How Important is PageRank, Really?

There seems to be a big debate on the web about the importance of PageRank (PR) as far as it determining how well your site fares in the search engine results.

Is PR scores the be-all-end-all for this factor? Well, I guess that depends on whom you ask and how much they know about it. In the eyes of the internet community Google PageRank has achieved nearly “Godlike” status. Webmasters spend every waking hour obsessing over their PR score and how to increase it. General consensus seems to be that if you achieve that elusive PR of 9 or 10, then all of your financial dreams will come true. I have found that is not necessarily true.


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Some people believe the key is in the number and quality of the links to your site.

That may be true for achieving a high PR. But is a high PR all it takes to achieve a high rank in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP)? While it’s true that the number and quality of backlinks a webpage has is an important factor in how well it ranks in the search results, there are other factors, such as keyword density and placement that must be considered. Some believe these play an equally important role in website ranking. That just because you have a high PR does not necessarily mean you will have a high rank in the SERPs.



I decided to test the theory.

Our only recourse, I feel, is to continue to monitor PR, scrutinize our site for keyword usage, content, and link structures and hope for the best in the SERPs. I believe that just when we get it figured out it’s going to change anyway. So since I already have enough gray hairs for my 42 years, I’ve decided NOT to obsess.