Identifying the most important nodes, or ranking the node importance by using the method of quantitative analysis in large scale networks are important problems in the complex networks. In this article, the metrics for node importance ranking in complex networks are reviewed and the latest progresses in this field are summarized from two prospects: the network structure and the spreading dynamics. The merits, weaknesses and applicable conditions of different node importance ranking metrics are analyzed. Finally, several important open problems are outlined as possible future directions.