Published:
by Wayne Smith
Many people who don't understand the math or page rank, conclude page rank is a zero-sum game. Imagine link patterns leading to an infinite page rank scenario or page rank requires a link from a whitelisted site where all PR flows from.
For page rank to be a zero-sum game or have an artificial limit also means there is a limit to the total number of pages that can exist on the internet, which is not the case. The economics of page rank is like the economics of fiat currency ... new page rank is created when Google discovers a link.
The infinite rank scenario does not see the calculus mathematics built into page rank.
Put simply if I approach a wall and in the first half second get halfway closer to the wall. And then in half that time get still halfway closer. And Continue getting halfway closer in half the time ... over and over again an infinite amount of times.
- Do I never reach the wall?
- Do I reach the wall in one second?
If you said one second, you just did calculus in your head -- attempt to calculate when I would reach the wall, by hand without (calculus), would be an infinite calculate.
Page rank is based on the same concept -- every time a link is discovered (the u1 value) the page rank is created (via the iteration) and passed to the page. A new page receives a portion smaller than the PageRank of the page with the backlink and a page can not send more PageRank than it has, (outlinks).
Neither the infinite rank scenario nor the whitelist myth see the calculus.
The whitelisted site myth vanishes when one considers Google discovers links (creates pagerank) And, when enough links point toward a page, it is crawled. Links are not a zero-sum game ... they are created and removed like fiat money.
Based on my understanding of mathematical humor, the maximum amount of PageRank/Links that could exist would be a googol. But they actually solved that problem and there is no limit.
PR is created because new links are found. Links are not a zero-sum game ... they are created and removed like fiat money.
Neighborhoods of links do indeed emerge, they are not whitelisted sites; .edu, or .gov sites are not whitelisted sites. Neighborhoods emerge because of the economics of links.