I was looking to get links from a blog, but think the PR is fake. I used a couple of the fake page rank checkers online, but I don't know how reliable they are. Can you guys give some tips for checking if PR is real or not. The domain in question is several years old, but only shows to have been updated very recently with whois query. Thanks in advance.
The best way is to google for it using: info:domain.com If the domain appears to be the same, the pagerank is OK. If another domain appears, the pagerank is fake.
I always use this tool to check the authenticity of a site's page rank http://www.seologs.com/pr-check/pagerank.html
Check the site index in Google to make sure the cashed page is the same as the one you see, and then use the info:domain.com as advised above to make sure it's showing the same domain... however you can always check the backlinks of that particular website or URL to analyze it instep to be more sure it deserve that PR value.