PR Checker Badges

PR Checker Badges

Recently, I offered to provide free blog reviews.  I am very pleased to say that the response has been great.  I have several in the works and will be posting the next one soon.  Thank you again.  Where appropriate, I’ve been showing that blog’s Google PageRank (TM) as a way to further define their success. Since this is a great tool for getting a quick read on how Google sees your blog (or anyone else’s in which you are interested), I decided to place the tool here for your convenience.

What is PageRank, you say?  Let me explain.

Many of you already have a badge on your blogs showing your PageRank, but you may not know what drives the number.  First, there are many sites that measure and provide statistics.  The one I use, PR Checker, is simple and has the best looking selection of badges.

Let’s start with how Google describes it.  After all, it’s their trademarked and patented tool.  (In the spirit of full disclosure, notice the TM above for every reference on my site.)  Google says,

“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’.”

Of course, it is much more complex that this, but in essence, “the higher the ranked sites that link to your site, the higher your PageRank.”

As I often do, I turn to our friends at Wikipedia to dig deeper.  This entry is about all the detail I care to consider – or serve up.  If you have trouble sleeping at night, I’m sure you can find even more detailed descriptions on the web.

A while back, I posted about the value of relationships in a post comparing online and offline businesses.  This is probably the number one piece of advice I could give.  Visit blogs, engage in the topics, provide clear perspectives, make your visit there valuable, and they will reciprocate.  A relationship is built, a link back may ensue and you’ve just added some PageRank juice to your site.

Dave