PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is also called the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E).

The name “PageRank” is a trademark of Google, and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999). However, the patent is assigned to Stanford University and not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on the patent from Stanford University. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sold in 2005 for $336 million.

Page Rank add-ons for Chrome shows the Google PageRank for the current website.

01. Install Google Chrome from http://www.google.com/chrome.
02. Download the Chrome Channel Switcher.
03. Launch the channel switcher, and subscribe to the dev channel. See below:

04. Download Page Rank addons for Chrome.
05. Locate a Chrome shortcut, right click on it, and choose “Properties” from the contextual menu.
06. Locate the “Target” item in the Properties dialog
07. Attach “–enable-extensions” to the end of the string in the “Target” item. E.g. “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –enable-extensions
08. Copy pagerank.crx into drive C:
09. Open Chrome with “file:///C:/pagerank.crx”
10. You will be prompted whether to install it. Say “Yes, I Do”, or click “OK”:
11. Restart Google Chrome
12. Done! You should be able to see Page Rank display on left bottom corner for any particular website.