You'll get a neverending arguement over this - the fact is - we all agree that it is some type of measurement. - I personally think it's crap to get companies to pay more for SEO to bring search engines even more traffic... think about this: why in the hell would Google introduce their "pagerank bar" - ask yourself - if any of you have a logical answer, please let me know.
I have noticed better placement with more linkbacks, and since the PR update, I have also dropped my spot on many good keywords as my PR did not increase.
I think PR is only good in Google, a PR of 10 in Google (which is like impossible to reach) probably has no meaning in Yahoo, but is excellent if your in the Google database
i believe pr is still something. it gives your site's impression that it's relevant. but, if you're hoping to get high SERPs because of PR, then there's no guarantee that PR can extremely affect such, albeit it may give tad scores.
PR isn't an impression of relevancy at all. How is Google.com (PR10) relevant to a dog and cat grooming site? PR is JUST a value derived from the Pageranks of the pages that link to the page itself. Nothing else.
People need to stop confusing what the cause and effect is with this issue. PR has no affect on SERPs. PR is the result. It is affected by other factors (like link popularity) that also affect SERPs. Those other factors will have an affect on the different search engines, just to differing degrees. PR is nothing more than a calculation that shows the relative link popularity of a site. PR can be very useful if one takes the time to understand what it is and what it is not. If one looks at a PR2 page and a PR5 page for instance, one knows that the PR5 page probably has more inbound links and/or is on a site that is more established than the PR2 page. So does Yahoo use Google's PR calculation? No they do not, however Yahoo does use many of the same factors that Google uses to calculate PR, so a site with high PR will also probably have advantages in Yahoo's SERPs. Again, PR does not affect SERPs. PR is simply a gauge of the "link popularity" of a page/site. It is the "link popularity" that has an affect on SERPs. Although the extent of that affect is debatable.
PR is important when you sell text links and such, because others want it aswell. Other than that, I doubt it matters because I know sites that are big without a PR whatsoever!
i think google wants to impress peeps by putting PR 10 on their site since google's the inventor of such tool... just kidding! perhaps, the other side of relevancy is when your site drives sooo much traffic, other than the relevancy in content and link structure/link building structure.
All else aside, PR matters because it still matters to a lot of people. For example, you can sell a text link on a PR7 site for $X and one on a PR4 site for $Y. Many advertisers look at PRs when deciding which sites to advertise on. As long as Google continues to assign PRs, it will continue to matter to a lot people. If Google decides to discard PR, I'm sure someone else will be only too happy to come up with something similar.
PageRank has become the basis for value on the internet. Look at statcounter.com - This guy makes about 100,000 a month because he has a pr10 - Without his pagerank he is just another site with alot of links pointing to it. When you think about this it's scarry. On ebay page ranked domains sell all day long and without their pagerank they are just domains. Domains in the range of pr4 to pr8 base their value because of their pagerank. When you think about it Google holds the life of your business/site in their hands. The value and how your site comes up in the listings is controled by them...
All of that is because the majority of webmasters are mistaken into thinking pagerank actually means something. They see all these sites with high pageranks at the top of the SERPS and think it's that pagerank that got them there. It's not, it's the many links from quality sites that got them there and gave them the PR. I'm happy for people to continue thinking that as it makes my job easier.
Really you are mincing words too closely. Granted PR is the result not the cause, but this is irrelevant. A site that has a high PR also tends to be more established, have stronger traffic patterns, better positions in SERPs and more back links. It doesn't matter whether high PR affects SERPs or back links and site age affects SERPs and PR. The fact remains that a high PR is a sign of a site that tends to have favorable characteristics that make advertising on it more valuable and trading links with more beneficial.
That's avery dangerous thing to assume. I have a PR 7 site under my contol at the moment that receives less than 30 uniques per day. If you're looking to buy advertising based on anything I'd always check traffic stats and not rely on looking at pagerank.
Like I said, "IN GENERAL", there will always be exceptions to the rule, however, it is still a valid factor to evaluate when trying to determine whether or not to advertise on a website. Personally I also look at other characterisitics as well, but before digging too deep I'm going to first look at PR because it is easy to use. Maybe a high PR isn't a guarantee of a high traffic, high value site, but low PR is a pretty good sign of low advertising/link exchange value
Personally if I'm looking at link exchanges I take a relevent site over a non-relevent one, simple as that. After last year too many non-relevant link exchanges seem to be a ticket to a penalty.