PageRank is a number assigned by Google and is an indicator of an individual page’s value. The higher the number indicates to the search engine that this page has legitimate and useful content. Even though content is not part of the PageRank calculation itself. PageRank does not rank websites as a whole, but is determined for each individual page.
PageRank is based on the number of links pointing to a website. These links are also called backlinks. Google assumes that when a page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. It stands to reason the more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. In addition to just the number of links pointing to a site, the importance of the page that is casting the vote is another factor in determining page rank. And the importance of the page casting the vote is determined by its page rank. Therefore it’s not just the number of links pointing to a website, but also the page rank of where the links are coming from. Each PageRank level is progressively harder to reach.
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.
To check how your site is doing on PageRank you can use free tools to get full information on a website backlinks and more.