No, that's just the consensus of the "PR is useless" crowd, not of all DPers. I believe you learn a lot by following the money trail. So when Google itself stops spending its multiple millions (software, hardware, engineers, etc.) on PageRank algorithms, computation, and publishing, then I will join the "PR is useless" crowd. But not before.
You asked for proof of a search, and I gave it to you. If you were going to laugh at it, why did you ask for it? Afraid you're wrong there. Pagerank was Google's big invention several years ago, but you've got to keep up with the times. Google is moving away from pagerank, it's just an old technology now. They are using more advanced internal algorythms for SERPS and PR doesn't carry the same weight it used to.
Proof??? Google are still spending fortunes tweaking their algorithms, most likely this includes the PageRank calculations. You will not and can not prove that PR is useless. All other indications which can be proved show PR IS useful.
I think the onus is on you to prove PR is useful. According to Matt Cutts (you know, the dude who WORKS for Google): "Oy, enough PageRank questions! My advice is not to obsess about PageRank too much; it is one of more than 100 different factors in how we score documents." mattcutts.com/blog/more-info-on-pagerank SO if it's just 1/100 of a factor, that means PR only accounts for 1% of your SERP. Why is anyone still talking about PR anymore?
itcn, fair enough, but a few reflections in reply: • I couldn't care less about "proving" the usefulness of PR. Google obviously considers it to be useful by including it in their "factors in how we score documents" (Matt's comment). To that extent it is useful. • I agree: there are too many webmasters "obsessing about PageRank". • Matt absolutely did not say PR accounts for 1% of your SERP. He said it was "one of more than 100 different factors" they use. The weight of each factor (PR & others) is unknown to us outside Google. Maybe one percent? five percent? twenty percent? Only Google knows. But he said nothing about it being 1%. I would be shocked if PR accounted for only 1% of the ranking weight.
Jim, that is true. I meant 1% as in 1/100 mathematically = 1%, but you're right, he did not say each part of those 100 factors each carry the same weight. But I've been doing SEO quite a few years now and have noticed that the importance of PR has dropped, and considerably. I consistently see lower PR pages rank over higher ones, even the day after a PR update comes out.
Thank you very much...its really what I wanted to know...but after reading all of these posts...it looks like it doesnt matter much. How easy is it to increase your page rank?
Not that easy - it requires some work to get all those backlinks in and increase your pagerank. Keep it at daily, and in a few months you'll see results. There is no quick fix.
I suspect that, too. Some others with long-term SEO experience feel that way also. My gut feeling is that PR is still a modestly significant factor in the search results. Maybe a "tie breaker" if other factors on two competing sites are pretty similar.