What is Google PageRank?

The Google search engine is now officially the biggest and most utilized engine in the entire search market. The term “Google” is now widely used in pop-culture when people refer to searching for something on the Internet. Google rose to success because it is easy to use, speedy and provides users with quality search results. Google uses an advanced search algorithm, to rank websites and pages. This algorithm is known to search experts as the Google PageRank algorithm.

PageRank has been around since Google founders Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin first wrote papers on it back when they were graduate students at Stanford University. The PageRank search method has undergone many modifications since Google opened its doors, but still remains the reason why Google dominates the search market.

All search engines use a variety of complex methods and algorithms to determine how to rank websites and their corresponding pages. Some engines used to rank pages highly if the search term is repeated one or more times in a given page. As the World Wide Web matured, this type of search algorithm was too simple so companies like Google and Yahoo began ranking pages based on the number of inbound links. Google PageRank takes this method one step further by not only factoring in the number of inbound links, but calculating the number of inbound links that come from pages that are already highly ranked. Therefore, the PageRank of a page is determined recursively by the PageRank of other pages.

You can determine your PageRank by using a simple calculator that can be found on a number of websites. Simply use Google and input the search term “PageRank Calculator”. These websites will often try to explain the PageRank algorithm on a technical level. You simply type in the address of your page and the calculator will return a numeric value that represents your PageRank.

Although this makes PageRank sound quite simplified, there are still many aspects of the algorithm that Google founders Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin keep secret. All search engines in the search market keep at least some aspect of their search algorithm a trade secret. In the end, your goal should be to secure as many inbound links from high ranking websites as possible, as this strategy will guarantee you receive a Google PageRank.