Google Basics
Here is a quick refresher on some Google basics.
PageRank
While PageRank was important in the past, Google now uses many more factors (about 200) to determine the rankings of web pages:
From Amit Singhal (he is in charge of Google's ranking algorithm.) "PageRank is but one signal. Some signals are on Web pages — like words, links, images and so on. Some are drawn from the history of how pages have changed over time. Some signals are data patterns uncovered in the trillions of searches that Google has handled over the years."
Paid links
Google considers buying links to be outside of their guidelines and they could take strong actions against sites that participate in link buying activities.
Outbound links
Matt Cutts says that links to other websites are good for users, and therefore good for search engines. The impact of one site in your portfolio on another site Matt Cutts has shared that a webmaster who owns many spammy websites might get in trouble with his other websites.
Catalog pages
Google tries to avoid product catalog listings – they look too much like a search results page and like something that is available elsewhere (in other words, it isn’t unique). Your category pages will do much better with unique content on them.
