Some peole believe in a myth that says "PR doesn't matter". They are basically at one extreme. On the other hand, way too many folks believe in PR thinking SEO=PR at the other extreme. Get the balance, and you will discover how PR is closely connected to SERP in MANY cases.
Think like this, better PR means, better SE position (but not necesarelly) and also alot of backlinks which might generate traffic. What if you have a good PR, a good traffic but not targeted, for example you have a virtual clothes shop.. PR won't guarantee people will buy your products. So yes, PR does matter in a big way, but not fully.
for me it matters and important as well, its just that it is not the most important thing there are other things to consider.
APEHCTAHT has just posted a cool research here - he shows that a site that it #1 in Google among 136,000,000 (!!!) other sites has a PR of 4... So, do you still believe that PR matters?
Pagerank is depend on - How many incoming links to your site - How quality for each incoming links - How theme related for each incoming links but Pagerank is nor relied on ranking algo. for now. There are many facts that Google using in ranking websites under their algo.
PR won't push your SERP directly. But quality backlinks would do. But then when you define what backlinks are quality, PR gets involved. Relevant links with PR0 link shouldn't be better than that of PR5, for example. PR really doesn't matter in SEO?? But I think I like some ppl to think that way though. I don't like a heavy competition
If you ever get to see/talk to Mike Grehan, please ask him this very question ... and take a dictaphone
A friend's site with a PR of 0 (yes, 0) appear 3rd for the search result 'premade vbulletin skins', beating DP. It only mentions the phrase in the header, and has very little content. Digital point has a much larger PR and contained the term in the title and several times on the page. A little more proof that Google ranks content over PR.
Yes, but as we all see, PR varies. It depends on the Data center you use. So that is why majority of the SEOs just ignore the PR.
He he.. Mike is not a fan of the TBPR fanatics ... even did an interview with Matt Cutts about it at one point...
i would understand of PR was assigned by some irrelevant 3rd party but its being given by the same company that runs the search, thats why im say it HAS to matter
No one is saying it DOESN'T matter, just that it doesn't matter nearly as much as people see to think it does. The actual PR (not TBPR) was first devalued in 2004 (Florida/HillTop updates) and has slipped further, especially with Big Daddy Also read;; http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Search-Engines/The-Google-Toolbar-PageRank-Demystified.html
Im not sure how "unhappy" they really are. No matter what they say. The fact that people exchange links like crazy, makes it easy for googles spiders to traverse the web. If webmasters don't exchange links, googlebot won't get around so easy (obviously). There may be some links they can do without. But their search results benefit from the rest. Bison
Yes it helps google ... to decide which sites to ignore... Seriously though: link exchanges with quality sites are alright. But link exchanges with any site that you can get to link to you is not likely to be useful to visitors, nor is it going to help you get higher in the SERPS. I've said it before and I'll say it again: any link you put on your site that does not benefit your users/readers, does not benefit your ranking either.