Google's PageRank is often a misunderstood metric in the ranking of Web pages on Google.

I have heard people tell me that PageRank comes from your on-page content, your actual ranking position in the Google results, and raw number of inbound links pointing to your site. All of these explanations are false.

PageRank is simply a representation of the number and quality of links pointing to a Web site. The key here is quality of links. And the quality of links is based on the links pointing to the linking site.

In the process of link development for Google optimization, PageRank is an important concept to grasp. If you are optimizing for Google and you don't feel like you really understand PageRank, check out this very good explanation of PageRank at Web Rank Info.

Have a great week!

[UPDATE - Just as I finished writing this I realized that Google must have updated their visible PageRank. If you haven't checked your PageRank lately, today is a good day :) ]