---
title: "PageRank"
description: "PageRank is Google's algorithm that scores a page's importance from its links. Learn how it works, its SEO impact and its link to backlink profiles."
url: "https://nodea.io/en/glossary/pagerank"
lang: "en"
updated: "2026-07-13"
---

# PageRank

> PageRank is an algorithm devised by Google's founders that scores a page's importance based on the number and quality of links pointing to it. It was one of the search engine's first ranking pillars.

**PageRank** is an algorithm created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, that scores a web page's importance based on the number and quality of links pointing to it. It was one of the search engine's earliest ranking mechanisms and a big part of why Google stood out from its competitors in the late 1990s.

## How PageRank works

The core idea treats every [link](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/backlink) as a kind of vote cast for the target page. The more valuable sites link to a page, the higher its PageRank score. Crucially, it isn't just about counting links but weighting them: a vote from a popular, authoritative site passes more value than a link from an obscure one.

That value — commonly called [link juice](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/link-juice) — is distributed across all the outbound links on a page, so if a site links out to many URLs, each receives a correspondingly smaller share. The algorithm runs iteratively, recalculating scores across the whole web of links until the values stabilize.

## Practical application

Although Google stopped publishing a public PageRank score years ago, the principle of judging a page by its [link profile](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/link-profile) remains a foundation of SEO. That is why [link building](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/link-building) strategies focus on earning links from trusted, topically relevant sources rather than chasing raw volume.

Today, third-party metrics such as Domain Rating and Domain Authority have taken the place of the public PageRank, estimating link strength in a similar way. The PageRank concept also shaped internal practices like deliberate [internal linking](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/internal-linking), which channels authority toward a site's most important pages.

### Does PageRank still exist?

The public PageRank score (the Toolbar bar) was retired and is no longer updated, so it can't be checked externally. Google has confirmed, however, that it still uses link-based signals internally, so the underlying concept of authority flowing through links remains relevant.

## Related

- [Backlink](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/backlink)
- [Link juice](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/link-juice)
- [Link profile](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/link-profile)
- [Link building](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/link-building)
- [Ranking factors](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/ranking-factors)

---

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