Page Rank From Google Toolbar?

I recently realized that the Google toolbar on my laptop has a Page Rank button which ranks the current page and will list similar pages to the one that's currently open.

I've also heard that some sites can fool the toolbar.

I was wondering if the people here that use the Google toolbar have used that feature much? -Ricardo

The Google Toolbar doesn't rank the current page it gives an indication of the PageRank for the page. -SpeedRacer

I've been wondering how the page rank feature on the Google tool bar is able to indicate anything at all. Doesn't page rank change frequently? On this particular page, it doesn't show any indication at all which is kind of hard for me to believe. -ozzie

The Google Toolbar gets the information from Google for each page you visit.

Google PageRank changes periodically. If this page was created after the last PageRank update then typically you would have to wait until the next update before you would see a change in Toolbar PageRank. -SpeedRacer

Google Pagerank changes once in 3 months time and i dont think any site can fool google toolbar to display false pagerank. -mtajim

There are actually some tools to show fake page rank. I read that if Google finds out that you are doing this to your site then you can get into trouble in the SERPS. -jimberan

I have have a firefox plugin that lets you (when turn on with one click) see page rank, age of domain, backlinks from yahoo, msn, google, etc.. etc.. its a cool free plugin. -oceanline

Ok , thats something good, i will see if that plugin is n my browser too -mtajim

Its a great plug in for the Firefox browser. I use it myself as well and its a great little tool to use to help with SEO. -jimberan

Here is the link for the free download:
http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html

Nope its not my site, wish it was though! -oceanline

But you should know one thing while using Googlt toolbar for Pagerank , using that feature you are sending the list of sites you visit to the google's server, everytime you visit a site , the toolbar pings the google server to fetch the pagerank and in turn leave the record of your viewing habit -mtajim

As long as you visit normal websites then what is the big problem behind Google knowing what sites you visit. It is not like some staff member is going through the reconds of every internet user. -jimberan

Google tool bar indicates popularity of the web page and it cannot be fooled. -dowal1