It is a common habit among webmasters to get confused between Search Engine Rank and PageRank(PR) as both are related to search engine results. They are often considered as synonyms but which is not the case. In order to clearly understand the two, let us go through each separately and then state the differences between then.

Search Engine Rank or Ranking

Search Engine Rank or ranking of a website denotes the position or placement of the website on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). If a website appears on the first pages of the search engines, it is said to have a High Search engine ranking. The overall purpose of search engine optimization is to have a high rank on search engines to get the desired visibility and attract traffic. It requires well-thought plan and several factors which distinguishes it from PageRank(PR).

Factors involved in Search Engine Rank or Ranking are:

Code Implementation- Codes are formulated and inserted to facilitate spiders in finding the  important keywords thereby helping in listing.

Content- A website’s success is predominantly depended upon its Content. Content should be so developed to contain appropriate keywords and describe the products or services in the way user would like to receive. Title, tags, meta descriptions, anchor text, etc should also be rich in keywords.

Links- As Links play a major role in ranking, quality links must be developed (both internal and external) in a quantity that would catch the attention of serach engines.

Regular updation- A user would stick to the site which is frequently loaded with fresh content. Search engines favor those sites which update their content for users on a regular basis

PageRank(PR)

PageRank is a numerical value on a scale of (0-10) assigned by Google to a web page of a site. Google uses a predetermined formula to calculate a PageRank. It is generally calculated on the basis of the number of inbound links to a website and represents the relative importance of a page on the web. PageRank measures the linking density and helps in indexing.

Factors involved in PageRank(PR)

Links- As Google considers the quantity of back links to a website, developments of links is essential to gain a high PageRank. But only links from relevant sites and those who already have high PageRank are taken into account, so it must be taken care of that only quality links are there otherwise those links are not taken into account.

Content-As mentioned above also, good and relevant content is imperative for a website to have  favorable PageRank for its various pages.

The notable differences between Search Engine rank and PageRank(PR)

1. While Search Engine Rank is related to all search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc, PageRank(PR) concerns Google only
2. Search Engine Ranking is a planned and time consuming process which involves several factors, whereas PageRank is basically about the amount of Links
3. Search Engine Ranking is associated with Listings on search engines. On the other hand, PageRank helps in Google’s index.
4. PageRank is supplementary to a Search Engine Rank
5. PageRank may serve some short term objectives but Search Engine Ranking yields achieving long term results

*In the above article, the words, Search Engine Rank and Search Engine ranking have been used synonymously