Individual Page Rankings and Their Effect on The Domain Ranking

[IAmABananaco]

Hi everyone,

I am new here, but I have searched the forums to see if there was an answer to the question I have. But I don't really know how to ask it.

The company for which I work has a website with roughly 40,000 pages. Until I started, there hasn't been much SEO work done to optimize the keywords on each page. Overall they seem to be in decent shape. But there can always be work done, as it appears it's never a "completed" process, but a constantly evolving one.

My primary question is this: Do all of the aggregate pages, and their individual SE Ranking, promote a higher overall ranking for the entire domain, or do these individual pages operate on their own for page-ranks?

I read a recent post about how each page should be treated as an "island" and that makes great sense. But I would also like to know if my company's entire domain is "boosted"--for lack of a better term--due to the individual SE rank of their individual product or category pages.

I am currently teaching myself SEO, and I've stumbled upon SEO Chat, and I am really excited to have a forum to ask questions and get valuable insight from all the pros out there.

Thank you very much for your help


I have about five million questions, but I'll try to search for the answers before throwing out some copypasta.

[SEO_AM]

Each page has its own ranking (Page Rank). Through interlinking of pages internal to the site to other site pages you can affect the PR of other pages (passing the juice around). There is no such thing as a site rank, but the linking structure/profile does affect the mystic authority and trust of the site in the eyes of Google. Usually a site that is considered an authority site that is well trusted by Goolge will have a PR5+ page ranking, but there are exceptions, i.e. not all PR5+ pages are considered authority pages.

[joshz]

To add what SEO_AM said (who is spot on correct). Having a good menu structure and internal linking system can ensure a good 'spread' of link juice and authority to your internal pages.

[IAmABananaco]

Thanks guys. Since it is impossible--and not advisable--to provide links to all our our pages from our main page, creating a tiered structure to spread that tasty link-juice around is the way to go? I am in the process of checking our PR, which is dismal, and I am trying desperately to figure out what my next step should be. Currently all our pages are linked together by image links, I've read somewhere that links through images don't help with SEO, is that a myth? Or should we go through and add text links next to all out our category and product page images?

[SEO_AM]

Think of your site as a book or filing cabinet. Common practice is to create navigational links (a navigation bar) to your main pages (a book index) or filing drawers/files. Link each of those linked to pages back to your home page. Pay special attention to your sales landing/conversion pages.

[joshz]

Think of your site as a book or filing cabinet. Common practice is to create navigational links (a navigation bar) to your main pages (a book index) or filing drawers/files. Link each of those linked to pages back to your home page. Pay special attention to your sales landing/conversion pages.

Can I hire you already, SEO_AM? ;-)

Agreed 100%. From a web design aspect and UX I have a general rule of thumb.

Any page should be able to be accessed by at least two clicks from any location on the website.

Meaning: If I'm on your homepage, I need 2 clicks to get to the product list. To the Contact. To the News, etc.

Again, this helps UX and helps the spread of your authority.

[NewDelhiSEO]

You will need links from external sources to spike that PR. Distributing the PR among the pages is fine but get PR into your site is paramount, and it will come from pages already carrying heavy PR.

If you are only concerned about Page Rank I won't say image links are bad. An image with 'alt' text is the equivalent of a text links. In fact conversion rates on image links are drastically higher if properly used. But we aren't talking conversion here.
When it comes to ranking for Keyword, contextual text links beat image links. Beat exactly by what percentage? Alas I can't tell you.

[KernelPanic]

Is it my imagination or was the group screaming 6 months ago that PR DOESN'T MATTER!!?

It does, doesn't it

[IAmABananaco]

Well, PR isn't our highest concern. But we want visibility. Since I am rather fresh, having some insights into what I really need to be aiming for is my primary goal right now. By understanding the fundamentals, I should be able to build on top of them and understand exactly what I should be implementing for my company.

[KernelPanic]

Well, PR isn't our highest concern. But we want visibility. Since I am rather fresh, having some insights into what I really need to be aiming for is my primary goal right now. By understanding the fundamentals, I should be able to build on top of them and understand exactly what I should be implementing for my company.

Agreed, but there is no single element of SEO that is my highest concern. Synergy between all elements of SEO is what I am after