If you qualify publishers for outreach, you need to inspect the record behind a current link measurement. Two sites can report the same PageRank this month and be entirely different prospects. One has held that position for four years; the other reached it in March. The history is what separates them.
Three measurements, always together
Every answer reports the registrable domain, the host you asked for, and that host's www variant.
All three appear because a host and its www variant are counted separately in the link graph and their numbers do not agree. Neither alone is the whole answer, so choosing one to display would hide the other.
Subdomains are distinct: blog.example.com and example.com are different hosts with different measurements.
The chart behavior to know before reading one
From January 2026 the underlying graph began counting www.example.com separately from example.com. For sites serving from the www hostname, the bare host's figure falls close to nothing from that month and the www figure increases.
The worked example is an anonymized host: host 56 and www 0 through December 2025, then host 31 and www 56 from January 2026 onward.
Nothing happened to that website. The measurement moved.
The chart uses the bare host before January 2026 and the www host from that month onward to show one line for the site. Apply the same rule when analyzing exported rows. Otherwise, www-served sites will appear to have declined sharply in January 2026.
What each shape suggests
| Shape across the monthly record | Reading |
|---|---|
| Steady | Established and holding. Approach, and expect competition for placement. |
| Rising consistently | Gaining attention. The best time to build a relationship is before it is obvious. |
| Peaked, then declining for two years | Losing ground, possibly unmaintained. Check whether it still publishes. |
| Flat and near zero throughout | Never established. Judge on audience alone. |
| One sharp drop | Check the month before concluding anything. January 2026 is the measurement change. |
The declining case is the one a current value hides completely, and it is common among directories and resource sites that were maintained for a period and then were not.
PRoT, and where to use it
PRoT is PageRank over Time: the PageRank values for every month held in the graph added together. Its purpose is to find a domain that has been strong for a long time rather than one that is strong only now.
Two sites with identical current values can have very different PRoT values, because one has a longer or higher record behind it. PRoT alone does not say which explanation applies, so read it with the monthly chart rather than instead of it.
Its practical use is filtering. Minimum domain and host PRoT filters are available in the opportunity and brand page reports, which narrows two hundred candidates to the ones with a sustained record in one step. The Link Graph pages themselves show PageRank only.
Batch lookups
A batch accepts up to 100 hostnames. A longer list is refused outright with both counts named, and nothing in it is looked up.
The refusal is complete on purpose: a partial answer would return the first hundred rows and leave you to notice the rest were missing.
What the measurement cannot establish
It describes link structure. It says nothing about editorial standards, audience quality, or whether the site would accept your contribution.
Measurements are monthly, so the newest figure reflects the most recent completed measurement rather than today, and charts are drawn from January 2020.
Use it to order a prospect list you already believe in, then read the publication. A strong link history cannot establish that a site serves your buyer.
Before prioritizing a publisher, compare the history with its actual audience and the page where your contribution would belong.
See how the measurements are produced, checking a prospect's history, or the Link Graph report.