Google’s PageRank Explained or Why you should’ve paid attention in Math 319

Okay, I’m still reading How Google Finds Your Needle in the Web’s Haystack, but this much is clear:

PageRank is complicated.

My motivation for posting this is entirely selfish. Next time someone asks “can you tell Google to put my page at the top?” I can reply “that all depends on your eigenvalues, here’s a link.”

I don’t know about you, but in my experience, using the word eigenvalue usually puts an end to any conversation.