I see everyone talking about it, I just don't know where to check and is it best to have a lower number or higher number?? One last question, how is it determined? Thanks
There are dozens of methods of doing this, each of them appropriate at certain times. Read this: How do I find the PR (Page Rank) for my page? PR0 is bad. PR10 is the stuff dreams are made of. Most of us live in the PR4-7 zone. PageRank is determined by a semi-secret Google formula. Read this: Page Rank Explained with Bright Colors
I wrote an article explaining how PR is calculated. You can find it at Google PageRank, & How to Get It:. To find out what you PR is you need the Google tool bar or to use one of the other tools such as Digital Point's Keyword Tracker tool. However Google hasn't done a PR update in several months so the tool bar and all these tools are really of limited value.
I think most of your questions have been answered. Just like to add that although the Google toolbar hasn't been updated in a while, most webmasters would look at your PR as per the toolbar, to decide whether to exchange links with you or not. Secondly, remember that in the long run all that matters is your rankings on search engines that get a lot of traffic. At the moment, Google's the king and PR's the secret to high rankings but it might change in the future. BUT, it is quite likely that even in the future the basis for locating "important" and "relevant" sites would have to do with inbound links to your site, so it would make good sense to go out and get some links (as many as you can) from high PR and relevant sites in your industry. 'Cos at the end of the day, not only will this help raise your rankings and PR, you might also gain from the traffic you get directly from these sites.
PR plays a role in the background of increasing positioning on Google, but there is no real way to figure out what your current PR is. The google toolbar PR showings are updated like once every 3 or 4 months it seems, and that's the only release to the public that Google gives of page rank. Like everyone else said.. Concentrate on targeted backlinks and watch your search engine positioning rather than getting concerned with page rank.
PR is just like a tie, the higher the more elegant. It's of little practical importance, but it's nice and it gives a good impression, or at least it helps to not give a bad one!
I kind of like www.prsearch.net - especially for link: or even site: searches. It shows you PR and IBLs.
Oh, thanks for that. The site: searches are cool... some of my category pages are higher PR than the pages I target with link building
I think, wwhhomes, you are right. Good content is definitely great, Good content does give you higher indexing, higher traffic and, i think lastly higher PR too