PR is not all it's cracked up to be. PR is tool bar hype and great marketing by google. That's it. I have sub domains with 0 PR in the top 10 serps for competitve keywords. This proves PR is not so important. Focus on making your site the best it can be and people will link to you. There are tons of effective ways to achieve high rankings without spending tons of money on links that will not always make a difference. If you are going to buy links buy from the yahoo directory. If you want to buy from the small directories make sure the category where your link will be is in the cache otherwise its useless. I like free directories that give static links. php directories are poor hubs. I also like buying cheap links from sites that use mod rewrite and have specific categories. One new site that i have had great success with buying links is http://plugstar.com/state/abt/plugcenter . html For $3 you can have a targeted link for months. I have 4 backlinks from this site and they were picked up rather quickly. This site is organized so it helps a lot. Another great way to get free links is by writing an http:// ezinearticles . com ezine article Another great idea is to leave quality comments on good blogs. Do not spam. If anyone wants advice just message me.
Im going to have to agree with l234244 I dont see alot of PR 0's on the first page of serps that return say 25,000,000+ results (those are competitive keywords in my eyes).
Well, my keywords are competitive. I actually just tested a general keyword and out of 31,100,000 links my site is listed 12th. I'm not going to list my keywords but my keywords are regionally focused for the most part. For example (city name keyword) (state name keyword) If you understand how to opt your site than PR isn't as important as one might think. If you have relevant links it will boost your rankings regardless of what the tool bar says. Every site is different. I know what works for my site but I'm not sure what works for the next persons site. Every site has its own formula. You dont have to take my advice above. do what works for you. If you want to live by the pr toolbar than i wish you the best. If not I can lend advice. Just trying to help those who need another approach.
BUT if someone has a grey bar I wouldn't exchange links... PR isn't as important as some make it but it is a way of measuring things with google. PART OF the equation but not the answer.