Page Rank

Page Rank, or PR, is a number assigned by Google which represents to relative importance of a web page.

The PR for a web page can vary between 0 and 10.

PR is assigned to individual web pages, not to web sites. In other words, it is Page Rank, not Site Rank.

A higher PR number will help you to score better in your SERPS, which will bring more visitors to your web page.

PR is calculated using a complex secret formula which seems to be under constant change.

In general, the more web pages that link to your web page, the higher the PR of your page will be.

Other factors which affect the PR of your web page include the PR of the pages which link to your page and the number of links on the pages which link to your page. A link from a PR7 page is worth more than a link from a PR6 page. A link from a PR5 page with two outbound links is worth more than a link from a PR5 page with six outbound links.

No one outside of a small group of Google employees really understands the Google PR algorithm. Others who claim to fully understand the current incarnation of the PR algorithm are either deluding themselves or attempting to fool you.

Page Rank was original described by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page in The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.

A useful and readable explanation of Page Rank can be found in A Survey of Google’s Page Rank.

Brin and Page’s original Page Rank algorithm is attractively described and demonstrated at Page Rank Explained with Bright Colors.

Google Directory Page Rank

The Google Directory uses a different formula for displaying page rank.

Instead of the familiar 0-10 system used by the Google Toolbar, the Google Directory uses a ranking from 0-7.

Google Directory Page Rank is difficult to work with, because no numbers are displayed. All you get is a green and grey bar. An excellent article on interpreting that bar is The Handy Dandy Google Page Rank Figurin’ Guide.

How to Find the PR (Page Rank) for Your Page

One way to see the PR (Page Rank) for your web page is to download and install the Google Toobar.Google Toolbar is available for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Alternate Toolbars to View Page Rank

The SEO Toolbar from SEOBook shows Page Rank among many other useful SEO information.

There is also a number of Page Rank extensions available for Firefox and Chrome such as Live PageRank and SearchStatus for Firefox, and PageRank Status and PageRank LinkExtend for Chrome.

Web Sites which Display Page Rank

A great way to see the PR (Page Rank) of multiple pages, and without installing the Google toolbar, is to use the Google Page Rank Report at Top25Web.com.

Another great web-based Page Rank tool is the Visual Page Rank Tool. It displays the PR of every link on a web page.

Other web site tools to check Google Page Rank include searchengine Engine, Google Ranking Report, PageRank Checker, iWebTool and Freshes Check Google Page Rank.

PageRank Tracking Tools

An excellent tool for tracking both Page Rank and SERPS over a long period of time is the DigitalPoint Keyword Tracker.

Microsoft Windows based tools to Display Page Rank

GoogRank is a Microsoft Windows program which displays Page Rank.

A command-line version, GoogRankCmd, is also available.

Macintosh tools to Display Page Rank

Digitalpoint created a PageRank Toolbar Widget For Macintosh with Konfabulator.

Search Engines Which Display Page Rank

The Prog, ThinkBling, and PR Search search engines display Google results, but also display the PR of each search result.

Add a Page Rank Display Button to your Web Page

If you are willing to give up an outbound link to PageRank.net, you can add this little graphic to your web page to proudly display it’s page rank for all the world to see.

Create your own Page Rank Checking Tool

Anyone can create their own tool to check Google Page Rank. The most difficult part has been creating the proper query to the Google servers. The Google PageRank query uses a checksum based upon the URL being queried.

The checksum algorithm utilized by the Google toolbar appears to be based upon lookup2.c by Bob Jenkins.