What is Google PageRank?
Check the authority of the individual page, rather than relying on a score for its whole domain.
Previously: How do backlinks help SEO? A backlink points to one page. PageRank helps explain how authority passes through that link.
Follow the amount passed on
Add outgoing links and compare the share passed to each page.
One page, a fixed amount to pass on
100 ÷ 2 links = 50 example units per linked page. The linking page keeps its own PageRank.
What to noticeMore outgoing links divide the contribution among more destinations. They do not create new authority.
PageRank uses links between pages to calculate their relative importance. In its original model, a link from a page with high PageRank passes more authority than a link from a page with low PageRank.
Google says PageRank has evolved and remains part of its core ranking systems. The original formula helps explain how authority passes through links, but it doesn’t reveal Google’s current scores.
Follow the links to a page
Backlinks point to particular pages. Internal links pass authority from those pages to others on your site. Together, these connections form a link graph: a map of which pages link to which.
If several cycling guides with organic traffic link to your repair guide, those backlinks give your page authority. Publishing a tax article on the same website doesn’t give it the authority to compete for tax searches.
Check what topic the linking pages rank for and which page they link to. Authority for bike repairs gives you a starting point for related queries.
DA and DR are tool estimates
Domain Authority, or DA, is a Moz metric. Domain Rating, or DR, is an Ahrefs metric. They summarize a website’s links using each tool’s own method. Google doesn’t use those scores to order its results.
Use them as a starting point for research. Then open the backlink report for the exact page you are checking. Look at the actual linking pages, their topics and their estimated organic traffic.
Outgoing links divide the authority passed on
In the original simplified formula, a page divides the authority it passes on among its outgoing links. Adding another link reduces the share available to each linked page.
The original damping factor is 0.85. That means multiplying the calculated contribution by 0.85, or passing on 85% of that amount. It doesn’t mean losing 85% at each link.
The diagrams use example numbers to explain this division. Real links can have different weights, and these numbers don’t predict a ranking.
The linking page keeps its own PageRank
Adding an outgoing link doesn’t directly subtract the amount passed on from the linking page’s own PageRank. What changes is how much it passes to each linked page.
When you add an internal link, save the date and check rankings and organic clicks for the linking page and the pages it links to. Compare equal-length periods before and after the change.
Check the authority of the individual page, rather than relying on a score for its whole domain.