According to webworkshop.net, "PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page's importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page's PageRank is calculated.

PageRank is Google's way of deciding a page's importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determine a page's ranking in the search results. It isn't the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one.

Now you can check the Google PageRank of any web page without installing the Google toolbar ! Its free and easy - just enter your domain name or URL below and press the button.

For better results, include "www." (if applicable). Note that the pagerank of http://yoursite.com might be different than the PR of http://www.yoursite.com.