Google updates their PageRank once every 3-4 months. The last update was in early January, so in the next few weeks, all web sites listed in Google’s index with a significant amount of backlinks will have their PageRank updated. What is PageRank, you ask?
According to Google…
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.
Just to give you an idea, a web site like CNN.com has a PageRank of 9. Digg has a PageRank of 8. Most blogs fall in the 3-7 PageRank. Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) has a 7. Generally, any page with a PR 4 or higher is considered “good” PageRank.
Naturally, the higher your PageRank, the more of a trusted and credible source Google attributes your site to being. Additionally, you can also charge more for text-link-ads and other private advertisements you sell. Any other blogs linked to a page with a high PageRank benefits directly from that PageRank.
There are a few PageRank prediction tools available. My favorite is from iWebTool. You can check out their PageRank prediction tool here.
My blog is predicted for a PageRank of 6 with 80% accuracy. Most likely, I will receive a 5, but if I did get a 6, that would be awesome!
Check out iWebTool’s PageRank prediction tool. What is your PageRank scheduled to be?
Update: it seems the PageRank Prediction tool is down. Go figure?
WoW.. thanks for the link.. i was wondering what my page rank was..
iWebTool is a good resource for more than just checking future page rank prediction too, i can’t wait for the PR update
I usually find these page rank prediction tools pretty off base and almost never use them. Although in your case PR5 is very likely.
What I like to use is Live PR service:
http://livepr.raketforskning.com
There’s an interesting theory with Live PR. For sites with already assigned PR, it says that if you see your site showing PR0 on many datacenters, that means that your PR will change soon. And if you gained links in the period, it will go up.
Looks like John Chow’s in for some good news soon.
Interesting information, Staska. I hope my PR hits a 5. Do you know if there is a generally a number of backlinks required to hit a new PR?
If you have 1 page site, 1 link from PR10 site may be enough. 🙂
It’s really impossible to answer, since your PR depends on PR of pages linking to you. So 1 PR7 link may be worth hundreds of links from PR0 sites.
There are some speculations and calculations to find this out, I’m just not sure of their accuracy. Here’s one of them:
http://www.prweaver.com/blog/2004/11/15/49-relationship-pagerank-number-of-backlinks
If you’re good at math and programming you may also try the original Page Rank formula 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Thanks for the informaton, Staska. PageRank does seem to be one of Google’s secrets shrounded in a mystery wrapped in an engima.
I’m really looking forward to this update. I have certainly had a look around at all these PageRank prediction pages but I don’t know how much I really trust that they are on the money, although it seems that they usually guess high so I hope they’re right.
I am also looking forward to this update, lets hope the best 😀
Hm….I set up my blog recently, and cannot make it for this PR update.
Can someone tell me when the update after this upcoming update is?
i’m as anxious as everyone for the coming update … wondering if my pagerank (currently 4) will scores a better rank or remains the same or …. hmmm
anyway i think as long as you keep updates your site with useful contents the pagerank will comes ultimately …
does google only give page rank to web site just because of backlinks point to it. or it also see a well optimised website with top keywords in its content. dose content of the site cause of page rank?
Any Idea when the next Page rank is due?
great work,
? ??? ???????, ?? ??? ????? ???????????.
I do not know if Google updates the pagerank, but I already has over 1 years with a PR4, every time Google does not put it more difficult to attract visitors to our site, Google wants all the web traffic for them, is not just be left to compete and I am trying to get by with Google Adsense.Pero really earn a pittance if you have it 5 to attract more visitors.
Greetings.
anyway i think as long as you keep updates your site with useful contents the pagerank will comes ultimately …
You are correct, regular site update is nice source of PR