The page rank (PR) toolbar is more of a tool than a glossary term but, for lack of a better place to describe it and tell those of you who don't already have it downloaded where to get it, I'm covering it here. The toolbar is a free tool from Google that will show, among other information tidbits, the page rank of a web page you are visiting. The Google tool bar shows with green shading how much page rank a site has. Here's a picture of the Google Toolbar with the page rank component identified:
If you hover your curser over the green bar you'll get a number between 0 and 10. The higher the number the more green bar you'll see.
There are some real drawbacks with toolbar PR. First it's shown in digital whole number increments. Real page rank is not digital but more analog so the tool rounds up or down. The toolbar is only updated by Google every 90 - 120 days and there is no announcement of when an update is occurring (it takes a couple days) and the information used to update the toolbar is by some estimates over 30 days old. Thus, the toolbar is always outdated even right after a toolbar update.
But it is in wide use because it's convenient to use (it shows you the page rank for every page automatically) and there is no better, more accurate tool to use. If you don't have the toolbar installed but would like to get it, watch the following video that shows you how. It takes only about 4 minutes.
