PageRank (PR) is Googles way of measuring the quality and relative importance of your website to searchers. Its purpose is to give web surfers an idea of the importance of a website

PageRank is measured on a scale of 0 to 10. Your PageRank depends on the amount of web pages that link to yours, and the PRs of each of those pages.

It can take up to three months for a new website to be assigned a PageRank depending on when Google decides to do the Google Update, where all websites PRs are reviewed.

A thousand links from pages with low PageRanks can eventually achieve as high a PR as that from a few web pages with high PRs. Some website owners research the value of a potential link partners PR before deciding whether or not to link with them.

Its true that a web page with a high PageRank can pass on a high PR to you, but this can be offset if the page has too many links on it, because the PR is distributed proportionally to all the web pages it links to.

A page with a low PR may be worth linking to

The website may be very new and you will have to wait for the Google Update before the value of linking with that website can be determined. Never link with a website merely because they have a high PR consider the content of the website and its relevance to your target market as well.

Misconceptions Addressed:

A High PageRank does not mean you will rank at the top of Googles results pages; it merely means that your website is well established on the Internet and that if your website is listed in the Google Directory it will be listed above similar websites with lower PageRanks. It is debateable, but the only true benefits of a high PageRank are that visitors that come across your site and see on the Google Toolbar that you have a high rank may perceive you as a more professional business, and that you are may receive more traffic from the Google Directory.