We address the fundamental question why we should use PageRank and similar link-based algorithms in search engines. if at all. In a legendary article from 1998. the Google founders gave an intriguing wisdom-of-crowds justification for PageRank according to which the latter tracks quality online. https://www.roneverhart.com/HP-Pavilion-15-eg2373cl-15-6-FHD-Touch-Laptop-Intel-Core-i7-1255U-3-50-GHz-GeForce-MX550-16GB-DDR4-512GB-SSD-Windows--p8309/