Google's PageRank system was designed to calculate the ?popularity? of a page based on the number of incoming links. The higher the number of incoming links, the more popular a page and the higher it's PageRank; however, this is not how the PageRank system works anymore. Apart from the number of incoming links, the PageRank of each incoming link is also taken into account. For example, let's assume there are two pages both receiving exactly 1 incoming link, both pages should theoretically be equally popular. However, Google also takes into account the PageRank of the page that is linking to the pages; this means the link from a page with higher PageRank is more important. The above mentioned example reveals the first flaw in Google's PageRank system; it is not democratic at all! In a democracy the vote of a janitor is equal to that of a senator's.

To further complicate matters, Google recently implemented a complex system called LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). LSI allows Google to ?judge? the relevance of an incoming link, this means that a website selling chocolates can no longer benefit from an incoming link from a used cars website. Once again, there is no list of websites that a webmaster can use as reference before registering his website with other sites and paying for an incoming link. In essence, Google now expects webmasters to guess which links will add to their link building exercise and which ones will not. LSI has left most search engine optimizers reeling, many SEO firms spend thousands of dollars in manpower to find relevant incoming links and even then there are no guarantees if the incoming links will add to the PageRank of a website or not.

Another flaw in Google's PageRank system is that Google frequently recalculates the PageRank of all web pages. It is not uncommon for pages to loose their PageRank in spite of having all their incoming links intact. This means a webmaster has to start a fresh link building exercise every time a website's/page's PageRank drops. What is equally frustrating about Google's PageRank is that Google actually takes 3 months before it first displays/calculates the PageRank of a page. This means that a website has to carry out link building based on their estimation, then wait for 3 months hoping that their calculations and estimations are correct.

The above mentioned link building exercise has to be repeated every time the PageRank of a website drops or a webmaster wants to increase the PageRank to compete with other websites. Finally, link building is not a cheap exercise; it takes nearly $1500 dollars to achieve a PageRank of 5 by submitting a website with numerous directories. Unfortunately, Google's PageRank system has now become a part and parcel of search engine optimization and with nearly 60% of the world's internet users using Google webmasters, search engine optimizers have no option but to submit to Google's hegemony. Interestingly, Google makes continuous changes to its search engine algorithms making some link building exercises obsolete overnight, resulting in loss of money and manpower.

Paid Links

Google is now encouraging webmasters to report webmasters that are paying high PageRank websites to display incoming links. This is perhaps Google's most controversial move till date as all a webmaster has to do is buy a link for a competing website and then report the competing website to Google. In a nutshell, the best way to eliminate competition is to buy a paid link for their website! Google has no way of knowing if the website being reported has actually bought the link or if the person reporting the website has fraudulently bought and reported a link. Critics also point out that Google is simply eliminating competition as placing an advertisement with websites is a perfectly acceptable means of advertising, however Google is discouraging people from doing so, leaving Google Adwords as the only legitimate advertising option.