The Google Toolbar's feature displays a website's PageRank between number 0 and 10. Google has not disclosed the precise method for determining a Toolbar PageRank value. Google representatives, such as engineer Matt Cutts, have publicly indicated that the Toolbar PageRank is republished about once every three months, indicating that the Toolbar PageRank values are generally unreliable measurements of actual PageRank value for most periods of the year.

The name PageRank is a trademark of Google. The PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999 ). 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 1.8M shares in exchange for the patent. The shares were sold in 2005 for $336M.

1. Join forums related to your website, forums are a great way to achieve links to your website. Your websites presence is very important to your survival. The more people see, or hear about your website the more credibility you will have and this increases your chances of having these visitors come back and possibly become leads.

2. Submit to search engine directories. Search engine directories are a good way to get a free link to your website. They also increase your chances at being listed higher on popular search engines like Google, and overture. Most search engine directories allow you to submit to their website for free. This will allow you to increase your web presence by being listed on another search engine, and it will also be a free link. Remember the more links you have the higher your PR will be.

3. Using ezine ads (or newsletters). Creating an ezine will probably be the most beneficial step you can take to increasing your web presence. When you create a newsletter you will be able to keep visitors coming back to your website for more by using signatures and giving special deals.

4. Creating and publishing articles. Articles are an easy source of generating new traffic. You can include your signature in your article. This will bring in more traffic from article submission directories.

Your signature usually consists of 4 to 8 lines. Usually the first line would be the title of the website that you are trying to advertise. The last line would be the link to the website and the lines in between these would be a sales pitch to draw your viewers into your website.

5. Links from related websites. Gaining links from related websites can be one of the most frustrating tasks you can attempt. They are very easy to find, but can be somewhat difficult to obtain links from. To find related websites, all you have to do is go to a search engine like Google and type in your subject. Maybe your website is based on ford mustangs.

Google Page rank is based on back links. Back links are Links pointing to your website from another website. The more back links you have the higher your PR will be. But be carefull becose if you link to spammy sites, it could possibly lower your page rank.

The way the Google PageRank calculation works is still not 100% clear today, but I thought it might be useful to write the concept of the original mechanism down in plain English and show it using a simple example.

According to Sergey Brin and Lawrence (Larry) Page, Co-founders of Google, the PR of a webpage is calculated using this formula:
PR(A) = (1 – d) + d * SUM ((PR(I->A)/C(I))

Where:
PR(A) is the PageRank of your page A.
d is the damping factor, usually set to 0,85.
PR(I->A) is the PageRank of page I containing a link to page A.
C(I) is the number of links off page I.
PR(I->A)/C(I) is a PR-value page A receives from page I.
SUM (PR(I->A)/C(I)) is the sum of all PR-values page A receives from pages with links to page A..

In other words: The PR of a page is determined by the PR of every page I that has a link to page A. For every page I that points to page A, the PR of page I is devided by the number of links from page I. These values are cumulated and multiplied by 0,85. Finally 0,15 is added to this result, and this number represents the PR of page A.