Does Google PageRank Still Matter?
Writing by Nick Stamoulis
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One of the hottest all time search engine optimization debates online centers around the importance of Google PageRank. At one time, it was the holy grail of Internet marketing. Then link sellers started exploiting it for personal gain. A lot of marketers noticed and began to discount PageRank as a gamed system that no longer has any relevance. Google fought back by targeting link buyers and sellers, penalizing sites that engaged in this behavior. Personally, I think it was the right thing to do. Google has a right to protect the reputation of its ranking system and I respect them for doing that.
Google PageRank has established some relevance again, but is it still worth it a metric? Titus Hoskins says yes.
I actually like what he has to say in this paragraph:
Now while you can have a lower PR number and still rank above other higher PR pages for your chosen keywords, I have even had many times when my PR drops but my actual SERPs rankings in Google goes up, mainly due to building related relevant backlinks. So PageRank counts little towards your keyword rankings, but it can’t be totally dismissed.
I agree with this. Google PageRank can’t be completely dismissed. But it’s not as important as visitors your website receives from the search engines, search engine rankings and developing long term search engine trust. You can have a No. 1 position for an important keywords and still not have as high a PageRank as your competition.
But some people do still look at Google PageRank as an important judge of your reputation and trust. To completely dismiss that is to miss the boat. However, to put undue focus on it is to miss the boat in another way. Google PageRank still have some relevance even if it isn’t the holy grail. Consider it, but don’t rely on it completely.
18 Responses to “Does Google PageRank Still Matter?”
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Hi Nick,
Thanks for the good post. This is very common debating topic. In my opinion Page Rank is no longer in use for rankings as well as conversion. We had our client site whose page rank fall down but the ranking goes up. Because of strong link building and internet marketing strategies. Although the page rank fall down because we had redesign the website. So i think internal backlinks disappears. But traffic increases day by day.
So, I don’t think page rank is much useful for any technical aspects or for any ranking factors. Yes, but still it consider for reputation of any brand or company. This is my opinion it might be differ from others.
Good point Nick. I think a big issue in the SEO world with regards to PageRank is perception vs. reality.
While the reality is that PageRank is no longer as important in ranking high in Google SERPs, the perception to most people in the SEO world is that PageRank is still the Holy Grail to getting top rankings.
In my opinion, if Google wants to help match perception with reality, then they need to stop publishing PageRank numbers for others to reference and use as a gauge of significance with regard to Google.
Otherwise, Google will be playing the game of, “Do as I say but not as I do,” which any parent knows doesn’t work too well in the long term.
I agree on this. Google has decreased the importance of page rank at the beginning of this year.
I started in The Netherlands the blogsite internetmarketingsysteem. It is in a very competing market, has still no page rank and is running quit well already.
Content is king, more then ever. A variety of content (text, audio, video, images, doc’s etc.: Googles loves it!)
Good luck.
Tom Zoethout
Hi MasterLinker,
Very good point, I agree that it would be great if Google just stopped publishing Pagerank information…
Hi Tom,
Content will always be king!
[...] Nick Stamoulis posted this today, and I thought y’all would like. You can see more of his work here: http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2009/10/28/google-pagerank-matter/ [...]
Fair points but if you were paranoid about the issue you might say that its still got a reasonable amount of value as Google is now hiding this data….
There are still a lot of clients out there that don’t care about traffic/conversions… just that little green bar and the removal of it will be more like giving up your comfort blanket now that you have grown up.
I don’t see it as something that matters for many industries as if all your competitors have a PR3 and you have a PR3 what is the value it adds to your understanding of why they rank better… As much as it meant to be a sliding scale it continues to appear to be skewed towards older established websites…
Which PageRank are you talking about, the PageRank found in the Google toolbar?
Case in point – one of my sites has just a toolbar pagerank of 2 – but is 1st place for a phrase well contended from around 1.9 million results.
It also has just 4 unique backlinks, but very strong, relevant content.
I don’t think enough focus is given to content and still too much to backlinks!
Quite simply, toolbar pagerank doesn’t matter to anyone other than those looking at it. Use a different browser like I do (Chrome) and you don’t see it anyway!
Andy
Outside of those in the SEO realm or for website owners Google PR is not something that a ton of people know or care about. I do look at it and if a site has a PR that is above 5, I do tend to look at is being something of an authority which is to be respected and trusted.
Hi David,
Good point, but honestly clients that only want (these days) to see the Google Pagerank green bar increase really have an incorrect perspective and probably will not be a good long term SEO client.
Hi Andy,
Good point about not seeing Pagerank info in Chrome!
Hi Justin,
Very interesting point about Pagerank and a factor of trust…
Based on my experience, PageRank does still matter. The higher the PR, the more traffic you get from search engines.
You might rank well for some low competition keywords, but if your pagerank is low, you will only get very few visitors.
Hi HP,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts…the bottom line is there should be a balance not ignoring Pagerank all together but not making it a primary goal of your SEO efforts.
Hi
Pagerank, Some think it’s the most important method of determing whether a website is any good or not, Some exchange link sites will only accept you if you have a certain pagerank number and disreguarde you if it’s lower.
Personally I would just like to say that Google may be the biggest SE today but competition is exactly that competition and who are they to penalize others. This is the interent where there are millions of businesses that offer a wide range of goods and services, So exatly what does Rankings mean, In my eyes and the eye of many I know that use the internet, NOTHING AT ALL because it is controlled by google and I disagree with this point.
What is stopping all other search engines to create their own ranking system of each website that goes through their SE, actaully I can’t even understand why they don’t do that, everyone looks a google as being the all lord a mighty of SE’s when all they are is a company that is no different to the biggest auction site ebay who think they can control everyone and what they do.
It’s like watching a series of batman man where bad guys want to take over the world, only differece is these guys arn’t so much the bad guys but as for wanting to take over the world (they actually controling a pretty big part of it and have most people beleaving they are the lords of the internet.
HOGWASH I would love to have millions as I would devote myself to competeing against these guys and putting a slow down on this power driven controling companies that think it is against the law for others to take business away from them while they sit there and tell us it is the law,, they are not the law in my eyes, but power controling money hungry people trying to take over the world and control what we see and do.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Only time will really tell if Google will always remain the #1 major player in the search engine industry…thanks again for the comment.
Well said
In my view, page rank is not greatly important and doesnt guarantee the monetary returns of the online business – not in my case anyway.
Rankings via link building and better sales copy far out weigh the importance of page rank as they actually generate targeted traffic that converts better.
I no longer sweat for page rank just organic rankings and better copy converstion.
Thanks
Susan
Hi Susan,
Thanks for your comment, copy conversion is a great metric to look at vs Google Pagerank!
Hi, You have great post we know till now pagerank still be one good qualification to know how important a website. And now google allready improve they metric calculation like loading speed, organic link and unique link to relevant content.
Regards
Lionjkt
Hi Lionjkt,
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Very true! Google pagerank is still one of many factors!
Thanks & Take Care!
Nick