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PageRank Indicator For Linux And Mac OS X

Posted by timothy on from the show-me-the-numbers dept.

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."

19 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. ...without being restricted to a ... browser? by headshrinker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a Firefox browser plugin, right? Surely that means you are restricted to a browser - Firefox? Or am I missing something obvious?

    1. Re:...without being restricted to a ... browser? by canadianjoe · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not really. I think what he meant was that you're not restricted to IE anymore.

    2. Re:...without being restricted to a ... browser? by The+Ogre · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's working fine for me under Mozilla 1.7b (windows version, ack)

    3. Re:...without being restricted to a ... browser? by Feztaa · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, the plugin is restricted to firefox, but since pagerank is now available between this plugin AND the google toolbar, you get to choose between IE and firefox, so no, you are not restricted to a browser anymore.

  2. Does it work? by platipusrc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just installed the toolbar from the page linked, and there is a blank spot in the middle of the toolbar that displays "PageRank" when I hover over it with the cursor. I visited several pages, and no number has shown up there yet. I'm using FreeBSD, but should that present a problem? There were no errors on install and the toolbar seems like it showed up ok...

    --
    And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
    1. Re:Does it work? by Ivan+the+Terrible · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Apparently not. I too have "a blank spot in the middle of the toolbar that displays "PageRank" when I hover over it with the cursor" but otherwise, nothing.

      I assume that it only works when you select a site that's a result of a Google search.

    2. Re:Does it work? by lylonius · · Score: 2, Informative

      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

    3. Re:Does it work? by lylonius · · Score: 5, Informative

      taken from http://dance.efactory.de/

      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- auto&
      ch=0123456789&
      features=Rank&
      q=info:http ://www.domain.com/

      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.

  3. Who gives a F? by chris_mahan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Honestly, pagerank is not high on my priority of things to look at (to put it mildly).

    It's a nice gimmick, granted, to look at it, but since I'm not trying to play the google game, I couldn't really care less.

    --

    "Piter, too, is dead."

    1. Re:Who gives a F? by I_Love_Pocky! · · Score: 4, Funny

      And yet you cared enought to let us all know you couldn't care less!

      My day is brighter for having shared in your pessimism. Thanks!

  4. googlebar? by whiteSanjuro · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  5. Re:Yes, but... by gavinroy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes, I'm using it right now.

  6. How does it work? Can it scale? by peterdaly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am guessing this has been done without google's permission. That being said, I wonder if he is doing a "native" call to google on his server to get the reading, or if it's some type of hack to a win32 toolbar.

    I heave already heard the reading is really a graphic that comes off of Nick's site, and not a direct call to Google from the toolbar. If it's a Win32/IE toolbar reader hack, it may have scalability problems...not to mention Nick's bandwith and server being a bottleneck.

    Anyone know if these things have been taken into account? I'm worried this is still a beta/hack level project that is about to get a slashdotting of it's own.

    -Pete

    --
    Soccer Goal Plans
  7. Re:How does it work? Can it scale? by lylonius · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  8. Slow, and not accurate. by iamsure · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
  9. Toolbar checksum by JamesDotCom · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  10. Re:I have to ask... by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 4, Funny
    Why? Did the devil make you do it?

    And yes, I'm sure that both Nick Stallman and Richard Stallman have relations, though not necessarily common ones.

  11. Search Engine Optimization as a profession by sirdude · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How is this viewed by everyone? What do these guys actually do?

    From what I can tell they just go around posting link after link all over the Internet to boost a website's pagerank.. And I've noticed a lot of them like to bombard wikis and newsgroups/fora with random links etc.

    Is that pretty much it?

  12. It downloads images from nickstallman.net by adelton · · Score: 5, Informative

    A quick grep through the source shows that the functionality of the plugin can be summarized as

    http://toolbar.nickstallman.net/toolbar.php?url= ht tp://www.asdf.com/

    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.