Google Page Rank Not Much Use Now by Adam Sorensen
Back in the day Google PR and SERPs were like peanut butter and jam, like salt and pepper, like Starksy and Hutch - ok I’m reaching, but I gotta have a little fun with this - anyway, they went together well. Now… well now… I’m not sure what analagy I can use, but they don’t really go together anymore. Just yesterday the sites I work on were updated with PR. One site is now a PR of 7. I should be excited right? Wrong. The site that has a PR of 7 has no meaningful ranking in Google’s SERPs. On MSN and Yahoo it’s either ranked 1st or second, on Google it’s nowhere.
So, does Google PR really mean anything? Does it really matter when it comes to SERPs? In my experience I’d have to say no. However, there is some value in having good PR. Because so many SEO specialists do value PR, what it really helps with is link trading. How many link partners like to have their link placed on a page with no PR? Not too many. And for good reason too. Seeing PR on the pages where your link will be placed helps you to know that the page is being spidered and is indexed in Google.
You know, it’s surprising how many link partners come out of the wood work when your PR is good. I’ve added back link pages to my directory and when I first put them up they all have a PR 0. I know it’ll just be a couple months and they’ll all have good PR. Nevertheless, most link parnters don’t want their link placed on those pages they want their links placed on pages with good PR. So, when it comes to link trading, PR really does help. In that sense PR does have some value.
Now for the tip. What really matters to Google and what will really help you in the SERPs is having links from keyword relevant pages, not pages with huge PR.