PageRank is what Google uses to determine the importance of a web page. It's one of many factors used to determine which pages appear in search results.
PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is.
Page and Brin's theory is that the most important pages on the Internet are the pages with the most links leading to them. PageRank thinks of links as votes, where a page linking to another page is casting a vote.
This makes sense, because people do tend to link to relevant content, and pages with more links to them are usually better resources than pages that nobody links.
PageRank doesn't stop there. It also looks at the importance of the page that contains the link. Pages with higher PageRank have more weight in "voting" with their links than pages with lower PageRank. It also looks at the number of links on the page casting the "vote." Pages with more links have less weight.
This also makes a certain amount of sense. Pages that are important are probably better authorities in leading web surfers to better sources, and pages that have more links are likely to be less discriminating on where they're linking.
How Important Is PageRank?
PageRank is one of many factors that determines where your web page appears in search result ranking, but if all other factors are equal, PageRank can have significant impact on your Google rankings.
See Your page Rank using Google Toolbar
PageRank is measured on a scale of one to ten and assigned to individual pages within a website, not the entire website.To find the PageRank of a page, use Google Toolbar. Very few pages have a PageRank of 10.
How Can I Increase My PageRank?
If you'd like to increase your PageRank, you need to have "back-links," or other people linking to your website. You can trade links with other people, but make sure you only trade relevant links, and make sure you're not trading links with a link farm. You can register your website with directories, such as the Open Directory Project, but use directories with high PageRank whenever possible.
See Your page Rank using Google Toolbar
PageRank is measured on a scale of one to ten and assigned to individual pages within a website, not the entire website.To find the PageRank of a page, use Google Toolbar. Very few pages have a PageRank of 10.
How Can I Increase My PageRank?
If you'd like to increase your PageRank, you need to have "back-links," or other people linking to your website. You can trade links with other people, but make sure you only trade relevant links, and make sure you're not trading links with a link farm. You can register your website with directories, such as the Open Directory Project, but use directories with high PageRank whenever possible.