PageRank

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. PageRank was invented at Stanford University by Larry Page as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine.[502] The project started in 1995 and led to a functional prototype, named Google, in 1998. Shortly after, Larry Page founded Google Inc., the company behind the Google search engine.