PageRank
PageRank is the system Google's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, built at Stanford to rate how important a web page is from the links pointing to it. Their 1998 paper says it doesn't count every link the same: a link from a page that's important itself counts for more, and each page's weight is split across all its links.
Source: Brin and Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine (Stanford, 1998), checked October 29, 2026
What PageRank means for your business
The paper explains it with a "random surfer" who clicks from link to link and, now and then, gets bored and jumps to a new page. A page's PageRank is the chance that surfer lands on it. The authors' own example is a page with just one link, from Yahoo's home page. They say that page is likely worth a look, because Yahoo wouldn't link to a bad or broken page.
Google still names PageRank as one of its core ranking systems and says how it works has changed a lot since then. Our backlink entry covers what Google says about links today. SEO tools make their own versions, and Ahrefs says its page score uses the same basic ideas while only Google knows how PageRank is worked out now.
In the 1998 math, a page with few links of its own passes more to each one, so a link from a focused, well-linked page counts for more. It applies inside your own site too, since your pages link to each other. We'd make sure your main service pages get linked from your home page and menus, not buried three clicks deep.
If you've got strong pages that hardly anything links to, even your own home page, we'll map how your links connect and fix the weak spots.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview cited Wikipedia, SEO tool blogs and YouTube, and linked Google's ranking systems guide. ChatGPT walked through the math with no sources and said PageRank "historically" helped Google rank results, though Google says it still does.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
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