Yo cuz, I see you couldn't resist commenting on the news either :-P

So, Jordan,  for those of us not quite so into this please tell us what it really means and what we should be doing about it.

As Jordan states PR is useless.  He was commenting on the fact that a bunch of websites have dropped in PR but that has changed nothing.  Lots of wanna be SEO "experts" have been freaking out lately about the major PR drops, but when it comes down to it pagerank doesn't mean anything, Google is trying to get away from that and back to the days where it did mean something.  Nothing other than that has changed though.

Jordan - Agreed. I don't understand why people make such a big deal about page rank. I have a new site that has a page rank of zero and it still ranks on page #1 in google for all of my search terms. Content is still king!

Amen brothers and sisters. PR has mainly been about bragging rights, not SERPS. You can rank my sites as a PR0 all day long as long as people can find me on the search engines...

Bill - I plan on doing another article here in a day or so with some more tips and tricks.

James - Hehe Yup I hear yeah.

Jordan, thanks for the post.  It was definitely all over the blogs today.  Also, the bloggers at seomoz.org had some good posts on it as well.

Jordan - Good info. Amazing on how much web stuff there is to keep up with. Hardly gives us enough time to sell real estate.

I noticed yesterday that Homefinders.com went from a PR5 to a PR4.  I'm working on it.

*&&%##%&*(*((^%%*((

 Thanks for this info.  I'm glad to find it's not just me.

Fortunately, my server stats are holding up.

Well my PR rank went from 0 to PR2.  I actually was expecting PR3, so a little bummed.  Although I know PR doesn't matter, it did affect my linking with people.  So I am just glad it got to PR2 so I don't have to deal with people that do not know better.

Stefan

My PR dropped and I thought it was because I over optimized. It is good to hear that it was not me. As you guys have already said I am still ranked higher on a lot of keywords than my competition.

Thanks for the info. More SEO news and updates are always appreciated! I would have to agree with a few other folks that no matter what, content is king! Good content focused around the keywords and search terms we are after will always help get us to the top of any search engine since that is what everyone still turns to search engines for. Quality links are a great help as well!

I agree with the comment that page rank is totally useless. The only numbers I really care about are my conversion rates. Thanks for the news update.

Jordan - As of this week, it looks like some of those websites gained a little back in the Google Foolbar.

I am not sure why page rank is needed.  When I type in 'myrt;e beach property', a top search phrase for our area, my site comes up on the first or second page of Yahoo and Google.  If I am at the bottom of page 1 does that mean my PR is 10?

Thank for the info...will keep up with your post

Patti Herrington

www.herringtonrealtyco.com

Page rank is an important bench mark in the SEO world. I think as long as the content and keywords are there you can't go wrong!

I glad someone actually said it. I for one never liked nor trusted PR.

Content will always rule over PR. I get higher search engine results the more blogs I write

Thanks for the post.  This information is important to some of us and we do appriciate it.  Thanks

daniel

Interesting info. My knowledge of the whole SEO thing is still growing. I appreciate the info.

Jordan~ It is all so cofusing that even Google and all the SEO experts out there can't decipher what is going on.

Content should be KING.  Aren't you sick of websites full of links to other websites?  Let's get to the point - CONTENT.

Thanks ..

Content is king, i completely agree. 

Don't kid yourself though, PR is important and helps you recognize sites that have potential to help you if they link to you.  Ask anyone with good PR and they'll agree... ask anyone with PR0 and i'm sure they'll disagree.  Same people who say money doesn't matter, they're the broke ones... and the ones it matters to do have money.

I see this blog was started over 5 months ago.  Has anyone noticed any more changes to their PR since then? 

Thanks for the info.

John Powers

Selling Restaurants

www.restaurants4saleonline.com

Jordan-

I am going to have to disagree with the group here. PR is very clearly a big part of Googles future plans. What we must understand is exactly what PR tells us or Google. PR weighs the trust of your site. Like it or not Google makes the rules and the valuations. If your inbound links are are not to Googles standards they will be discounted, thus a loss in PR. There are no short cuts in a link building programs only quality tools and contents will generate valuable inbound links. Anything else will ultimately be considered link manipulation and you will receive a sound Google slap. I dont like it but if you want to rank you must play by the rules. Google is to valuable to my business and the business of my clients to play risky games.

I also would say that content is queen and CONVERSION is king. It is not how much traffic you generate but what you do with it (ie email collection, client contact, prospect generation).

Just one marketers opinion, please filet as you see fit.

PR mean very less for actual search results on google. Only good for exchanging links. I have seen 1000s of sites with low PR but top placement in Google results.

Jordan,

Thanks. I wholly agree. PR is of no value to making SEO decisions. Google created their own problems by publishing it in the frst place. Then everyone started gaming it.

If they would simply remove it from public consumption, we'd quickly return to linking for the sake of relevance only.

I removed the toolbar frm my computer years ago, and have had no need for it since.   

Clarification:

I will rescind my statement that PR has NO value in SEO. Certainly, a link from a PR9 site has genuine link juice. If you can get 'em, then do it.

They are also quite difficult to obtain for most agents. Telling agents to chase high PR links only is like telling most guys to only date beauty queens. They can try, but most of us will spend a lot of lonely nights that way (I got lucky, with my wife :). The same applies to with links.

My point was more along these lines.....forgte PR. Just get as many links as you can from relevant, legitimate websites. All else will usually fall into place. Focusing on PR is a real time waster.

PR's are, overall worthless for your SEO. However, back links to sites that have a PR5 or higher can postively effect your SEO as google indexes. Check out www.seotools.com. Great resource for SEO improvement resulting in lead generation in lieu of just unique visitor traffic without quality return

Interesting article. Looking forward to learning more about this.

How do you know what your PR is?  Do you have to have the google toolbar to tell?

hi all

not so quick to blow off PR in google.

It is not the only factor in where a site shows up in google .. that i agree on.

one of my clients sites has a page rank of 3 and dominates the burlington vermont market for all searches.

the second place site yahoo! pr4 and the third is another local competitor with a pr of 4.

they all have many more links to them so a higher page rank is expected.

buy my clients site  has  better content, and  has  better quality of links. and is better indexed.

the issue is how will the next update in Google effect the SERPS and will the PR start to play a bigger role?

I think Google has figured out a way to discard a lot of the link directory sites like linkmachine and others.

so don't be so quick, lets see what google does next.

i am a little paranoid but, to be a good SEO/SEM consultant should be. you have to think ahead to stay ahead.

thanks

clif

I used to have a PR of 3 or so but then lost it all. My ranking have not been affected at all.

Jordan, you are talking way over my head.  If it weren't for the comments I wouldn't know what Pr WAS, or most of the information you gave...laymans's english please