The pagerank is a technology developed by the search engine Google, which allows to know the popularity of a web page. The pagerank is between 0 and 10. The higher the pagerank (called too PR) of a web page is, The better it will be rated in Google. The pagerank is calculated about 4 times a year, during the famous "Google Dance".

The principle is easy and is based on backlinks ("coming back links"). The more a web page has good quality backlinks, (which means that this page is linked by higher pagerank pages), the higher its pagerank will be, and the better its ranking in Google will be. So, a link to a webpage is considered as a vote for this page. Nevertheless, the bad quality links ( lower pagerank) are not good for the page. INote that backlinks from institutional websites considered as good sites (.edu and .org) give a "serious" image of the web page and so contribute to raise its pagerank.

You can use the pagerank checker provided by Google, the Google Toolbar, which is a pagerank calculator and checker. This tool tests and calculates in a real time the pagerank of the site you are visiting to check it. Nevertheless, pagerank-direct.com offers you the fastest service to test and check the pagerank of each of your web pages, and, of course, for free.

To display your pagerank, you only have to calculate your page rank thanks to the form and then to copy the HTML code provided (without any modification), and to paste it on your web pages. So, your real time page rank will be displayed on each of your pages, and so your visitors will know it and will be able to test the service to display by themselves their pagerank on their own website.
Once your pagerank will be displayed, it will be visible by everybody, in order to show the popularity of your website, and provide a link allowing to every webmaster to display their own pageranks on their website.

You can join many directories which will make raise the number of your backlinks and so your pagerank. Nevertheless, they will be bad backlinks.
The best way to increase your pagerank is easy : doing a quality website with a regularly updated content, and which interests your Internet users. So, many webmasters will make backlinks to your web page, which will help to increase your pagerank, and so your Google ranking and so the number of your visitors.

Good luck !