Open PageRank: What the 0–10 Score Means

Open PageRank is a free, open domain score from 0 to 10, computed by running the PageRank idea over the public Common Crawl web graph. It exists because Google's own PageRank values are not public: Google does not publish a PageRank number for any site, so every "PageRank checker" you find today shows a third-party estimate, not Google's figure. Open PageRank is one of the better-documented of those estimates, which is why it turns up in expired-domain lists and SEO tools next to DR and Trust Flow.

Is PageRank still used by Google?

Yes, in its own form. Google's guide to its ranking systems describes PageRank as one of the core ranking systems it used when it first launched, says that how PageRank works "has evolved a lot since then," and states that it "continues to be part of our core ranking systems."

Two consequences follow for anyone who wants to check PageRank:

• The concept still matters. Links from important pages still carry weight in Google's systems.
• The number is out of reach. Google does not expose its values, and the system has evolved since the original published formula. Any public "PageRank" is a model of the idea, built on someone else's crawl.

That is the honest framing for Open PageRank: an open, transparent approximation of link importance, not a window into Google.

How Open PageRank is computed

The project's own methodology page describes the process in five steps. Open PageRank started at DomCop; its pages now live on the Keywords Everywhere site.

1. Start from the Common Crawl web graph, the public record of which sites link to which, published by the Common Crawl project.
2. Collapse hosts into registered domains using the Public Suffix List, so blog.example.com and www.example.com count as example.com.
3. Run PageRank across the whole graph. The underlying idea, in the methodology's words: "a domain is important when other important domains link to it."
4. Add a count of distinct referring domains, weighted by their own authority.
5. Combine both signals into the 0–10 score.

The page also says that domains showing link-network patterns are scored down toward zero. That is a useful property for expired-domain buyers, but it is a filter on one dataset, not a guarantee that a domain is clean.

How to read the 0–10 scale

Scores are shown to two decimals and the scale is logarithmic. In practice:

• Each step up is much harder than the last. Moving from 3 to 4 takes far more link authority than moving from 1 to 2. Do not read a 6 as "twice as good" as a 3.
• The top is nearly empty. The methodology says a perfect 10 is reserved for a small handful of global domains.
• Small differences are noise. Between two domains a few hundredths apart, the score does not decide anything.

There is no official "good" threshold. Like every authority metric, the number is relative: compare a candidate with other domains in the same niche, or with the sites that rank for the keywords you care about.

What Open PageRank does not tell you

The methodology lists the limits itself, and they are worth taking literally:

• Domain level only. It scores whole registered domains, not individual pages or subdomains.
• Monthly updates. Scores are recomputed each time Common Crawl publishes a new web graph, roughly once a month. Older history points, where the graph was not monthly, are interpolated and flagged as estimates.
• Thin coverage for some sites. Brand-new or fast-rising domains can read low for a release or two, and a site that blocks crawlers may be thinly represented.
• Links, not quality. In the methodology's words, it "measures link authority, not traffic, revenue or content quality."

It also inherits Common Crawl's view of the web: the link graph behind the score is a sample, just as Ahrefs' and Majestic's indexes are.

Using Open PageRank to vet an expired domain

For an expired domain, Open PageRank is most useful as a second opinion on link authority from an independent dataset. Ahrefs Domain Rating comes from Ahrefs' crawler, Trust Flow from Majestic's, and Open PageRank from Common Crawl. When three crawls agree, the signal is more believable than when one metric stands alone.

A simple routine:

1. Look up the domain's DR with the free DR checker and note its referring domains.
2. Look up its Open PageRank.
3. Compare the two. Agreement supports the link profile. A sharp disagreement is a reason to open the backlink list.
4. Check the archive history before trusting either number.

Worked example

Say you are comparing two expired domains with similar DR, both in the forties.

• Domain A has an Open PageRank in the mid-range of the scale, a few hundred referring domains from varied sites, and an archive showing a small software company's site.
• Domain B has an Open PageRank close to zero, a similar number of referring domains, and most of those domains were registered recently and link only to each other.

The DR values look alike, but the independent score disagrees sharply on Domain B. Given that Open PageRank scores link-network patterns down toward zero, the low reading is a hint that Domain B's DR may be inflated. Domain A goes on the shortlist; Domain B gets a closer look at its links or gets dropped.

The reverse also happens. A domain can have a low Open PageRank simply because Common Crawl covered it thinly. That is why the score works as a cross-check, never as the deciding number. Our guide to expired domain metrics shows how the rest of the set fits together, and the comparison of DR and DA covers the two most quoted alternatives. Semrush's Authority Score adds a traffic-based view that the link metrics lack.

Getting Open PageRank in bulk: the API

If you vet domains by the hundred, looking scores up one by one is slow. The methodology page links to an API that returns scores and their history, plus a free browser checker for single lookups. Request limits and pricing are set by the provider, so check its documentation for the current terms before you build on it.

In an automated workflow, the API usually sits in the screening stage: pull a list of expiring domains, fetch Open PageRank and DR for each, drop the ones where both are weak, and send the rest to manual history checks. hunter.domains does this kind of screening every day: Open PageRank is one of the inputs to the 0–100 Hunter score, next to DR, Trust Flow, referring domains, Semrush Authority Score, archive history, price and age. How the scoring works explains the full pipeline, and the live list of expired domains shows the result.

Frequently asked questions

Can I still check Google PageRank?

No. Google does not publish PageRank values for any site, so there is no official way to look one up. Tools that call themselves PageRank checkers show their own estimates, such as Open PageRank, which models the same idea on the Common Crawl link graph.

Is Open PageRank the same as Google PageRank?

No. It applies the PageRank idea to a different dataset, the public Common Crawl web graph, and adds a weighted count of referring domains. Google's PageRank has evolved since launch and runs on Google's own index, so the two numbers are not interchangeable.

How often is Open PageRank updated?

Scores are recomputed each time Common Crawl publishes a new web graph, which happens about once a month. A domain that gained or lost links recently may not show the change until a later release.

What is a good Open PageRank score?

There is no fixed threshold. The scale is logarithmic, so each step is harder to reach than the one below it, and 10 is reserved for a handful of global domains. Compare a domain with others in its niche, and read the score together with DR, referring domains and history.