Google do care about PR and update it every day and factor it into the search results every day! They have just not exported a useless historical representation of the that internal PR to the tool bar for a yr and probably are not going to do it again.
I believe that PR is no more than a metric for your personal satisfaction. Google and other search engines have grown smarter in many ways and they have their own internal evaluation system. And we should certainly not build links just to improve the PR alone because this is what Google has t say "Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site." https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356
Sure, there are many other factors to rank a page than a PR only, I see that a website with quality content published on a regular basic would build an authority for long term and archive solid ranking even though the PR is slow.
Right, PR is good to have, but it's one of the least important metrics I pay attention to when I market my sites. But of course, it's good to advertise on a high PR site. I guess slowly PR is actually becoming a result metric of other Google invisible indicators. I suppose PR is not passed on as easily nowadays. It may rather be an indicator that shows how well a page scores in terms of trust - in Google's eyes. Perhaps improving a bunch of other metrics will get you a decent PR, so we needn't run directly for high PR page listings. Just my assumption.
Yes because Page Rank is the must considerable thing in SEO. If you need a quality back links then you've to create links in High PR sites which may produce quality back links to your site. I am making to build my URL in high PR sites. Its never goes down if any Google's algorithm changes.
Cafe to explain how you actually know or work out the PR of a page given that Google have not exported an updated PR value for a yr now?
Google's spokesperson Erik has said - There may be no more PR updates from now in Oct 2013. But, they do have a PR update on Dec 2013. That means you don't have to get a PR to rank well. Websites with low PR also ranks well for doing their work being in guidelines. Also, a visitor won't bother about your Page Rank. He is not aware of the SEO tools and neither the importance. So if Google is getting lenient then why should anyone worry about that?
Now days we talk about Website's Authority. If you gain it, then your website can rank well on Search Engine.
Not true, Domain Authority scales with links, spam your site with links and the domain authority will rise but won't rise your ranking.
Definitely, PR has a similar importance as previous because we use PR to announce any news related to company as well as product launch and related to that. So, It is necessary to provide information in public about the news, product and services.
I'm sorry but I do believe we are discussing PR as in Page Rank and not Press Release. I mean no offense