Before we proceed and clarify the issue, it is essential that we define the concept of PageRank and how it affects your website’s ranking in search engine list.
Once you understand PageRank, you may start thinking how it affects your position in the search engine result page. The PageRank is a single unit of the Google algorithm that determines your ranking on the search engine result page.
PageRank can affect your Website in the following ways:
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A favorable PageRank can help your Web site place higher in the search engine results;
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The PageRank for each of the pages of your Web site can help you determine which of these pages have been found valuable enough to link to by other people;
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The PageRank can serve as a tool to provide rich informational content so that others will want to link to your other pages.
It is important to stress, however, that PageRank does not equal to traffic to your site. The rule among SEO nowadays is that as long as you follow a good linking strategy, there is no reason to believe that a lower PageRank can affect your site or your site traffic.
Now, moving on to the main concern of this article - will it or will it not affect PageRank?
This will not happen under normal situations. Much attention and effort has been spent on this in order to clarify this belief about PageRank being affected by switching hosting providers. It is interesting to note that this notion has continued to persist and confound most of us.
This belief has been used by some web hosting companies to discourage client companies from switching to another hosting service provider. To belabor the point, this claim by web hosting service providers does not have any valid basis. The only occasion that your transfer to another web hosting company will lead to lower PageRank shall be if you are going to a web host with unreliable and poor service.
Make sure that you keep your domain name with you once you transfer to another web hosting company. As long as you have the same domain name your PageRank will not be affected.
The reason behind our contention that it won’t have any effect on the PageRank is because it is a measure derived from the number of other web pages link to this one page. As long as your domain name is intact, the transfer to another hosting provider would be inconsequential
A Word of Caution
Though we have said at the start of the article that PageRank is not generally affected by the change of web host, there is an exception.
The PageRank can be used when looking for a host, but only as an indicator. Though we must say that we don’t have to put too much weight on high PageRank values, when you see a very low PageRank, try to reconsider your choice.
Google usually bans sites that use questionable tactics to improve their search engine rankings. The PageRank in such situations is either 0 or the bar simply doesn’t show anything.
If such is the case, then it might be wise for you to look for another web hosting provider.
