The Handy Dandy
Google Page Rank Figurin' Guide

There are two types of PageRank numbers that Google currently will give for a specific page. One is the toolbar PageRank shown on the Google toolbar. This number varies from 0 - 10. The other type of PageRank is in the Google directory. There is no number for it, but by using the chart below - you will be able to figure it out. In the Google directory, if a site is ranked high enough, it has a green bar listed to the left of it. The Google directory is a copy of the dmoz. If you are in the dmoz, then you will be added to the Google directory automatically.


from: directory.Google.com/Top/Business/Major_Companies/Publicly_Traded/A/

The green bar is actually composed of two graphics - a green block and a grey block. The green block and grey block are assigned various widths to make the different bars you see. If you look at the source code for the bar next to amazon.com you will see the following two graphics:

"/img/pos.gif" width=32, height=4
"/img/neg.gif" width=8 height=4

The pos.gif is the green part of the bar and the neg.gif is the grey part of the bar.

By simply looking at the values for pos.gif and neg.gif - you can determine a value for your Directory PageRank.

Using the pos.gif will give you a number that you can use and keep track of over time. I also put the values of 1st thru 7th for people that want to use them instead. Why would you want to do this if you can just use the toolbar? Most people don't need to, but if you are really interested in PR, you may find that by combining the two you can get a more accurate idea of your PageRank (More about this later). You can also take the total width of the bar, which is 40, and use that to come up with percentages (we will use different ones later):

Now, back to Google being rated 11 out of 10. A few months ago - I noticed something strange when I visited a page on the Google directory. It is still there as of today:

from: directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Searching/Search_Engines/Google/

Notice how the top 5 listings are out of alignment with the rest of the page. The cause for this is Google's directory PageRank. If you combine the positive and negative gifs together for any page on the web you get a value of 40. That was true a year ago, and is still true today, except for one page. Google.com. Every page I could find, for example, with a toolbar ranking of PR 10 - has a directory PR of 38 out of 40 (with a neg.gif of 2).

However, the directory PR for Google has changed. Google is now a 44. Even the page Google is on has a maximum of 40. Next to the Google graphic is a cleardot.gif that also has a width of 40. This is usually used as a space holder for listings that have no PR bar, but in this case - Google has placed this next to their 44 width pos.gif. This is what is actually causing the misalignment. (Google also changed the 6th highest PR on the directory from 33 to 32).

Now with a scale of 44 on every other page in the directory - Google is rated a 44. This is the same as an 11 on a scale of 10. How did this happen? Did Google do this on purpose? It would appear so. I fail to see how the cleardot.gif could get mixed up with the pos.gif on this page and no other pages that I have seen. It would appear to have been done manually. Why would they do this?

I find it hard to believe this was done to deceive people as to Google's true rating. With all their Ph.D.s and even a brain surgeon on staff - I find it difficult to believe they wouldn't have done a better job if they were trying to boost their ranking. Also, it isn't like Google really needs a higher ranking. Even without this error - they are probably in the top three or four sites on the web as far as PR goes. Perhaps a joke by a Google employee that wants to let the world know he or she thinks Google is an 11.

It is possible that there was some sort of error in converting Google's internal/raw PR # (which is not made public, but is used in their calculations). Perhaps Goggle's raw PR was higher than they expected any page in their directory to be - and the computer some how came up with this number. Some may suggest that this is a recalibration of their ranking system. However, as explained below, it would not make sense, because even if one adjusts the scales for this - it would not coincide with observations made of other sites.

Using both directory and toolbar PR to come up with a more accurate PageRank

The following is a graph of directory PR over toolbar PR. There are several ways these could be aligned, but I feel the below graphic is fairly accurate. For example, If both graphs are justified left and right, then it doesn't work well as it makes all pages with a toolbar PR of 10 a directory PR 44. This is not the case for any page, but Google. I also found quite a few pages with no directory PR, but with a toolbar PR of 1. This allows me to believe there is a PR0 for directory PR and not merely pages that Google hasn't indexed. I gave each ranking an equal threshold and set the directory PR to 110% of Toolbar PR. Even though Google is rated a PR 44 in the directory, I feel that the scale tops out with the old high number - 38. If I center the toolbar graph under the directory graph, the pages do not match up with what I have observed. I can find examples that do not allow for this type of overlap.

With the scale at 38 - I was able to find examples of every overlap (shown below). From Google having a PR of 44 in the directory and 10 in the toolbar to pages that were PR 1 in the toolbar and no graphic next to them in the Directory. I consider these directory PR0s. There are also PR0s in both the directory and toolbar. I was able to match up numerous sites from large pages of the directory with close to what would be predicted from the percentages below. For example, on one page I found a total of 246 PR5s and PR6s - all directory PR 22.

The total number of PR5s amounted to 36% and PR6s amounted to 63%. This was less than 1% point different as estimated by the percentage gaps. By simply making the scale set to 40 instead of 38, this caused the percentages to be off about 5 times as much. Similarly, while using a scale of 38, it worked out better with a selection of PR 2,3, and 4s as well as 6, 7, and 8s than it did with the scale set at 40. Both finding examples of every combination, and noticing fairly accurate approximations of percentage distributions of Page Rank matching their predicted values - I feel that the chart below is accurate. The example urls were accurate and measured the date of this article. Note that the percentages are approximate due to rounding, but the table below with the example urls contains more accurate figures.

Please note that the directory and toolbar update at different times of the month. If you follow the updates - this should be no problem. Even if you do not - this will give you the best guess you can get for the time being.

I originally made this page to help people determine their Google PageRank. There was a time in the distant past where the Google toolbar was not giving a number when someone moused over it. I made the original graphic for this page to help people assign a number to their page by looking at where the green line ended under the words "PageRank". For example - if the green bar stopped right under the "n" in "Rank" - that page was a 9, and if it stopped between the "g" and "e" in "Page" it was a 4. Google has since fixed this bug and now a simple mouseover is all you need to determine your PageRank. Sometimes this seems to stop working, but in general - most people don't have a problem.

Here is a link to the Original PageRank Figurin' Guide if you want to use that graphic again.

Resources:

http://www.google.com/
toolbar.google.com
directory.google.com
www.google.com/technology/index.html

The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
Efficient Crawling Through URL Ordering
The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web (PDF)

WebmasterWorld Google Forum

Handy Dandy Page Rank Figurin' Guide - Copyright ©2001 - 2002, Chris Raimondi
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