Content Is Even More Kingly as Google Evaporates Excess PageRank

Sculpting PageRank has been a powerful and sanctioned SEO practice since Google officially blessed it in 2007. PageRank measurement is Google’s way of assigning a finite amount of trust to pages that are deemed to be important. SEOs have learned to manipulate PageRank by using a variety of methods to pass importance (or deny importance) to other sites and pages. As reported by WebProNews, Google’s Matt Cutts announced a change in the Google algorithm that is a game changer in terms of PageRank sculpting.

In the past, Google allowed a page with a finite amount of PageRank to “dam up” the flow of the PageRank to other areas of a site, giving any excess PageRank retained on particular areas of a site an extra boost in importance. According to the transcript of Cutts’ talk at the SMX conference in Seattle, Google will not penalize SEOs for denying PageRank to certain pages, but it will also not credit other pages for retaining it. According to Cutts, Google will simply “evaporate” excess PageRank. This means that the myriad of other factors that play into an SEO strategy are now that much more important, chiefly architecture and quality of content.