Did checksum algorithm kill Google Toolbar Page Rank?
One might point out that it is also highly unethical to public Google Page Rank algorithm. Google has invested massive amounts of money and time to develop a proprietary measure for their own private, internal use. Not true. Google used a public domain hash algorithm written by Bob Jenkins in the mid-1990s. The algorithm was explained in an article in Dr.Dobbs magazine in September 1997. Google didn’t even exist yet. The code is on Jenkins’ site and it’s clearly marked as public domain, free for the taking, for any use whatsoever. There’s an “initval” in the code that seeds the algorithm. Google’s initval is 0xE6359A60. This is one of two things that are specific to Google in the code. The other is that they stick the word “info:” in front of the URL before hashing it. That’s no secret either, since they also do this in the QUERY_STRING that phones home. After Page Rank checksum algorithm source code was public Google says: “The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for e
