How Can Lower Page Rank Web Pages Achieve Better Search Engine Positions?

I have been using dawjee.com to analyse search terms for a while now - toying with keyword suggestions and looking for interesting patterns or anomalies in the result data (e.g. pages with query string data often report an erroneous Google Page Rank of zero).

After discussing some findings with a colleague, I realised a lot of what I'm learning will also be of use and/or interest to other webmasters. I shall therefore catalogue all future findings in a series of articles / blog posts.

This first article shall observe the current Google results for the term "dandruff".

At the of writing, the top 3 results are:

Position 1
Title : Dandruff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
URL : http : // en . wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandruff
PR 6

Position 2
Title: Dandruff - MayoClinic.com
URL: http : // www . mayoclinic.com/health/dandruff/DS00456
PR 4

Position 3
Title: Dandruff
URL: http : // www . coolnurse.com/dandruff.htm
PR 5

(PR = Google Page Rank)

What's interesting is that P2 (Position 2) has a lower PR (Google Page Rank) than P3 (Position 3). Both web pages contain Dandruff in their TITLE tags and urls. So a cursory glance would suggest that P3 should have a better (i.e. lower) rank than P2.

From taking a look at both pages, both are on topic and contain genuine information about dandruff. P2 is only a small page, and is part of a full article (i.e. many small interlinked dandruff pages). While P3 is a full article on a single page.

The keyword densities are 4.86% for P2 and 6.39% for P3. Neither page makes obvious use of contrived keyword stuffing.

However, if we drill down into the data for each result (use the small magnifying glass next to each result, or follow the link the Resources list below), we'll find some significant differences in their hosts and backlinks.

P2 has 6 Google backlinks, with 4,990 to its host. While P3 has 3 and 270 respectively.

P2 also dwarfs P3 in terms of the number of pages Google has indexed (Pages in Host), and also has a higher host page rank 7 (vs 5 for P3).

To summarise, P2 may have a lower page rank, but it has a few more links and its home page is overwhelmingly more popular than P3's. It is also part of a set of pages about dandruff. Instead of having the full article on a single page, it has been split among many. P2 therefore has several interlinked pages about dandruff.

It therefore appears that the pages hosted on popular (in terms of search engines) web sites can rank better than other pages, even if they have lower Google Page ranks. Splitting up articles into many small pages helps as well.

Related Resources

http://www.dawjee.com