Can a new website have high serp rankings without PR juice?

I make new websites all the time. I want to know your opinions about whether a highly SEO'd new page can achieve high rankings with just links with no PR passed. Like from craigslist for example.

 

obviously I can rank high for obscure long tail keyphrases but I am talking about decent two or three word phrases.

 

I believe we can get high rankings without high PR.
because it happened to me sometimes

 

If you have links, you have PR -- the fact you can't see any from a toolbar or addon just means there hasn't been a PR update. So the answer is yes.

 

Im not sure I agree. I noticed when the pr update effects my serps, but a link is not always "voting" for the site.

 

PR doesn't really matter. You need powerful links to point to your site to rank well. One of my site was ranking for two phrase competitive keyword in one and half month. PM me for info on how I did it.

 

There was this website someone made about selling your child as a bride whatever. The site was so crazy, it turned out to be a spoof anyway everyone linked to it... even CNN. They ranked so freaking high. and they just registered it.

 

Yes I have heard of similar phenomenon but that is some black hat linkbaiting. hahaha

 

You will need some links that pass pr to rank

The amount of links required varies depending on the industry average

 

I think site can rank well without PR juice as long as it is linking to related sites. But I think craigslist won't help you improved SERP because links are temporary.

 

sites can rank very well and very quickly without pr juice

i posted on my blog `Top 10 Sexiest Women on tv ever`

less than 24 hrs later i was number 2 in google for search term `top women on tv`

and 1st page for `10 sexiest women in tv`

 

Yes, 2 weeks ago I started a blog for a 2 word phrase that had 100,000 competition - it now has over 10 billion but I think something is not right.

I am now 12th ranked for that keyword, less than two weeks later.

 

Links with good PR sites will definitely not affect your SERP, but having links from good PR sites will run long lasting coz it is the factor of trusted sited, so having backlinks from good PR sites is somewhere a positive factor.....

 

If your website get good serp without back links, it means your targeted key phrase has almost no competitor at all

 

Ya back links are very important.

 

I had a very high serp for one of my sites, with no page rank until yesterday

 

I just did a test (nothing extensive) on one of my domains and wrote about it in a blog.
Last week, the domain was on page 4 of Google search results. I then submitted the site to a couple of different higher ranking link directories. This week (today) our domain is #4 in the search results.

Backlinking has no affect on SERP? You can come to your own conclusion on that, I guess.