Quantifying how good a website is very difficult. What are the signs of a great website? Plenty of visitors, lots of links from other large and excellent websites, Facebook fans, mentions on Twitter, good clean HTML and attractive design. Rolling all that information up into a single, easy to understand metric is very tricky. Then there is the question of actually extracting all that input information in the first place. Some of those factors can’t really be quantified, especially without human intervention.
PageRank looks primarily at your link profile
There are two popular approaches to measuring website quality. The most common looks at the link profile on the assumption that good sites get more links. PageRank (PR) is the best known of these metrics, and it takes into account both the number of inbound links and the quality of linking sites. It’s usually expressed as a digit ranging from zero to ten, the higher the better. It’s been around for a while and it’s nice and simple.
A lot of people use PageRank to attract linking partners and sell advertising space, but there is a problem. Published PageRanks are only updated every few months, so a new site that has worked hard for three months and now has plenty of inbound links may still have zero PR. Many pro bloggers and SEO folks have moved away from PR for that reason. The replacement metric of choice is usually mozRank, which uses similar concepts but leaves behind the delay problem that annoys so many low PR webmasters. It ranges from 0 to 10 and is a little more precise than PR, because values are reported to two decimal places.
Replacing PageRank with MozRank
There are a few variations on mozRank, but perhaps the most powerful is the concept of mozRank Passed. This metric aims to quantify the amount of power a link from a particular page conveys. It takes into account the number of outbound links, the page’s own mozRank and several other factors. It’s not in popular use yet, so it’ll be very interesting to see whether the SEO community thinks this measure is valuable over the long term.
Alexa takes a look at your traffic
The second site evaluation strategy is to use the number of visitors. That’s all very well for webmasters who have access to their own visitor data, but when you want to check out the competition you won’t have access to their analytics accounts. So, how to estimate visitor activity? Alexa Rank is the most widely used metric of this kind, and they use browsing data collected from every user with an Alexa Toolbar installed. Their rank is based on a relatively small subset of internet users- the exact number of Alexa Tool users isn’t public knowledge- but downloads number in the tens of millions.
Because it’s based on small statistical sample, Alexa Rank is only really useful for big sites. It is a true rank with values ranging from the millions to number one, the lower the better. Google firmly occupies the top spot, followed by Facebook and YouTube. An active PR5 commercial website might have an Alexa Rank in the hundreds of thousands, and a value of a million is reasonable for a medium-sized PR3 blog.
No Single Metric Gives a Proper Pictures of Website Quality
While it’s quick and convenient to quote PR, mozRank, and Alexa Rank (and many people pick just one), no single measure gives a full picture of website quality. As a mathematician I hate to say it, but the best tool for evaluating a site is still the human eye. Does the design look sharp? Is the navigation easy and intuitive? Is it actively updated? Most importantly, is it useful, funny, or interesting?
Numerical metrics are great, but they still need to be combined with the evaluation of a human being to be really informative. When you’re looking for a linking partner or evaluating a business opportunity online, always check the PR and the other ranks, but use your own judgement too. Sites that are obviously putting a lot of effort into content may start out ranking poorly but they’ll soon start to rise- just because a site has zero PR and low mozRank doesn’t mean it won’t make a good investment.
14 comments
Paul says:
May 18, 2011
I usually determine if website is good quality by reading the content. Quality websites will have unique, well written content, and may even contain some of the author’s personality.
Many people are constantly looking at their Alexa or PR, but that really doesn’t tell you how good the site is. As you mentioned, at the end, the human being is the best measurement to quality.
Daniel Snyder says:
May 19, 2011
Hey Paul. Content is King isn’t it! Oh yes.
bbrian017 says:
May 18, 2011
Hi Jess,
Great article! I use all the sites you mentioned. I know many people don’t like Alexa but I’ll be the first to admit they are really accurate when it scone to traffic spike and traffic monitoring.
I think the most important aspect to remember is your happiness. If you’re happy with your blog or website and it’s creating a friendly environment to meet others and build relationships I think that is the ultimate measure of one’s website quality.
Hans says:
May 18, 2011
With the mentioned tools you measure website popularity.
Quality starts with a fast website, with valid HTML code which renders well in the popular browsers and at the popular mobile devices. Of course the content should be original, use-full, etcetera. However that’s very difficult to measure.
I prefer http://websitequality.zomdir.com/ to get an indication of the quality of a website. It’s a rough indication but works very well.
A. Tatum Jr says:
May 18, 2011
I agree with Brian. If you love what your doing I think everything else will eventually come. Very good an informative article though.
Jane | Blogging Tips says:
May 18, 2011
I do like Alexa, but it is not that reliable because it can be easily manipulated many by having a tool bar installed to their browsers and visiting the site again and again.
Google PR is great but I don’t think that it is fair to judge a website’s quality on PR. Coz PR depends largely on inbound and outbound links and what if my blog is do-follow and commentluv enabled (indeed my blog is)? So there is a lot of link drain, but I still manage to be popular because I offer quality content.
Regarding MOzrank, I don’t know how different is its calculation from Google PR, but I have a PR=0 but Mozrank=5!
Cheers,
Jane.
Tuan @ Technology Blog says:
May 19, 2011
I think we should gradually replace Google Pagerank with MozRank as it could reflect our link profile more accurately. At least I see the MozRank is updated more frequently.
I lost my PR 2 weeks ago and it hasn’t been regained yet, so I am quite disappointed with the green bar.
DiNaRa says:
May 21, 2011
Hi, Jess
I was searching the information online about how to make a decision about the site, and found this article. Thanks for explaining some really important information in simple words. Personally, I use all possible ways to check the position and the quality of the site but my first impression is the most essential factor for me. If I don’t like the site at first site, I don’t care how high his PR is.
Paul @ Fort Wayne Internet Marketing says:
May 24, 2011
Excellent takeaways! I haven’t heard of MozRank yet until I read this post. I think this tool is very useful especially now that Google recently made a total mess of my blog.
waterpearls says:
May 27, 2011
Hi Jess,
Nice post.You well explained the topic.It is very helpful for me.You well said that best tool for evaluating a site is still the human eye.
Ray says:
Jun 6, 2011
Alexa rank and google pagerank are easily manipulated and abused. Just because a site has good alexa and pagerank doesn’t really mean it is a good site with unique quality content. Kind of too bad, but I guess if someone goes to all the work of pushing something it pays off whether it is good or not. Google seems to be always tweaking their algorithm thing to compensate, but it’s not perfect either. I do like mozrank, but all we continue to hear about is google pagerank. Any way good post.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jun 6, 2011
Hey Ray! Welcome here, thanks for visiting & commenting. I agree that there is FAR too much emphasis on both PageRank and Alexa. The numbers can be misleading. Pages with high PR can normally be trusted and those numbers I would consider accurate (6 or higher) but under 5 it is never certain how much that number is representing a really quality site. Thanks again!
dinero desde casa says:
Aug 2, 2011
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Steven says:
Sep 13, 2011
Other webmaster based the ranking on page rank and alexa. A lot of people uses page rank for measurement and some too is using alexa to which I dont agree.