afaik, there is little (if any) difference in how sites are "pageranked." having a self-hosted website does give you much more control over it than a free service though.
1. Go to http://toolbar.google.com/ and download Google Toolbar, following installation instructions provided.
2. If already not loaded, load the Google Toolbar in your browser.
3. On the Google Toolbar hit the “settings button” and “select options”.
4. Click on the “More tab ”
5. Find the section labeled “even more buttons”
6. Select “PageRank and Page Info”
7. Click Apply
Now you can see the Pagerank of every web page you visit as well.