How to find out PageRank of a site or web page in Google Chrome in view of the fact that there is no Google Toolbar for Google Chrome?
Well, it is almost one year now that the Google Chrome was launched on September 2, 2008, in the form of a Beta version. The public stable version was also launched on December 11, 2008. Meanwhile, there have also been some subsequent Beta releases of Google Chrome. For example, I am using the Beta release 3.0.195.6 of Chrome released last week on August 5, 2009. However, it looks strange that Google has so far not released its Google Toolbar for its own Google Chrome. As of now, Google Toolbar is available only for two other browsers, namely, Internet Explorer and Firefox.
One of the goodies that I often miss on Google Chorme is PageRank Display which is available in the other two browsers, viz., Internet Explorer and Firefox through the Google Toolbar. PageRank Display allows you to immediately know whether a website is worth your efforts, the moment a particular website loads in your browser. Of course, it is not to suggest that PageRank is the only or the perfect measure of the worthiness of a website; there is a lot of material on the Internet which can easily show that many people have been artificially boosting the PageRank of their websites. Moreover, there are a large number of websites which are very useful to their users despite having low PageRank. At the same time, Google has been very alert and continuously monitors such sites which try to manipulate the PageRank by undesirable means. All said and done, the fact remains that PageRank is one of the most important indicators of the worthiness of a website. PageRank tells you how Google assesses the importance of a particular web page or website. So, the moment you notice a high PageRank for a new website that you are viewing in your browser, you are reassured of the importance of that site.
So, how to find out the PageRank of a website or a web page in Google Chrome in the absence of Google Toolbar in that browser? Well, one simple method is go to certain websites which tell you the PageRank on query and specifically query the PageRank of a website by inputting its address. Another method is to open the same website in Internet Explorer or Firefox with Google Toolbar installed therein. However, these are cumbersome methods and you have to temporarily leave the website you are viewing. Moreover, we want some utility which can immediately show the PageRank of a website within that browser window itself. Fortunately, there are methods to improvise it.
There are several sites which provide a simple bookmarklet (a bookmark containing Javascript) which you can place on the Bookmarks bar in your Google Chrome. For example, visit this site for one such bookmarket. After placing it on the Bookmarks bar of Google Chrome, simply click it whenever you want to find out the PageRank of the website presently being viewed in the Chrome browser, and it will display the PageRank (along with the Alexa rank as a bonus) of that site in a small Chrome window, as shown below:
If you are using the Developer version of Google Chrome (which supports extensions since May 12, 2009), you can also get a PageRank Extension for Google Chrome from the above site which is basically a toolbar extension. It will automatically display the PageRank of the current web page without there being need to click on any bookmark (see the adjoining image).
There are many similar variations of such bookmarklet to display PageRank in Google Chrome and you can easily search them by typing “PageRank Google Chrome” in Google search. For example, visit another such site, which would display the PageRank of a site as under:
However, in case, you want to be slightly more adventurous (and know a bit of PHP and javascript) and desire to develop your own bookmarket for finding out the PageRank of the current web page, you can find the PHP script on this website. Happy coding!
Caution: Please note that Google discourages querying its servers for collecting information. Excessive use of such queries on Google servers may even result into your IP address getting banned by Google.
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