I check PageRank with a very handy Firefox Add-on called SearchStatus. It adds a little toolbar at the bottom of the browser that indicates PageRank, Alexa, and Compete rankings.

I just checked all of my sites, and they all were awarded a PageRank of 4/10. Is that good? Is that bad? I don’t know, but at least now they have a rank of some kind and I have something to tell people when they ask. It’s like they didn’t exist until Google benevolently bestowed upon them their rank.

What is PageRank? Well, Wikipedia has the following to say about it:

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set.

We care about it because if Google gives a site a higher PageRank, it means they see it as more important and it will probably do better in search results.

Interesting, but here’s the really important stuff:

PageRank was developed at Stanford University by Larry Page (hence the name Page-Rank^[1]) and later Sergey Brin as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine.

It’s named after Larry Page! It worked out so well for him that his last name isn’t Wolfsonbergerstein. WolfsonbergersteinRank just wouldn’t have the same ring to it.