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September 16, 2004

PageRank Checksum Algorithm

I'm not going to talk about the magic here, just a little background. If you don't know what PageRank(PR) is, read below. You can check the PR by installing Google's toolbar, it enables you to search with Google on any websites, also includes a popup blocker, a very useful tool even if you don't care about PR.

Google's PageRank checksum algorithm was hacked several months ago. What can people do with it? According to my understanding, webmasters can use it to display the PR of a web page(view example), before the hack came out, the only way to see PR is installing Google's toolbar, but it only has Windows version, many Linux/Mac webmasters have to install Windows just for it.

Google noticed the hack and changed the algorithm recently, interestingly Google is not as lucky as before, it was hacked immediately after the change, maybe it got the attention from talented hackers. I'm sure Google has many very gifted engineers, what will they do? Let's see.

By the way, I really can't understand one thing about Google - they still haven't released it's toolbar for other systems (Linux, Mac) or other browsers (Mozilla, Firefox), it's a shame for Google IMO.

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What is PR (Page Rank)? (from search engine FAQ)
PR, or Page Rank, is a number assigned by Google which represents to relative importance of a web page.

The PR for a web page can vary between 0 and 10. PR is assigned to individual web pages, not to websites.

PR is calculated using a complex secret formula which seems to be under constant change. In general, the more web pages that link to your web page, the higher the PR of your page will be.

Posted by dvd software at September 16, 2004 11:51 PM

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