Google has officially shut down toolbar PageRank to the general public. Meaning, internally Google will still be using the data, but it will no longer be visible to the public.

If you’ve noticed, this took effect last Friday, when Google removed all access to its official toolbar, as well as any other third party tool that accesses the data.

What is PageRank?

PageRank is used to determine the overall authority of a website on a scale of 1 – 10. PageRank score is also used to weight the value of inbound links. When this information was publicly available, it led to all kinds of black hat tactics such as selling links, spamming links, and so on.

Google will still be using PageRank score when determining how to rank content in search results, but individual webmasters will not have access to their PageRank score.

Algorithm to Rank Websites

PageRank is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank websites in their search engine results. PageRank was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google.

PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages.

According to Google:

PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.

It is not the only algorithm used by Google to order search engine results, but it is the first algorithm that was used by the company, and it is the best-known.