tedster - 6:24 pm on Nov 30, 2007 (gmt 0)

First, your PageRank is not something you know in real time - Google calculates PR continually for ranking calculation, but they only update the toolbar reporting a couple times a year. So you only ever get to see a historical snapshot of your page's PR.

But ranking itself - as in showing up well in the search results - is another story. History is important, but not as in a set length of time. Rather, what events have occurred around the web that touch on your domain. I've seen new sites get good news coverage and pop into the rankings right away when that happens. But it's more common for ranking to take 4-6 months, or even longer, to rank on the short, more competitive searches.