There are many posts on the forum, telling that PR is not important. I do disagree. If you measuring efficiency of the website promotion, it may be true. Then, as Google advices, you are better to concentrate on more important factors for your business, such as ROI, conversions, etc. But what if I am not a webmaster, but want to measure site’s quality from the outside (i.e. to place my ads on it, to exchange links)? Then I’ll use all the tools to test it: PR, AlexaRank, Yahoo! BL. And it may give me an approximate evaluation of site’s quality above what I can see from it contents. At the moment Google's technology is to be trusted the most (in my opinion). So it’s gonna be very sad, if they stop supporting it.
Why would they drop it? It is also used in the search ranking algorithm. Doesn't play a HUGE role but it is used. Just read their patent and their website and it clearly explains that.
Where did you heard that Google will no longer supporting PR? Do you know the meaning of PR mean Larry Page, one of the founders of Google? so don't worry, be happy.
If you are not a webmaster then chances are if someone said PR to you then answer would be p-what? The truth is mostly only webmasters know what pr is. The general public does not have a clue. Google will never get rid of PR as it is there founding calculation however thye may very well get rid of toolbar pr keeping the calculation internal only. We all know that toolbar pr is as Google put's it "for entertainment purpouses only". It's kind of like a psichic hotline some people believe it works and others know better. Hey maybe Google should have a 1-900 number to check pr at $1.00 per minute. Now that's a thought.
I don't agree that only webmasters know what pr is. If I were the owner of Google, not an engineer like Matt, I surely would want more non-webmaster people know what pagerank is.
I agree that Google may want this but from what I have found by asking many people is that most business owners etc. Just plainly do not know what it is, In fact many website owners don't know either. These people put trust in SEO firms and rely on reccomendations etc.. Top companies have an SEO working for them or a team of SEO's these are the people that know and not the general public. On a side note that is the beauty of forums like this is that we can agree and disagree and the people who read them come to their own conclusions.
The REAL Truth: PageRank is how Google orders the web internally. It is what allows them to search 50 billion pages for millions of searchers every day and return results in just a quarter of a second. When Google was small, the number of relevant results for any query was small. Not anymore. Now the results that could qualify as good results far exceed what anyone wants, so they have to find ways to be even more selective. As the web continues to grow at a mind-bending rate, you can expect PageRank to actually grow in importance as it is currently the best means to choose among millions of relevant results.
Agree with those saying that Google has no reason to drop the greenbar from the toolbar. I myself would not have real reason to keep toolbar installed if there was no PR indicator anymore. I am aware they collect some search behavior data with it but so far the green bar justifies it. When gone, I ain’t sharing my searches with them.
Believe me they have other ways to collect search data. I am not against pr. I am aginst the abuse that has come of it. I think Google is thinking on the same lines. In fact I know they are. They have been working on ways to stop that abuse. First by cracking down on paid links that are sold striclty for the influence of pr and second byt removing it from tools. We must remember the green pr bar is a convenience and to many abuse that convenience. Look at the amount of daily post on this forum as an example. If the toolbar was gone today what would some people post about? some people have tried by making a post such as "official pr thread" with good intentions but no avail. Minutes later another post will pop up "when is the next pr update" Pr contest" Pr poll" etc.. Not only is pr being abused but this forum is being abused. In fact if I were Shawn or one of the mod's I ould think about shutting down the right to post anything about pr if this keeps up. It has been out of hand for years now and many people just don't seem to get it. What are you gaining by starting these threads " your one monent of fame"? Post something useful.
I think you can see a good site by its SERP, don't you agree? I have seend pr0 sites as first result for important keywords in google.
PR IS unimportant when you place your entire focus around it. It's like a reward for proper development and marketing, nothing more.
Just think about it this way... What is pagerank? The result of incoming links that defines the "value" or rather, trustworthiness of the website. Does it affect rankings? HELL NO, it just displays the results of how many inbound links your site has received, what actually affects rankings actually is the number and quality of the inbound links. I already blogged about this (after I saw loads of threads here on DP) on my post does pagerank affect rankings ... but I guess I explained myself better in this comment lol.
I always wondered why google took it so hard against directories. Blog spam is gigantic compared to directories There are 1 milion blog pages full of crap for 1 directory page.
If selling my blogroll in the links sales forum is what I based my pay on I guess I better quit now and go back to a regular job that I left years ago. Being found in serps and getting visitors is what is important. No wonder there is always so many people in the links sales forum?? Hmm I could make a few bucks a day there.. Nah I will stay getting a steady above average income where I am.. Sometimes you need to look outside the box you are in. When you do that maybe you can succeed with a very good income online. Read this successs story and you will learn something http://redfoxseo.com/?p=3 This is an inspiration to anyone