Tips on how to improve the PageRank

LINKS!
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PageRank is a calculation of the popularity of a web page, based on
the quality and number of links that point to it. Basically a link to
your page is seen as a vote of confidence, and a vote from a site that
has high PageRank is much more valuable. Nobody except Google search
engineers know exactly how it is calculated, but it is quite certain
that a link from a PR7 site is worth dozens of links from PR2 sites.

Google say:

"PageRank Technology: PageRank performs an objective measurement of
the importance of web pages by solving an equation of more than 500
million variables and 2 billion terms. Instead of counting direct
links, PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for
Page B by Page A. PageRank then assesses a page's importance by the
number of votes it receives.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote,
as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus
giving the linked page greater value. Important pages receive a higher
PageRank and appear at the top of the search results. Google's
technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a
page's importance. There is no human involvement or manipulation of
results, which is why users have come to trust Google as a source of
objective information untainted by paid placement. "
://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html

To see the PageRank of a page, you need to install the Google Toolbar:
http://toolbar.google.com/

So the best way to improve your PageRank is to get some links from
high PR sites. You are correct in assuming that link exchanges are not
the way to go - they are forbidden in Google Guidelines:

"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's
ranking or PageRank."
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Link swapping is also very easy for Google to detect, seeing as their
algorithm revolves around link relationships.


Buy Links
---------
A growing trend is to approach a webmaster of a high PR site and offer
to pay for a link. Google has no way of determining whether money
changed hands, and the link will be as valuable as an organic one.

I sell one link on my PR6 site for $25 a month, but if the ad was less
relevant to my site's content I'd charge much more.


Directories
-----------
The biggest directories have quite high PageRank. Open Directory is
the best free directory to be listed in. A category that seems to be
suited to your site has a PageRank of 4:

http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Health/Disabilities/Assistive_Technology/Mobility_and_Transportation/Canes_and_Walking_Sticks/
(Click on "suggest URL" at the top of the page)

The corresponding category at Yahoo has PR5, but also costs $299 to be included:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Disabilities/Assistive_Technology/Mobility_Assistance/Walking_Assistance/
(Click on "Suggest a Site" at the top)


Copy your Competitors
---------------------
Use discretion (ie avoid link exchanges), but otherwise it's quite
easy to find out where your competitors get their links from. Visit
their homepage, and in the Page Info dropdown box of the Google
Toolbar, select "Backward Links". You will then see a list of pages
that link to the page you are visiting. It won't list every page, but
does list all the ones worth getting a link from.

The two directory categories mentioned above are a good place to find competitors.

Asking for a link is quite simple:

1) Compliment them on their site
2) Suggest your site as one their visitors might find useful

Usually a site has a email address displayed, otherwise just try the
standard webmaster@blah.com


Example: 

Looking at the Backward Links for Thomas Fetterman's site, we see they
are linked to from:
http://www.abledata.com/text2/assistiv.htm#Walking

A visit to their homepage finds a link to their Contact Us page:
http://www.abledata.com/text2/contact.htm

The site is regularly updated, links are free, the page has PR5. A
link from just that page could improve your site's PageRank.


Your Site
---------
Looks pretty good from a search engine point of view. In general I
wouldn't change a thing. Having a 
Headline
 on each page that
is the same as the page title could improve things slightly.

More content is always a plus, but obviously difficult to come up with.


Hosting
-------
In my experience changing hosting companies would not normally affect
PageRank, but could do if they require that you link to them from your
site, or if they secretly use cloaking (rare, but a GA Researcher
recently uncovered a hosting service that did this). I wouldn't worry
about it.


As I indicated in my initial comment, it is links that you need. Get a
handful of PR5+ links and you should climb in PR and in the search
results.

Source: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/358721.html