PR is not what it used to be, one of my sites has a 'greyed out' page rank yet it still 1st page for many keywords in a very competitive market
Nice. "When the government fears the people there is liberty; when the people fear the government there is tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson
This is my 4th year as a webmaster and all I can say is nothing ever is as it seems. Build your website for your customers and forget the big cheese...
A lot of it depends on your niche and the activity in your community but you'd be suprised how easy it is to do once you give it a try.
++A I recently started a site and I won't bother with PR a bit. I'm just going to keep writing and writing and eventually there will be people searching *because this is a big world?* and if they love it they will simply spread the word in forums and blogs. I realized that you'll wind up buying "quality backlinks" and probably end up getting banned from google if you continue. I guess that's what happens when people try to find an easy way out. *not really related to anything the OP posted, just a personal opinion*
I have several blogs less than 2-3 months old. They were all PR0 but I just checked because of this thread and one is a PR3. Still though I only care about my traffic stats ;-)
I love it, great post! The PR on one of my websites went from PR2 to PR0 when I was expecting it to go up. I agree completely, I'm done chasing google.
While I agree with all you guys who say that PR means nothing for SERPS. I do disagree about it being useless. As we all know selling links is against the rules, however, selling ad space is legal. And whether most of us like to admit it or not, would you rather pay $150 a month for a banner on a PR1 or a PR8? As a webmaster, we're all trying to earn a little change for all of our hard work. Losing PR ranking means losing potential advertisers.
I know how you feel, my main blog (the one linked in my profile) has 8,000+ legit backlinks over two years but it has slipped from PR4 to PR3 to PR0 over the last two updates. Of course, I did post some very unflattering articles exposing Google's double standards (especially with Adsense+Adwords) but the articles are the truth. One recent article about a class action lawsuit against Adwords generated swarms of traffic and was picked up by mainstream media. I really don't give a rip about Google or the PR but it's more of a personal insult to get devalued. It probably won't stop the AM's (account managers) from every new affiliate program that launches (and some established ones) from approaching me for reviews and advertising but it definitely makes Google look like little kids who took their marbles away because they can't stand losing.
Have you contacted Google.com and asked them to remove your site(s) from google search permanently? Have you banned Google Bots from your site? If so, are you still making $100 a day?
Thats because your site isnt "Quality"... Here is a "quality" site that deserves an even higher PR due to its content & importance ... www.something.com laterz malcolm
I have been givena nice treat by google my main site PR went down frm 3 to 2 but the Blog PR is same at 4.