing
PageRank) is then used when sharing PageRank with other pages. These
explanations are wrong for the following reasons:-
1. They quote the same, published equation - but then change it
from
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(......) to PR(A) = PR(A) + (1-d) + d(......)
It isn't correct, and it isn't necessary.
2. We will be looking at how to organize links so that
certain pages end up with a larger proportion of the PageRank than
others. Adding to the page's existing PageRank through the iterations
produces different proportions than when the equation is used as
published. Since the addition is not a part of the published equation,
the results are wrong and the proportioning isn't accurate.
According to the published equation, the page being calculated starts from scratch at each iteration. It relies
solely on its inbound links. The 'add to the existing PageRank' idea doesn't do that, so its results are necessarily wrong.
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