What’s Sculpting PageRank you may ask, maybe your wondering what I’m talking about? Let me try explain in a moment.

As I’m sure you are aware PageRank is a Google trademarked term, it’s their measure of the importance of a page. But, if you look into it, it’s acttually more than that it is the foundation of Google’s ranking algorithm (Google PageRank). As we work with SEO it makes total sense that we make use as best we can to point PageRank in the right direction.

Most inbound links to a website will point directly to the home page, this page typically accumulates the most PageRank.  What you need to think about is how do you use this PageRank to flow deeper into your site.

One of the key things you need is site wide navigation using keyword rich text links rather than graphical buttons. You want to try shape how PageRank is distributed across your webpages using “rel=nofollow.” allowing you to send PageRank to link you want and not to others.

The “rel=nofollow.” Was first introduced in 2005 to help discourage comment spamming on blog, which at that stage was out of control but now handed control back to the website . After this the search engines evolved there thinking and began to realize that  nofollow was a much more versatile tool.

Okay so now let’s look at some samples of what we can do with nofollow tag. Most websites will have a Privacy Policy page I’m sure nobody wants to write for the word privacy policy so this little tag helps.

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/privacy.htm>Privacy Policy</a>

It’s as simple as can that, but let’s look at an example of an e-commerce website.  Here we have a screenshot of komplett.ie I have highlighted the Apple iPod nano.

1 - The product name as a text link
2 - The product image thumbnail
3 - The “Buy” button

You could nofollow the product image thumbnail and the “Buy” button to funnel more PageRank through the much more contextually relevant product name.  By strategically adding the “rel=nofollow” attribute to links on your webpage you can improve the flow of PageRank within your site to the most relevant pages the ones that make you money.

This is an advanced SEO tactic and must be used with care but if you’re looking to get a jump on your competitors just take a quick look at PageRank sculpting. Just adding a simple tag can make a big difference to your search engine rankings.