Absolutely. For starters, PR by itself is theme-less... it is a linear number. When you look at the PR on a webpage, you cannot tell where that PR came from, and when you rank, you have to rank for something. Just because a site has good PageRank doesn't mean that it got that PageRank in a manner that would help it rank for a given keyword. If I get 20 PR3 links all using the keyphrase [myfirstkeyword], and you get 20 PR0 links for the keyphrase [someotherkeyword], and that's all the links we each get, then I will have a higher PR than you (once it is updated, I mean), and you will most likely outrank me for [someotherkeyword]. I will have a higher PR and you will outrank me for [someotherkeyword]. When you look at it, this makes sense, but it does not say that PR is meaningless. If I get 20 PR3 links for [myfirstkeyword], and you get 20 PR0 links for [myfirstkeyword], then yes, it is much more likely that I will outrank you, and yes, it is because of the PageRank on those links. No scenarios outside of a test environment will be that cut and dried, of course, but this is something you can always test. Create 2 brand new sites, both targeting the same phrase. Toss 10 PR2 links at one and 10 PR0 links at the other, but make the rest of the stuff pretty much equal. Don't use a made up phrase, use one with 1-2 million results, and over 50k results for the allinanchor operator and the keyphrase in quotes. See for yourself the difference. -Michael
This is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, sure.. PR doesn't affect your traffic or your SE ranking. But when your selling links. You can price higher if your PR is high.
I agree with you. I won't bother myself with PR, high traffic is the most important thing for me to gain.
Well, I guess we're clear here. If you're just relying on contextual ads like adsense, PR is not relevant. If you're selling links, PR is important because it will be your client's measuring stick.
The final line is the people that there websites have a High PR, are able to sell links. The Higher the PR, the more they can charge for there links.
pr is still important when you compete for keywords ranking, for the same keywords, the higher pr site will get higher rank in search engine (google only).
PR is just a merry go round, people buy links so that they can get PR so people buy links off them and people will buy links off them so they can get PR so people will buy links from them and it goes on and on and on!
PR is a bit of semantics game to begin with. People say 'I need to increase my PR' when really they are looking to increase traffic. PR (visible green toolbar PR) is merely a metric of the general health of a web site some 1-2 quarters in the past. It has no direct correlation to any ranking. PageRank is used by Google within the algos, however, again, you do not seek to increase PR, you seek to increase traffic. Don't get confused. check out my high quality diagram on my blog for clarification.
PR is just the popularity of the site or page, it can go up and down as fast a roller coaster. But i agree it is very good for selling links and selling sites. i believe quality traffic, tons of relative links and how old is a site are the major keys to rank a website.
I have seen too many sites with PR0 including my own rank above say a PR4-6 on the first page of results returned. I have also seen PR0 sites ranking above my sites with PR above 4. Most people responding to this thread would probably agree. Don't get me wrong here, yes generally a higher PR site will rank higher but this is not the caseall of the time. The only time I would even consider paying attension to PR is when buying links or selling a site. If I was buying a site PR would be a factor but it would not be on the top 3 items to consider.
PR is important - but it has to be understand correct - site with higher PR has more 'power' to lift another site in serp than site with lower PR. So it has something to do with traffic but indirectly (PR->Lift in G.-> Traffic, not PR->Traffic).
PR is less important , as PR = Page Rank or DR = Domain Rank, why google calls it page rank but not domain rank. a page is 100% related with traffics and contents so traffics and contents seem higher demanding than pr as I expected.
I think the question is "why do people say PR is useless" I think is PR is not useless for those people who sell links. And I also agree for those people who's answer Traffic is important I'm really agree with that.But PR is useless common some people always want to know Google update don't tell me that you are not waiting for that. PR is still important but not as important as traffic and don't say its useless.