Determining Google PageRank

When you have the Google Toolbar (See the MyMommyBiz article The Google Toolbar for more information), you will be able to see one of the more important things Google uses to determine your rankings in the search engine.

First, you will need to enable the PageRank feature, if you haven't alreIf you don't see PR on your toolbar, you will need to enable it. To do this, click the Google logo of your Toolbar, then click options, and check the "PageRank" box. It will give you a privacy warning when you do so. To check PageRank, your toolbar must tell Google what page you are viewing, in order to provide the PR value of each page. You can read more in their privacy policy.

Your PageRank is shown in the middle of the Google Toolbar. Start off by going to http://www.google.com (the page will open in a new window). You will see the bar below the word "PageRank" on your Toolbar is completely green. This is because Google has a PR of 10 out of 10. http://www.yahoo.com is another example of a PR10 site

Next, go to http://www.cnn.com You will see a little bit of white, so it is not as important as Google or Yahoo, but still pretty darn important. Once the page finishes loading, hover your mouse over the green bar, and you will see that a little pop up will show that the site has a PR of 9/10.

Next, go to your site to see what PR value you have. Most sites start off with a 3/10 or a 4/10. If it is higher than that, you have done well. Lower than that, and you have work to do.

If your site shows a grey bar (not a white one) and when you put your mouse over the bar it says "Page is not currently ranked by Google", this means your site (or that particular page) is not yet in Google.

If you have not yet submitted your site to Google, you can learn more about getting your site indexed in Submitting Your Site to Search Engines. It will take one or two PageRank updates before you see any PageRank on your pages. PageRank is updated every month or two, however, sometimes webmasters will see multiple updates within a short period of time.

If your site shows a white bar, with no green, and your site or page is not newly added to the index, you need to investigate the possibility that you have been penalized or banned. Has Your Site Been Penalized by Google? and After You've Been Penalized by Google are two articles with detailed information on how to tell and what to do when it happens.

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