Mypageranka reference guide to search engines and website metrics

An independent reference on search engines and website metrics. Not affiliated with the former service on this domain, Google or Yandex; we do not provide PageRank buttons or values.

a reference guide to search engines and website metrics

Mypagerank — how search engines evaluate websites

Website owners once put buttons showing a PageRank number on their pages and watched it as if it were the only score that mattered. That public score no longer exists, but the questions remain: how does a search engine find a page, why doesn't it get indexed, what are robots.txt and sitemaps for, what do link attributes mean, and how much weight should you give a domain "authority" score from a third-party tool? This reference collects calm, plain explanations based on search engine documentation and open standards. No ranking promises, no link selling and no made-up numbers.

No number from a third-party tool can tell you how a search engine really evaluates your site. Official tools, however, will honestly tell you whether it can see your pages.

— Editor's note

Where to start

I'm launching a website

A step-by-step guide to what to check before launch so that search engines can find and index your pages.

I want to understand links

A reading list on links without spam: the nofollow, sponsored and ugc attributes and search engine policies.

Reference sections

  • Reference sections

    Map of the reference: PageRank and the history of metrics, indexing, links and their attributes, site-owner tools.

  • Practical guides

    How to check a website before launch, step by step. Plus a catalogue of upcoming articles.

  • Questions and answers

    Short answers about PageRank, indexing, links and website metrics.

  • Reading lists

    Reading paths: your first website, the history of search metrics, links without spam.

  • Glossary

    Glossary of terms: search and indexing, links, metrics.

  • New publications

    A dated feed of new publications in the reference.

  • Archive

    All materials by date and topic, plus a note on the domain's former addresses.

Example: five steps to check whether a search engine can see your page

  1. Open the page as an ordinary visitor

    The page should load without logging in and without server errors. If only you can see it after signing in, a search engine crawler won't see it either.

  2. Check robots.txt

    Open the robots.txt file at the root of your site and make sure the section containing the page is not blocked from crawling. Remember: robots.txt controls crawling but does not guarantee the page stays out of the index.

  3. Look for a noindex directive in the code

    Check whether the page carries a technical instruction telling search engines not to index it. Such directives are often left over from a staging version of the site.

  4. Make sure other pages link to it

    Search engines discover pages mainly through links and sitemaps. A page that nothing links to and that isn't in your sitemap can go unnoticed for a long time.

  5. Check your webmaster tools

    Google Search Console and Yandex Webmaster show whether the search engine knows about the page and whether there are problems crawling it. This is data from the search engines themselves, not a third-party estimate.

Common questions in brief

Where can I check my site's PageRank?

Nowhere. Public updates to the PageRank score stopped at the end of 2013, and in 2016 Google removed it from public view for good. Services that call their own number "PageRank" today are showing their own estimate, not Google data.

Is this the old PageRank button service?

No. This domain used to host a service offering PageRank indicator buttons. The current reference is not affiliated with it, does not provide PageRank buttons or values, and the former service's charts no longer work and will not be restored.

Do you help sites rank higher?

No. We don't promote websites, sell links or promise better rankings. We explain how search engines find and index pages and what rules they set, so that you can understand your own site.

Where does your information come from?

From search engine documentation and policies (Google Search Central and Yandex Help for webmasters), from open standards (RFC 9309, sitemaps.org) and from the original 1998 paper on the Google search engine. We don't publish unverifiable figures or invent algorithms.

About the project

Mypagerank is an independent reference project. This domain used to host a service offering PageRank indicator buttons; the current reference is not affiliated with it, and the former service's buttons and charts no longer work and will not be restored. The site does not present itself as the former service, Google or Yandex, and does not show PageRank values.

We write for website owners, editors and anyone curious about how search works: where the idea of PageRank came from and why the public score disappeared, how search engines crawl and index pages, what robots.txt and sitemaps are for, what link attributes mean, and how official tools differ from third-party metrics. We describe link buying and link schemes the way search engines themselves describe them: as policy violations.

Sources

  • S. Brin, L. Page — "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine" (1998)
  • Google Search Central — documentation and spam policies
  • Yandex Help for webmasters
  • RFC 9309 (Robots Exclusion Protocol)
  • sitemaps.org

Information is current as of the date of preparation. Search engine documentation, policies and webmaster tools change over time, so always check the latest details in the original sources.