People tie themselves in knots over pagerank, but really all it is, is just a way that search engines measure the importance of your website. It is a combination of relevancy, and popularity, as they are able to measure it.
Pagerank is a hotly controversial topic, since the search engine
companies do not release the algorithms (computer computational
rules) by which they measure your pagerank. So a lot of it is pure
speculation, some of it is an educated guess. You see, nobody can
precisely measure it, because no two websites are exactly alike, so
there is always a great deal of guesswork in any analysis of
pagerank trends.
To further complicate things, the rules change all the time. So what is true one week may not be true the next!
It is assumed that all of the search engines have some kind of way of measuring pagerank and rating your site. But only two really release an actual number to the public - Google and Alexa. Their numbers mean totally different things, and can be influenced by different factors.
While other search engines do not list a number, you can watch your traffic and positioning improve if you do it right. So pagerank applies to more than just Google.
How Google Page Rank
Works
Are you looking for some inside
information on SEO? Here's an up-to-date report from SEO experts who
should know.
Off-Page Factors
Affecting Your Position on Google Searches
Different search engines use
different algorithms to calculate where you appear on their search
results. This article will focus on the factors that we believe
affect your results on Google searches.
Highlights ~
Link
Relevance
We are constantly being told by
SEO experts and the Search Engines that the importance of a link is
determined by its page rank and relevance to our own web sites.