What is Page Rank

[temi]

This question sounds quite basic to experienced webmasters, I have just helps two young webmasters with that same question at two different forums in the last few days hence I think its a good idea to post it here as a sticky.

You are welcomed to elaborate on my basic explanation if you like:

Ive never heard the term PR before can someone explain it to me. sorry if this is a really dumb question

PR, also know as Page Rank, is Google's way of measuring how important a website or web page is (this is a very simplified explanation, its much more complex than that).

PR is measured from PR0-PR10. See attached image for what PR look like, the attached is a PR6 site.

You need to have Google tool bar installed in your browser for PR to be displayed on your browser.

Thanks

[Gorkfu]

PR, also know as Page Rank, is Google's way of measuring how important a website or web page is

...... based on the quality of your incoming back links.

[clangallacher]

In short PageRank is a "vote", by all the other pages on the Web, about how important a page is.

A link to a page counts as a vote of support. If there's no link there's no support
(but it's an abstention from voting rather than a vote against the page).

[thinkfast]

PR like a dress code of your site.

Because after saw PR any one can take decision about importance of site.

[zurk]

PR stands for the popularity of website/page (based on IBL)

[KingPin]

PR = Pointless Rank.

Bah! Don't get me started

KP

[pow-wow]

PageRank is only part of a Algorithm, based off of backlinks. Its an indicator of a sites worth, but doesn't govern Search Engine rankings.

[OldWelshGuy]

Page rank is a mathematical value of the importance of a page according to Google, based on its position within the Google link map of the internet.

All links in the map carry weight, and that weight can compound in value as they pass through the more important pages (a higher PageRanked page).

[arora]

Page rank is as follows:
where p1,p2,...,pN are the pages under consideration, M(pi) is the set of pages that link to pi, L(pj) is the number of outbound links on page pj, and N is the total number of pages.

[sums123]

It's just like a school report Card.

High PR means very good site good content and quality backlinks.

Low PR means site needs lot of improvement and not considered to be of quality site from the eyes of google.