NetMidWest I agree with your post and I agree to a point that PR is important. But PR for ranking is pretty useless IMO. Even to judge a site it's not a high factor unless you are selling / buying. I am happy with my PR0 site that's making me $150/day +. People overhype about PR way to much. It will update when Matt Cutts feels like pressing the update button. If he never presses the update button so be it and just wait until he does. My PR0 site is over taking PR5 sites even.
i think a lot of the people really interested have new(er) sites where they expect or hope for an increase ... pretty tough exchanging links with anyone at PR0 or PR1 jay
It is my understanding that a site with higher pagerank gets crawled by google deeper and more frequently. I dont know this to be a fact though.
Yes, there is a big difference, but it seems to kick in after about PR5, with or without alot of links.
I think your right SportsOutlaw. That's just it people overhype about PR. My PR0 site is mainly exchanging links with low PR sites as well and I am ranking between #2 to #4 for my top term.
Couple questions, if you don't mind... How old is the site? Has it always been PR0? Are these recent ranking #s, or have you held those positions awhile? (How long?) Did they jump far, or climb slowly?
By virtue of the fact that the exact formula is not revealed, how can you say with any sort of confidence that you wouldn't be paid more per click?
The site is about 3 weeks old or a bit more. 4 weeks max. I've held these positions for a few weeks. I did use some coop weight but not sure if that matters. Since there's been no PR Update it's always been a PR0.
That is why I am so concerned about getting from 5 to 6. I have been told many times that 6 is the magic number. It makes me wonder if I am actually at 6 right now (real pr) because google activity on my site is at an all time high. They even spend alot of time in my forum as deep as the post URL's, which used to never happen.
No, you were saying that your site was a PR0 and was ranking #3 and #4... Not that the toolbar says PR0 and was ranking #3 and #4. And much of what you are doing to promote the site increases PageRank. Your $150/day is not coming from a PR0 site. It's current PR is more likely a 3 or 4.
NetMidWest your likely on target. It may even be higher since I did some articles and other forms of link building.
Give this a shot: http://www.iwebtool.com/pagerank_prediction and see this thread: (I can't seem to check my own, so I dunno...) http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=58629 Since Google is messed up, so is this tool sometimes. Early today it showed my prediction as PR6, midday they had me at 4, and it is back to 6...
Why PR matters. First off, if you know what PR is then reaching the higher PR values can be very satisfying. I get traffic from Google directory due to the fact I am ranked in the top 5 in my catagory and the sites are listed by PR so right off the bat PR matters. As mysticmedia said, a lot of other directories rank you based on PR. PR is based on back links and back links are a part of your ranking in the SEs so ranking and PR are related to some extent. If you sell links on your site then PR is a very significant factor on the value of those links. If they do an update tomorrow and my PR goes from 4 to 6 I can sell links for much more overnight even though real PR is updated continuously, that green bar means $. There are people who value PR highly, so even if you don't, they may and at some point your paths may cross and a high PR may benefit you more. PR is also a good selling point if you wish to sell your site. No matter how important or unimportant PR is to you, I'd be willing to bet it affects you to some degree.
I don't think it's not important. I just think all these update threads are non-sense. I agree I do use PR for stuff but I also am not picky about PR either. A lot of folks seem to be very picky about PR. I just say we cut it with the update threads and when there is a REAL PR update lets then talk PR Updates. We wait forever for a PR Update and then we get these PR Zombies starting a new PR Update thread every day and I think Google should just press the update button so then we don't get these zombies.
This PR update is kinda unique. First we are in record territory without an update. Second, there is instability in the DCs because of Jagger and Big Daddy and that leads to a lot of chicken littles. I agree, seeing a thread with 'PR udate in progress' gets me interested only to be disappointed and gets quite annoying, but hey, if you didn't care about PR it would not matter. Besides sometimes you have to 'spread it around' some and these false alarms are a good way of doing so.
The only good PR Update thread I think was the one that TOPS made. That had a awesome twist to it hehe.