Page Rank is a mathematical formula used by Google and published for public review to calculate the of the importance of any given page. Originally Google relied heavily on the page rank in determining the rankings of any given web site.  Today it is all but ignored.  It is common to see top ranking web sites with page rank of only '2', '3' or '4'.  And while it is still a great indication of a site's overall link quality,   the rank of the page should be taken with a grain of salt.

Before we get started, here are a few definitions in regards to paycheck

PR:	abbreviation for PageRank: real, page rank for each page as computed by Google. As we’ll see later this can very from 0.15 to billions.
Toolbar PR:	The PageRank shown in the Google toolbar in your browser. This ranges from 0 to 10.
Backlink:	If page A links to page B , then page B is said to have a “backlink” from page A.

PageRank is displayed on the toolbar of your browser if you’ve installed the Google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com/ ). But the Toolbar PageRank only goes from 0 – 10 and seems to be something like a logarithmic scale:

Toolbar PageRank (log base 10) Real PageRank 0 0 - 10 1 100 - 1,000 2 1,000 - 10,000 3 10,000 - 100,000 4 and so on...

As stated before,Page rank is barely used anymore, But that doesn't mean a page rank zero site is not a stinker or brand-new.  So should you care about page rank?  Of course. But it's not the be-all and end-all of everything.  It's better to have a high page and download page rank, but it's better to be at the top of most search engines.  Techniques for getting high page are very much the same as techniques for getting to the top of the search engines!   Always keep in mind, and you've heard this before:  All the links in the world are not going to make up for a lack of quality content!