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PageRank Indicator For Linux And Mac OS X
HackWire writes "Google's PageRank has only been available in your web-browser by installing the toolbar restricting use to Windows and Internet Explorer. Nick Stallman has created a module for Firefox to show PageRank from within the browser, within three easy steps Linux and Mac (even Windows) users can now see PageRank without being restricted to a OS or browser."
Not really. I think what he meant was that you're not restricted to IE anymore.
It's working fine for me under Mozilla 1.7b (windows version, ack)
the firefox/mozilla plug-in googlebar will probably integrate this soon. it is already very equivalent to the IE toolbar provided by google, in terms of its google-related functionality. although i don't find the information useful, it is good to see this progress.
Yes, I'm using it right now.
Good point.
The URI that google uses to phone home was reverse engineered in the past and google promptly changed its algorithm.
This is fairly easy to do since the google toolbar phones home for updates as well. and, well, you can't block the request since it defeats the functionality of having the pagerank feature enabled to begin with.
Though, otoh, I don't see any good reason for google preventing this functionality to spread to other browsers/os since they most likely value the surfing habits of more users more than any value from locking the pagerank to IE only.
tcpdump -s0 -X 'dst net (216.239/16 or 66.102/16) or dst host (nickstallman.net or www.nickstallman.net or seo.nickstallman.net)
outputs nothing.
If that's too noisy for your network segment, here are all of the google VIPs:
Domain IP Address
www-ex.google.com 216.239.33.100
www-sj.google.com 216.239.35.100
www-va.google.com 216.239.37.100
www-dc.google.com 216.239.39.100
www-ab.google.com 216.239.51.100
www-in.google.com 216.239.53.100
www-zu.google.com 216.239.55.100
www-cw.google.com 216.239.57.100
www-fi.google.com 216.239.41.100
www-gv.google.com 216.239.59.100
www-kr.google.com 66.102.11.100
www-mc.google.com 66.102.7.100
www-lm.google.com 66.102.9.100
I tested side-by-side with a number of sites, and its not reporting the same thing that the IE googlebar does.
On many sites, it takes a LONG time to get it, and then it simply displays "10", which needless to say is inaccurate.
Even does it on sourceforge.net.
I'm guessing its not scaling well, and the slashdot effect is messing it up.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
taken from http://dance.efactory.de/
- auto&p ://www.domain.com/
Most webmasters are interested in ranking changes for their website during the Google Dance. But, besides that, many also want to know about their new PageRank values. Normally, the Google Toolbar fetches the PageRank values from the data center that is specified by its IP address in the actual DNS record for www.google.com. Hence, when the Google Dance begins, the Toolbar usually displays the old PageRank values.
Google submits PageRank values in simple text files to the Toolbar. In former times, this happened via XML. The switch to text files occured in August 2002. The PageRank files can be requested directly from the domain www.google.com. Basically, the URLs for those files look like follows (without line breaks):
http://www.google.com/search?
client=navclient
ch=0123456789&
features=Rank&
q=info:htt
There is only one line of text in the PageRank files. The last cipher in this line is PageRank.
The parameters incorporated in the above shown URL are inevitable for the display of the PageRank files in a browser. The value "navclient-auto" for the parameter "client" identifies the Toolbar. Via the parameter "q" the URL is submitted. The value "Rank" for the parameter "features" determines that the PageRank files are requested. If it is omitted, Google's servers still transmit XML files. The parameter "ch" transfers a checksum for the URL to Google, whereby this checksum can only change when the Toolbar version is updated by Google.
The PageRank files that are requested by the Google Toolbar are cached by the Internet Explorer. So, their URLs and the checksums can simply been found out by having a look at the folder Temporary Internet Files. Knowing the checksums of your URLs, you can view the PageRank files in your browser. Since the PageRank files are kept in the browser cache and, thus, are clearly visible, and as long as requests are not automated, watching the PageRank files in a browser should not be a violation of Google's Terms of Service. However, you should be cautious. The Toolbar submits its own User-Agent to Google. It is:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; GoogleToolbar 1.1.60-deleon; OS SE 4.10)
1.1.60-deleon is a Toolbar version which may of course change. OS is the operating system that you have installed. So, Google is able to identify requests by browsers, if they do not go out via a proxy and if the User-Agent is not modified accordingly.
Now, let's see how we can get the new PageRank values. Taking a look at IE's cache, you will notice that the PageRank files are not requested from the domain www.google.com but from IP addresses like 216.239.33.102. Additionally, the PageRank files' URLs often contain a parameter "failedip" that is set to values like "216.239.35.102;1111" (Its function is not absolutely clear). However, it is pretty easy to get the new PageRank values. Simply modify the IP addresses in the URL so that the request goes to one of the data centers that already has the new index. The necessary information is given above.
The problem with the Google toolbar/Pagerank display in the past has been that along with each request sent to Google it was accompanied by a checksum from the toolbar.
Every so often Google would change the checksum and notify the toolbars, and as a result would break the 3rd party applications. The catch was however, that if your pagerank request contained an old/invalid checksum instead of returning and invalid response, Google would return a bogus pagerank for that page.
At least that's what it was doing approximately 2/3 years ago when I was employed to do SEO and decided to take a look. I'm not sure if that has changed, or the method that is being used for this toolbar.
A quick grep through the source shows that the functionality of the plugin can be summarized as
= ht tp://www.asdf.com/
http://toolbar.nickstallman.net/toolbar.php?url
returning PNG. So yes, it works by using processing on toolbar.nickstallman.net and you can easily call the functionality from any browser you like, however, it will be easy for Google to close access for him when they see fit, so it does not look like a long-term solution.
On the other hand, this was the first time that I saw PageRank for some of my pages, so it is a nice toy.
Opera uses Mozilla plugins. When you install opera, it creates a netscape plugins key in the registry.