[Toby Lane]

Originally Posted by Robert Worthington

Today I went from a PR of zero to a PR of 2. I'm a fan!

Me too! Happy to have a PR, finally.

[samsojo]

No change on mine, but I noticed that some of my backward links have dropped...

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

Mine havent changed in years. I think i am stuck at a PR2

[homes for sale anchorage]

Oh well I use SEO Toolbar upon monitoring my websites PR. And it really gives me an idea in which rank I am now in Google.^^

[donnalong]

It seems like at least an indication of how well you are doing on the web...

[thataway61]

Hey Donna, tell Wayne to tighten up a notch and get you a little more PR on the next go round!

I think my blog jumped up to 3 and haven't noticed any other changes.

[nvawin]

PageRank is basically dead. Google has quietly gotten rid of PageRank in Webmaster Tools.

Susan Moskwa, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, explained the reason for the removal: We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.

Moskwa pretty much closes the case on Google's position on it. In fact, she even points to a FAQ page about crawling, indexing, and ranking, which says that webmasters shouldn't even bother thinking about it. It also says that PageRank is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed, and ranked.

From Googles FAQ page -

Q: My site's PageRank has gone up / gone down / not changed in months!

A: Don't worry. In fact, don't bother thinking about it. We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it's easy doesn't mean it's useful for you as a site owner. If you're looking for metrics, we'd encourage you to check out Analytics, think about conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), relevancy, or other metrics that actually correlate to meaningful gains for your website or business.

Hope this helps folks to understand.

Win

[VRI]

Nvawin, so your position is that Google has invested tons: time, effort, public relations campaign, monitoring spam reports, etc, in stamping out the buying and selling of links for pr purposes because it doesn't matter?

[nvawin]

VRI wrote -
"... so your position is that Google has invested tons: time, effort, public relations campaign, monitoring spam reports, etc, in stamping out the buying and selling of links for pr purposes because it doesn't matter?"

Not my position, but Google's position... whether you want to believe them or not. As Google writes, "We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked." Feel free to read it for yourself in their Webmaster Help Forum on the FAQ page.

Regards,
Win

[Eric Blackwell]

Win;

With respect, I'd like to clarify a couple of things and hopefully add to VRI's point a bit.

Were too many people fixated on Toolbar PR? Without a doubt. It was as good as currency and was bought and sold. Google did not want that and thus made the statements that you quoted plus many others. It is advice well heeded NOT to buy or sell links.

That said, is true Authority read:backlinks (and the PR that they generate-eventually refected in the toolbar) important, in fact a huge piece of how you rank? Without a doubt.

I don't want to speak for VRI, but I will posit my own opinion. Do you need to watch the toolbar every day? No. But if you build authority over time and work at it, you will get ranking and that little green bar will magically grow as well.

Yes it is only one of 200 factors, depending how you cut them up...but how are they weighted? It is a big multiple regression analysis that changes constantly. I am constantly testing things and I can tell you true authority (PR) carries significant weight.

I think giving folks the idea that PR does not matter can too easily be interpreted into backlinks do not matter. They do. Google's intention was to slow or stop the buying and selling of links based on Toolbar PR in my opinion.

So don't sweat the little green foolbar, but build true and lasting authority and it will take care of itsself in my opinion...grin