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In this article I'll try to demystify Link Popularity and PageRank, or PR, clarify some common misconceptions and tell you how things work, in plain English, with facts and examples.

Link Popularity is based on the premise that people link to good sites, and if a lot of people link to your site, then it must be good. In plain English, if other sites are linking to your site, your site is popular, therefore it is useful and deserves a boost in ra

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

nkings, so people can find it faster and easier.

Link Popularity is not specific to Google only, but was adopted by the vast majority of Search Engines.

Link Popularity is only one of the many factors (good content, number of pages, text, anchors, internal links, static URLs, keywords, meta tags, and many, many others) that are used in calculating your place in a search result page (ultimately, this is what all of it is about - how findable you

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

are in a search).

PageRank (PR) is specific to Google and is a trademarked proprietary algorithm. There are many variables in the formulas used by Google, but PageRank is primarily affected by the number of links pointing to the page, the number of internal links pointing to the page within the site and the number of pages in the site.

PageRank focuses strictly on the quantity of links and is directly influenced by the PageRank of the pages th

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

at are linked.

In Google, Link Popularity puts more emphasis on the quality of links (ex. links from sites related to yours by topic or by industry rank much higher than links from non-related sites).

PageRank - as the name suggests - is specific to a web page, not to a web site. Every page on your site has a PageRank and every one is different, based mostly on your linking system. Generally - but not always - the goal is to achieve maximum Pag

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

eRank on your main page, the one people hit when first entering your site.

You can check the PR of a page by installing the Google toolbar in Internet Explorer (the "official" way), a PR checker extension in Firefox, or by using one of the many online utilities, such as the one at http://www.bsleek.com/tools/link_popularity.php (which also checks Link Popularity and presence in DMOZ).

In Google only, PageRank is one of the factors that influenc

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

e Link Popularity.

PageRank (PR), developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University is considered to be the heart of Google's software. PageRank solves an equation of more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Instead of counting direct links, PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page A. PageRank then assesses a page's importance by the number of votes it receives and by

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

the PR of the page which casts the vote.

There are two types of incoming links that can effectively contribute to increasing your Link Popularity:

1. Links from other sites that focus on the same keyword phrases you do. In other words, if a site that can be found in search engines by using a search phrase like "corporate cd-rom presentations" links to your site, and your site actually specializes in designing interactive media, like CDs or DVDs

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

, then that link will help your Link Popularity. But if your site is about selling onions, then the mentioned link will be useless.

2. Links from relevant categories in major directories industry-specific directories and portals. The most important major directory is DMOZ (who feeds data to many others) and is the toughest to get in. Submission is free and there are actually people reviewing your site. The waiting times are in the months order,

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

so my advice is submit and forget. The industry-specific directories are very important. For example, if you make interactive media, and list your site in a directory dedicated to graphic design or media under the appropriate category, then search engines like Google will pick that up as an incoming link and will increase your Link Popularity. Listing your site in such a directory is very useful to your potential visitors, and this is what Google

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

is trying to emulate with its software. Remember, with Google and many others, there are no humans reviewing your pages, but software acting under very specific and strict rules (algorithms).

Both types of links I described above can be unilateral or reciprocal ("you link to me and I link to you").

Reciprocal links are subject of controversy and misconception today. Many people think that exchanging links with sites is the easiest way to get t

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

hem, new people learning about link popularity are under the mistaken belief that they must have links that are reciprocated on their site. Still many others are saying that reciprocal links are dead and that not only you won't gain any benefit from them, but your PR (Page Rank) will decrease (your page will "leak PR", as it is said in the SEO circles).

Both camps are not entirely correct. You certainly don't need to get reciprocal links, but yo

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

u can if you want to. Remember, it is links pointing to your site that are the helpful ones. Links pointing from your site to other sites are wonderful to have because they help your visitors find related stuff, but if your site doesn't lend itself to linking to other sites, then by all means, don't do it. You need to do what's right for your company or hobby and your site visitors, first and foremost.

Links from sites that have nothing to do wi

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

th yours will definitely not help you gain Link Popularity, but might produce a temporary boost in PR (PageRank).

If the PR (PageRank) boost is only temporary, why bother?

You should try to boost your PR (PageRank) even if temporary, because when Google sends Googlebot, its indexing robot, to spider your website, the bot is instructed not to crawl your site too deep unless it has a reasonable amount of PR (PageRank). But in order to increase y

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

our overall PR (PageRank) and, in order to have all your keywords from all your pages available for searches, you need Google to look at all of your pages, because the number of pages and the internal links affect PR (PageRank). But Google will not see your internal links and your keywords if only few pages are indexed, so you see, it's catch 22 and the best way to win this is to start working on your incoming links as early in the game as possib

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

le.

To see which pages from your website are actually indexed by the search engines, you can use the following search with the major three (Google, MSN and Yahoo!): site:www.yourdomain.com, where www.yourdomain.com is the full address of your site. There is no space between site: and the address, otherwise you are actually searching for the words site: and www.yourdomain.com.

To get a glimpse of your site's Link Popularity, use the following se

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

arch with Google and MSN: link:www.yourdomain.com. Again, there is no space between link: and the address. There is a common misconception regarding this. People think that the correct format is with the space, as it might produce a lot more results. It is incorrect, as the format with the space merely looks for www.yourdomain.com and the word link:, but will not actually show you who really links to you.

Please note that Google might not displa

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

y all the links to your site that are stored into its database. Don't panic. It has been reported that this is reminiscence from Google's paranoia days, when the search engine's execs did not want competitors to figure out the way they track Link Popularity.

As a word of caution, please do not waste your money on submitting your sites to "hundreds of FAA sites". Free-For-All sites are not considered quality links today. This approach might have

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

worked years ago, but search engines are constantly trying to stop any activity they consider as spamming, designed to artificially inflate numbers. This is actually a great thing, as it keeps the internet a fair and happy place.

Two more words of caution:

1. If you read SEO (Search Engine Optimization) related articles, please make sure you read stuff as recent as possible, as things change.

2. Major search engines, especially Google, keep th

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

eir algorithms (rules) in deep secret. Therefore, you'll probably wonder why you are reading so many different opinions, sometimes conflicting. The answer is simple, because little is actually known to the public about the deep inner workings of a search engine.

In general, there's no need for the average site to obsess over link popularity. Contrary to popular belief, link popularity constitutes only a portion of most search engines' ranking al

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

gorithms. Arguably, Google places more emphasis than most other engines on incoming links at this point in time. How much these actually boost a site's ranking is debatable and truly depends on the site. It also depends on the words that are placed in the anchor text (the clickable portion of a text link). From my personal experience, just a few highly relevant links with strong anchor text can go a long way towards link popularity for many sites

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Advice You - Link Popularity and PageRank (PR) Misconceptions and Facts

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