http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/

In class we have been talking a lot about page rank and how it works. Well, this website takes the time to explain how google page rank works in detail.

Page rank is what google uses to determine relevance and importance in determining websites for its search results. PageRank actually says nothing about the content or size of a page, the language it’s written in, or the text used in the anchor of a link. Instead, it is determined by how many pages around the web links to the certain page in context. So, it is somewhat of a popularity / vote contest.

The page goes on to explain the exact dynamics of how page rank is determined in great detail, so if you are interested, please read it. This way of determining page rank is much more efficient than using meta tags or page content because people can manipulate that to make their site show up higher in search results. In fact, I remember trying to get my personal homepage higher in yahoo search back about 10 years ago when I was making my personal homepage. Ah, those were the days.