How the Google PageRank system changed my life. (Part 1)

I had started my blog-city blog on the 30th of June in 2005. Though I already had a blogspot account, I chose blog-city because it was easier to fumble with than blogspot. I just kept blabbering about my life, and I really didn’t care how I was read, or whether I was read at all. But as the months passed, I found my blog rising up… The Google PageRank system.

I was surprised, in mid-2006, when a girl sent me a yahoo messenger message saying that she’d like to sign me up on a paid-link system. I was told to get a Google Toolbar, so I could see my Google PageRank for myself.

I was unable to download the Toolbar that time because I was on a very corrupted Win98 system. But I did find a website that does the job almost as well as the toolbar (see PRChecker below).

I was surprised and flattered when I saw that I was already on Google PR #3! I mean, for a newbie at blogging, to rise up the Google PageRank system isn’t easy. My other blogs on other hosts haven’t fared as well as my blog-city account, despite them being online longer.

The Google PageRank system has helped me more than anything else in the Google arsenal. It has helped me sign on other bloggers, and it has helped me with my own paid-link gigS.

For gas money and ego-boosting, the PageRank system has helped me in more ways than one. It is now a constant in my life, and I doubt I’ll even think of living without it. :p

That being said, now, every time I wipe out the OS’s on my old desktop and reinstall Firefox, I always make it a point to download the Google Toolbar and enable the PageRank system.

If, however, you’re on a browser that does not support the Google Toolbar, you still have other alternatives.  I used to use http://www.prchecker.info/. Another, simpler, easier-to-use site is http://www.checkpagerank.com/. While PRChecker has much too many texts and icons and is generally messy to the eyes, CheckPageRank is just a one-click solution to your PR Checking needs. It has a yummy brown interface that really reminds me of Ubuntu Linux. There is also http://pr.blogflux.com/, which is just a little less messy to the eyes as PRChecker, the ads still get to me, and I am more likely to recommend CheckPageRank than anything else.

So what is the significance of the PageRank? Well, if you’re a business owner, you can track of the hits to your website and feel your ego bloat a little every time you go up one PR. You could also think of the rankings as a gauge to your profits. If you are a “blog overlord”, you can track how successful you are in the blogosphere through the PageRank system, and then you can strategize how you can improve your ranking. If you’re a blogger looking to get some gas money from your blog, you can check your PR to make sure that you actually qualify for the blog ad companies you eye and save yourself from the blow to your ego if they reject you.

If you want to see the PageRank of the websites, webpages and blogs that you visit as soon as you land on the page, you better get the Google Toolbar. I must admit that having to type the URL’s on the browser-based checkers, or even just to copy-paste them could make you lose seconds.

Besides, with my experience with PRChecker, I once checked a friend’s blog, and she had a PR of 3. When the people at the paid-link company checked with their toolbar, my friend’s blog had zero Google PR. So my advice? Go for the Google Toolbar!

(continued…)