What Is PageRank and Does Google Still Use It?

PageRank is Google's original link-analysis algorithm. It scores a page by the number and quality of the pages linking to it. And yes, Google still uses it. Its ranking systems guide says PageRank "continues to be part of our core ranking systems." What went away in 2016 was the public score, not the algorithm.

Where PageRank came from

Larry Page and Sergey Brin described PageRank in their 1998 Stanford paper on the prototype search engine that became Google. The name is a pun: it ranks web pages, and it's named after Larry Page.

Earlier search engines ranked mainly by the words on the page, which made them easy to fool. PageRank borrowed from academic citation analysis: a paper that many important papers cite is probably important. On the web, the citations are hyperlinks.

How the algorithm works, in plain terms

The paper frames PageRank as a "random surfer." Imagine someone who starts on a random page and keeps clicking links at random. Every so often they get bored and jump to a random page instead. A page's PageRank is the probability that this surfer is on it at any given moment.

Three properties come out of that model, and they still shape how links behave:

Value is recursive. A link is worth more when the linking page has lots of good links pointing at it. Authority is inherited, not declared.
Value divides. A page splits its value across all of its outbound links, so a link from a page with five links passes more than a link from a page with five hundred.
Value decays. The "gets bored" step is the damping factor, set to about 0.85 in the paper. Each hop passes on only part of the value, so a link three steps removed from an authoritative page carries less than a direct one.

One more property matters a lot and is often missed: PageRank doesn't depend on the search query. It's calculated from the link graph alone, before anyone searches. At search time Google combines it with relevance signals: what the page is about, how well it matches the query, whether it's helpful. A high-PageRank page that's irrelevant to the query still won't rank for it. That's why links alone never guarantee rankings.

For how that value moves through individual links, redirects and nofollow, see what link juice is and how it flows.

The toolbar score: rise and retirement

From 2000, the Google Toolbar showed every page a PageRank score from 0 to 10. The scale was logarithmic, so going from PR5 to PR6 was much harder than going from PR1 to PR2.

The public score did real damage:

It created a link market. Sites sold links priced by their toolbar PR, and buyers shopped by that single number.
It rewarded the wrong behaviour. Directory submissions, comment spam and link farms all existed partly to push a visible score up.
It was stale. Google refreshed the toolbar value only a few times a year, and the last refresh came in late 2013. For the next two years people traded links on numbers that were out of date.

Google removed toolbar PageRank entirely in 2016. The internal algorithm kept running; outsiders just lost the ability to see its output.

Does Google still use PageRank?

Yes. This comes straight from Google's documentation, so it isn't guesswork. The ranking systems guide lists "link analysis systems and PageRank" among Google's current systems. It says Google has "various systems that understand how pages link to each other," and that PageRank, "one of our core ranking systems used when Google first launched," remains part of them.

What has changed is how it's computed. The 1998 formula treated every link on a page as equally likely to be clicked. Later Google patents describe weighting links by how likely a real visitor is to click them (the "reasonable surfer" model), which is one reason in-content links outweigh footer links. Google also layers spam detection on top: links that its systems classify as manipulative are neutralised and pass nothing. So the PageRank Google uses today isn't the textbook formula, but it descends directly from it.

How to check PageRank today

You can't, and nobody outside Google can. Any site offering to show your "real PageRank" is selling an estimate or a fiction.

What exists instead are third-party metrics that mimic the idea by crawling the web and running their own link-graph calculations:

Metric	Provider	Scope
Domain Rating (DR)	Ahrefs	Whole domain
URL Rating (UR)	Ahrefs	Single page
Domain Authority (DA)	Moz	Whole domain
Page Authority (PA)	Moz	Single page

None of these are PageRank, and Google doesn't use any of them. They're useful for comparing sites, not as a readout of what Google thinks. Domain authority vs domain rating explains how the two main ones differ. The page-level metrics (UR, PA) are closer in spirit to PageRank, because PageRank is calculated per page, not per domain.

What PageRank means for your link decisions

The algorithm's logic still gives you a practical checklist:

Judge the linking page, not just the domain. PageRank flows page to page. A link from an orphaned page on a strong site can pass less than one from a well-linked article on a modest site.
Count the outbound links on that page. Fewer links means a bigger share for each.
Prefer links that sit in the body of the article. Under a reasonable-surfer model, a link a reader is likely to click carries more weight than one buried in a footer.
Pair authority with relevance. Because PageRank doesn't depend on the query, it only helps a page that already matches the searcher's intent.
Use your own internal links. Your strongest pages can pass PageRank to the pages you want to rank, and you don't need anyone's permission. See internal links in SEO.

That's also the logic behind a one-for-one exchange done properly. Backlinkster matches you with a site owner in your field, both links go inside a real article, and a real person checks that both are live before the swap counts.

Frequently asked questions

What is PageRank in simple terms? PageRank is Google's original method of scoring pages by the links pointing at them. A link works like a vote, and votes from pages that have many good links themselves count for more. Each page's value is shared among the links it contains.

Does Google still use PageRank in 2026? Yes. Google's own ranking systems guide says PageRank "continues to be part of our core ranking systems," while noting it has evolved a lot since 1998. What Google stopped doing, in 2016, was showing a public PageRank score in its toolbar.

Why did Google remove the PageRank toolbar? The public score encouraged link buying and link spam, with links priced by their toolbar PR. It was also refreshed rarely; the last update was in late 2013. Google retired the display in 2016. The algorithm itself kept running.

Is Domain Authority the same as PageRank? No. Domain Authority is a Moz metric and Domain Rating is an Ahrefs metric. Both are built from their own crawls of the web. They imitate the idea behind PageRank, but Google doesn't use them. PageRank is also scored per page, while DA and DR score whole domains.

Can I increase my PageRank? Indirectly, yes. Earn links from relevant pages that are themselves well linked, get those links placed inside the article body, and point internal links from your strongest pages to the ones you want to rank. You can't measure the result directly, but you can watch rankings and third-party metrics move.

The bottom line

PageRank is the link algorithm Google was built on, and Google says it still runs as a core ranking system in a much-evolved form. The public 0–10 score has been gone since 2016, so any number claiming to be your PageRank is an estimate. The ideas behind it haven't changed: links pass value, the value divides and decays, and it only helps a page that is already relevant. That's what should guide which links you pursue.