Check Google PageRank for keywords: what replaced the score and what to measure instead

Google retired the public PageRank score in 2016, and PageRank was never a per keyword number in the first place. It scored a page by its links, with no keyword involved. So the request splits into two real checks. To see how a page performs for a keyword, open the Performance report in Google Search Console, filter to the page, and read the position and clicks for each query. To see how strong a page is by links, use a third party authority score such as Ahrefs' Domain Rating and URL Rating, Semrush's Authority Score, Moz's Domain Authority or Majestic's Trust Flow. Run both and you have everything the old toolbar number was being used as a proxy for.

This is worth getting straight because a lot of advice still written in PageRank terms leads to the wrong work. Chasing a link score produces links nobody clicks. Chasing a position produces pages buyers read.

What PageRank was, and what it was not

PageRank came out of the original Stanford work behind Google: a page is important if important pages link to it, calculated across the whole link graph. Crucially it is a property of a page, not of a page and a query together. It said nothing about whether a page was about plumbing or about pianos.

Google showed a 0 to 10 version of it in the Google Toolbar for years. The toolbar number stopped being refreshed, and Google removed it from public view in 2016. Google has continued to describe link analysis as part of how its systems work, so the concept did not disappear; the public number did. Anything on the web today labelled as your Google PageRank is a third party estimate, and it is honest to treat it as that vendor's model rather than as Google's data.

The three checks that answer what you meant

The question behind it	The check	Where
How is my page doing for this keyword?	Average position, impressions, clicks and click through rate for that query on that page	Google Search Console, free, for sites you have verified
How strong is this page by links?	A page level link score plus the referring domain count for that exact URL	Any backlink tool, and the Links report in Search Console for the underlying list
Are my links relevant to this keyword?	Anchor text distribution and the subjects of the linking pages	A backlink tool, read by hand rather than by score

That third check is the closest thing to a per keyword link score, and no tool computes it for you properly. Doing it by hand takes twenty minutes: list the twenty strongest links to the page, and mark each one as on subject, adjacent, or unrelated. A page with eight on subject links beats a page with forty unrelated ones far more often than the headline scores suggest.

Running the per keyword check properly

1. Pick the page, not the site. Rankings happen at page level, so filter Search Console to one URL before you read anything.
2. Read the query list under it. You will usually find the page already ranks for phrases you never targeted. Those are the cheapest wins available to you.
3. Filter by country and device. An average across every market is a number nobody can act on.
4. Compare the three month trend, not yesterday. Use the date comparison so you are reading direction rather than noise.
5. Add the link picture for the same URL. Referring domains to that page, anchor text, and which of your own pages link to it internally.

Two numbers then tell you what to do. Strong position and weak links means the page is winning on content, so leave it alone and copy its structure elsewhere. Weak position and strong links means the content is not answering the query, and rewriting it is the fastest fix on your whole site.

The internal link score you can actually control

The useful half of the PageRank idea is internal. Link value flows through your own navigation and your own body links, and you decide where it goes. Three habits move more than any outreach campaign on most sites:

• Link from your strongest pages to your most commercial ones, in body text, with descriptive anchors.
• Find orphan pages, the ones nothing links to, with a crawl. They are invisible to a link based system however good they are.
• Keep important pages within three clicks of the home page. Depth is the quietest cause of pages that never rank.

For the audit that finds the gaps, see internal linking.

A table you can keep

One row per important keyword turns both checks into a single working document.

Column	What goes in it
Keyword	The query as people type it
Target URL	The one page you intend to rank, decided in advance
Position	Average position for that query, country and device, from Search Console
Clicks and impressions	Last 28 days, so you can see demand as well as placement
Referring domains to the URL	From your backlink tool, for this page not the domain
Internal links in	How many of your own pages link to it, and from where
Top three competitors	The URLs ranking above you, with their referring domain counts
Next action	Rewrite, merge, link internally, or earn links. One of four, chosen from the two numbers

This page covers what happened to PageRank and which checks replace it. For how position is measured and reported, see keyword rank tracking. For what makes a link valuable in the first place, see what is a backlink.

Check Google PageRank for keywords: the parts people ask about twice

Can I see my PageRank anywhere?

Not as a Google number. The public score was removed in 2016. The vendor scores are the practical substitute, and the Links report in Search Console gives you the underlying list that Google itself holds for your site.

Is Domain Authority the same as PageRank?

No. Domain Authority, Domain Rating and Authority Score are each one vendor's model, trained on that vendor's crawl of the web. They are useful for ordering a list of sites inside one tool and they are not interchangeable between tools.

Does PageRank still exist inside Google?

Google has described link analysis as part of its ranking systems, so treat the principle as live and the public number as gone. The practical version of the principle is simple: links from relevant, genuinely useful pages help, and the rest is noise.

Should I use nofollow to keep link value on my own site?

No. Sculpting internal link value with nofollow stopped working a long time ago. Control the flow with your navigation, your body links and your site depth instead, which works and is easier to maintain.

What single number should I report to a manager?

Clicks from search to the pages that make money, with position as the supporting detail. It is the number that changes when the work is right, and the one nobody has to take on trust. For a full scorecard, see SEO KPIs.

Three checks, and a fourth

The three checks replace the score people ask for. A fourth answers the question behind it: is this site trusted enough to be repeated? An assistant gives a direct reading. Ask it about your topic and see whether it names you, and from which source. There is no number, only a name or its absence, and that is enough to act on. AI Knows Us runs that for a set of keywords and keeps the record.