I do value PR but not as much as many others seem to do. PR is great, but I place much more value on SERPs and actual traffic.
I don't value PR - at least not now. SERP is what I'm after (as I'm sure everyone else). If I find a site I think my visitors will find useful, I could care a less of its PR. My two brand new sites have low - if any - PR. In fact, I don't even have the toolbar loaded anymore.
PageRank can be important in terms of measuring your success, but if your goal is a high PageRank (versus a good Website), I think you've missed the boat.
It all depends on what type of business you are in. For example of you are the kind of person who sells links. Well PR is all you care about, like directory owners or blog network owners. Now if your the kind of person who is after getting traffic to your site, and making money. Then ofcourse you are after serps. So it all comes down what kind of business are you into.
I voted yes because of the entertainment value! Its fun to see if my PR goes up or down with my link building progress (or lack of). It also adds value to forums like this where people argue about PR and its value! But thats about it, i am amused by people who think high PR will make their website the cat's ass.
Since PR is a part of Google's total package, to that extent I pay attention to it, just as I pay attention to using good keywords, good titles, good content, getting quality links, and much more. Effective webmastering doesn't overlook any aspect of improving our websites.
It is one of the tools I use to see how well I am doing. So I value it as a tool, because it is a Google tool I value it more than a few others. Lets face it, if you have a PR5+ you are doing something right. People are linking to your site and Google seems to think you are not doing anything 'weird'. And also it doesn't hurt if you are selling a link or two FFMG
HI all I voted for yes because I value PR. It is valuable because it increase my business. For others it depends on their business.
Yes, i do believed what G told about PR is the heart of their ranking system. Better take it without doubt.
I value PR mainly because other people do... if theres a market for PR5+ links, I want to be able to cater to it... if a higher PR raises the price I can sell a website for, then thats obviously something I want to be aiming towards. Aside from that, the only site of mine on which I truly take pride in the PR is the home of my internet radio station. This is because almost all backlinks have been generated because we have popular, original content that other people choose to link to without any prompting from ourselves - so knowing that we have quality backlinks simply because we have a good website/service; and not by tactically setting out to acquire them definitely gives me a sense of achievement. Thats not to say that purposefully taking steps to acquire backlinks through directories etc etc is a bad thing; its just a different type of situation from this one.