Should I Still Worry About Page Rank in 2021?

SEO is always changing and to be successful you have to keep track of it all.  Unfortunately there’s no single, definitive resource that can provide you with all the information you need.  Of course, Google provides plenty of guidance and advice including lots of best practice elements to include.  However they’re never going to give you a perfect blueprint for success as it would obviously be ripe for abuse.  So it’s up to the webmasters and SEO specialists to try and keep up with the search engines algorithms in order to keep that organic traffic flowing.   One of the most important factors for many years has been Page Rank but now we’ve no real direct way of even measuring it.

IS Page Rank still a factor for the Google Search engine algorithm, in some ways it doesn’t even matter. By all accounts, Page Rank’s days are numbered at least that Google want’s us to believe. For years it has stood at the core of Googles search results but for the last year it’s been difficult to work out the true rank of a web page. For the search giant has not been updating publicly the relative rank of pages for some time, so although most believe it is still an important factor, we can’t always work out the PR of a site. For instance if you create a new post like this about how to watch British TV Programmes online, the page will be ranked at nothing in most tools, however over the weeks this will rank higher if it is read, linked to and promoted.

The relevancy is important too, in the above example a link for a UK Television company would obviously be much more valuable than even a high powered link from a non related site.

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The concept has moved more to the value of authoritative links which was largely the source of Page Rank scores anyway.   Google lends a lot of weight to a site’s page rank when it comes to where and how to place that site in the search results. You need to have a high page rank if you hope to place as high as possible in Google’s results, and also if you want more traffic than ever before. But if you are new to the SEO game, you may be clueless as to how to increase your site’s page rank. First of all, your hard work building links is going to pay dividends when it comes to getting a much higher page rank. So if you can gain high quality backlinks from sites that have a good page rank then it will automatically help you reach your SEO goals. If you want to rank higher in the search engine rankings and get more traffic than you’ve ever had before, use the following techniques and you won’t believe what page rank you end up with.

One easy way to really get results for your page ranking efforts is to leave comments on other blogs within your niche that have good PR. This can quickly increase the number of backlinks you have pointing to your site which can be invaluable for your own PR efforts. One of the biggest advantages with this method is that there’s absolutely no limit on how many backlinks you acquire, so the harder you work, the better it is. You can find plenty of automated backlink tools, willing to post comments for you by the thousands, but it’s wise to steer clear of these.  Even if you use the latest proxies to hide the location and maximise the number of links they can obtain, the quality will always be low and the effect usually negligible on your rankings. These tools do nothing more than spam your link around to thousands of blogs. This kind of unethical SEO practice will set off red flags within Google, who may decide to penalize your site. Think about finding blogs within your niche, or similar, and work on commenting on posts you find interesting. The blogs you comment on don’t nave to be in the identical niche to your own, as long as they have decent PR and plenty of traffic you’ll see results.

One of the best tools you should be taking advantage of to improve your page rank is social bookmarking. There are tons of social media sites such as Delicious, Reddit, Digg, and Twitter where you can easily submit your site. Once you bookmark your article on these sites you get a link back to the content on your site, which helps in boosting your page rank. It’s a tactic that is not quite as effective in 2021 however it does still work to some extent.  There’s other similar links from things like forums and bulletin boards which help too, a tactic used by some of the ticket proxy sites to boost their ratings for a long time. For example, there are many pages on Digg where you can comment and get a good PR because these pages have a PR5 or a Pr6. Many people are aware of this tactic, but not many use it often enough to enjoy the real benefits it can bring.

Last but not the least; make sure you code your site the right way. You need to make it easy for the search engine spiders to crawl your site and view your text. Your site shouldn’t contain JavaScript/DHTML. Remember that search engines aren’t able to read flash, so if you use this feature then create a separate HTML page for visitors. You will have a hard time raising your page rank if your site isn’t constructed with the search engines in mind. You should focus on making consistent progress and building your page rank gradually.

So remember to use all of the strategies we’ve discussed above, and you will gradually be able to raise your site’s page rank and search engine ranking. If you want to increase your site’s visibility and gain more traffic, you have to pay attention to your page rank. You should try to get as much search engine traffic coming your way as possible.

Further Reading

http://dnsproxy.co.uk/the-americans-netflix/

The Internet is Shackled

Blocked and filtered, monitored and restricted – this is the reality of the internet today.  Ever clicked on a particularly funny looking video to be greeted by the message – ’we’re sorry that video is not available in your area’.  Perhaps you’ve tried to watch the latest episode of that TV programme while on holiday.  Maybe you’ve simply tried to place a bet while travelling using your online betting account.  There’s a very good chance that none of these will work simply because of your physical location.

When did the internet change like this? It was once open to all, it didn’t matter if you were in a cyber cafe in Karachi, an Airport in Harare or sitting in a Starbucks in London – we all saw the same online, we were all equal.  But that’s not the case any more – commercial interests, government filters and restrictive licensing meant that whatever you see online is highly dependent on where you live.  Much of it is promoted as improving the user experience, while that’s partly true the majority is simply to boost profits or to control what we see online.

Mostly it’s geo-targeting that’s to blame, a website will check which country your IP address is from before deciding on what you can see.  If you don’t believe me check out any media site in a country apart from yours – Non US residents try and watch something on ABC or Hulu, or if you’re in  the US go and try to watch something on the BBC iPlayer website.  Put simply it won’t work simply because the internet is now layered in Tiers and not all open to all.   Media sites like these are a great example, virtually every single one works perfectly when you’re in a specific location (usually the domestic market).  However as soon as you travel, then they’ll stop working.  These huge international barriers being placed on something where location really shouldn’t matter.

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We’ve mentioned some benefits and they’re definitely are a few.  Search  engines for example will tailor your results to match your location.  So if you search for electricians you’ll get results located in the same area as you.  Search for film times and you’ll see them matched to cinemas in your local area too.  All this is useful in most cases but the blocks and filters are much more pervasive than these.

It doesn’t seem right that your physical location should be so important on a global communications network like the internet.   Some people are seriously disadvantaged by their location with access to many important internet sites like PayPal and eBay restricted based on their location.

As always though there are work arounds, mainly in the various technologies that can be used to bypass these blocks. The vast majority of these sites determine your location using the IP address of your computer.  Now although you can’t change this, you can hide it to a certain extent. By connecting through an intermediary server you can hide your real location and use that of the server.   These are called proxy servers which you can gain access to through many different locations.   You can use a BBC Iplayer proxy or a VPN to access Hulu and Pandora and it doesn’t really matter where you are – read this.  In fact for internet surfers in most developed countries, a subscription to one of these services is becoming a necessity.

Many services offer access to servers across the world meaning whenever you get blocked you can simply select the appropriate server and you’re back in business. But of course this has meant that slowly the internet is becoming accessible to some and inaccessible to others.  If you can afford one of these subscriptions you’ll be fine but others will have to live with the handicaps.  It’s not really how the internet used to be and I suspect it’s not how most of us wanted it to be!

How to Change Your Virtual Location in 2021

Whenever you connect to the internet, your physical location makes a big difference to your experience.  For example when you use a search engine like Bing or Google have you ever noticed how it brings you in answers that are relevant to your location.  So if you typed in local plumbers you won’t get a list from the other side of the world or a completely different continent.   Search engines tailor your results to your physical location and lots of other sites do exactly the same.

Change Your Virtual Location

The reason is that the search engine has looked up your location when you connected, then provided results based on that location.  Mostly this is a positive experience because it brings you useful results that are based in your area.  The locations are not always perfect but generally they do a reasonable job.   However increasingly this technique is being used for other purposes which are perhaps not quite as beneficial.  For example many sites will redirect users to different prices depending on their location – so you may pay more (or less) depending on your physical location.

So How Does This Happen?

Well basically when you connect to any web site, you make a direct connection from your PC to the web server hosting the site.  This allows the web server to access your IP address, which is tied individually to your computer uniquely.  This address can be looked up using a big database to see where it is located.  Now at this stage the IP address won’t give your exact location and address (although it can be used for this), just your specific location based on your ISP.

So for a search engine this is generally fine, after all it’s unlikely you want results based on Japan if you live in London.  Where it gets annoying is when you get blocked or rerouted simply because of your location by other websites.  For example if you’ve ever had that message on Youtube – ‘not available in your country’, or been blocked from watching something on Hulu or BBC iPlayer because you’re in the wrong country.

How Anyone Can Change Your Virtual Location

This is when it’s best to take control of your digital location and make it work for your.   Here’s an example of how someone is hiding their real IP address so they can watch BBC Iplayer abroad by switching to a UK IP Address such as this.



What they are doing is actually hiding their real location from the website they are visiting and instead relaying the connection through another server (proxies).  This means that the website only sees the location of the proxy server rather than yours, when you additionally use software with the ability to switch proxies it means you can change your location at will.  Not only does it keep your own location and identity private, it also gives you the possibility of choosing a new one. If you connect to a proxy in a specific country then you’ll appear to be located in the same place.  It’s great for all sorts of online activities, many millions for example use this technique to watch all the free UK TV that’s available online if you’re located in the UK.

It’s also much more secure to relay your connection through another trusted server,  as well as allowing you hide your location it also means you can encrypt your connection too.  Using the right tools, you can bounce your connection through something like a secure Russian server like this, without affecting performance and ensuring nobody can access any of your data.  The encryption means that no-one can intercept your data when it traverses across the internet (using all the shared hardware that’s needed).  It’s vitally important to use some sort of encryption if you’re connecting using someone else’s internet access point.  Your data is especially vulnerable in these situations and cyber criminals often target places like coffee shops, hotels and airports to steal credentials of people using their free but often insecure wifi.