PageRank (PR)
PageRank is a patented Google’s algorithm used to determine importance of a page. It was originally developed by Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin as a part of their research project as Stanford University.
Also PageRank (briefly PR) of the specific page is a number from 0 to 10, which indicates its importance according to the PageRank algorithm.
Very simplified version of the PageRank algorithm can be explained as following: each page receives some of “juice” (PR) from all other pages linking to it. In practice, amount of weight passed through a link depends on many factors, for example on relevancy of a page linking in.
Facts about PageRank
- PR is assigned to each page, not to the whole site. There is a characteristic called TrustRank, which is meant for the whole website.
- There is a concept of fake PR, which means, that PR is spoofed (imitated), rather then calculated using page’s parameters.
- PageRank is not the same as a “rank” or “rankings”.
- In addition to 0-10 values, PageRank can be “N/A”, which means “Not Assigned”. Page can get “N/A” PR out of many reasons, one of which is it’s not been crawled yet.
- PageRank of a page one can see in Toolbar or using various services is not actual page’s PR, but “archived” value. There are PageRank Exports (PageRank Updates) occurring several times a year, when actual PageRank (internal PageRank) is exported. This a counter-measure against search spam and techniques aimed at manipulating PR.
More information
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagerank
- How Google Finds Your Needle in the Web’s Haystack
- Google “PageRank explained”.
Categories: SEO Dictionary
