While Google is still updating everyone's page rank, we thought we'd give you a little info on what it is, why it matters, and how you can fix yours!

Google says: "PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh more heavily and help to make other pages 'important.'"

Some say page rank may not be as important as it was once, as meta-tags used to be the be all and end all of search engine results, page rank too has lost some impact. However, these aspects of a website's existence are not useless and each adds a bit of weight when it comes to getting your site a better placement in search rankings.

To check your current page rank on 199 unique data sources click here, enter the URL you're interested in checking and hit the button.

Your results may be anything from 10 (sites like Microsoft and Google rate an easy 10) to negative 1 (and yes, there are tons of sites with such a deficit) - but wherever you are in the scale of things, it can be a fairly simple task getting that number nudged up a bit.
Here's how:

Links, links, links!
The more genuine links back to your site, the better! It's that simple.

So - If you know people like your blog, if your traffic shows the audience is there - give them a way to link back to you and show how much they love you!
Adding a simple 80 x 15 graphic button (you can make them here for free!) and a bit of code to allow your visitors to add your link to their own website is one way (like we've done here.)

And of course, listing your blog in our fabulous directory is an option.

If you have any suggestions for how else to increase page rank on a blog, or why it's important, leave a comment!