Page Rank (PR) is one of the factors that Google uses to determine it’s search results (SERPS). While this is only one factor out of probably hundreds it is the one that gets a lot of attention. The reason for this is simple, if you have the Google toolbar installed on your browser PR is starring you in the face at all times. Every site you visit you notice the little green bar.

For PR junkies it can become an obsession to get a high PR rating. This obsession has led to many linking scams and Google having to come up with ways to combat the abuse. We will get to these issues later, for now lets talk about what makes up PR.

Page Rank is a mathematical formula that is based on pages linking to other pages. These votes are each given an amount of weight (PR) that they can pass to other pages. What is the math formula, well nobody knows the exact formula in use today. The one that was used in the original formula that was published when PR was being developed is:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn))

That looks confusing to the non math people out there yet it is a really simple concept once it is broken down.

PR(A) - That is the answer to the formula, hence the pages PR.

Now lets break down the formula: (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn))

“d” - stands for a dampening factor. This factor is used because the average PR of all pages on the internet must equal 1. Most will use .85 as the dampening factor when working with this formula. The exact number Google only knows.

“t” - stands for any page that is linking to the current page. Hence t1 is the first page, t2 second page…
“C” stands for the number of links on the page that the link is from. All links including internal ones.
(1-d or .85) - The base value of any page in Googles index. All pages start with a tiny about of PR.

Now before doing an example we need to cover one more issue. PR is believed to be on a log scale. We will use 8 as an example so:
PR1 = 1point
PR2 = 8 points
PR3 = 64 points
PR4 = 512 points and so on. These numbers are purely hypothetical as Google has never released the log scale.

So let do an example of this with 2 links pointing to a page. Each link page has 10 total links and a PR3.

(1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn))

(1-.85) + .85(PR3/10 + PR3/10)

(1-.85) + .85(64/10 + 64/10) … convert the PR to the # of points

(.15) + .85(6.4 + 6.4) … divide the number of points by the number of links

(.15) + .85(12.8) … add total potential PR that could be passed

(.15) + 10.88 = 11.03 or a PR2. … multiply the points by the dampening factor and add, then convert points to PR.

Hope this helps break the formula down a little. If it is still a little to complicated just remember you need links to get a higher PR. The higher the PR of the linking page the more PR it will pass and remember that the number of links on the page makes a difference.