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Question:
Can you explain how Google PageRank works? And how can I find out my site's PageRank? Thanks.
Submitted by Karen S.
Answer:
Google PageRank (PR) is a numerical ranking from 0 to 10. PR is calculated on a periodic basis by Google for each and every page in their index. PageRank is page specific, not site specific. The PR of the pages on your site can (and probably will) vary from page to page.
Google uses their proprietary (and secret) PageRank Algorithm to calculate your web page's PR based upon the quantity and quality of the links pointing to your page from other web pages, including your own pages as well as those belonging to other webmasters.
It's important to understand that it isn't just the quantity of links pointing to your page that helps establish its PageRank, but also the quality of the pages that the links are on. In general, the higher the PR of the page linking to your page, the larger the PR boost that your page will receive from the link.
The quantity of other outbound links on the page linking to your page has an effect on the PR calculation as well. In general, the more outbound links there are on the linking page, the smaller the PR boost that your page will receive from the link.
For example, a link from a page with a PR of 5 that has 100 outbound links on it will boost your page's PR less than a PR5 page containing only 10 outbound links.
Determining the PageRank of your web pages
It's very easy to get an approximation of any web page's PageRank. All you need to do is download the Google Toolbar and use MS Internet Explorer (with the toolbar enabled) to visit the page in question.
While the page is displayed in IE, you'll see a small colored bar about half-way across the Google Toolbar. The colored bar may be all white, (denoting an approximate PageRank of 0), part green and part white (PageRank is between 1 and 10), or all green (PageRank is 10).
Note: There are only a handful of PR10 web pages in existence right now.
This colored bar is known as the PageRank display. If you hover the mouse over the PageRank display, you'll see an approximation of the numerical value of that page's PR.
The reason the number provided is just an approximation is the actual PageRank of a page isn't a whole number, but the toolbar rounds the PR off to the nearest integer from 0 to 10.
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