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[Scottie]

People are constantly confused when they ask what their pagerank should be, or why someone else's page has a higher PR than theirs and our response is:

PageRank doesn't matter. You don't need to be concerned with it

There is shock and horror, and people who simply shake their heads at how wrong we are.

PR not matter? It's how Google ranks sites, isn't it? You can't get anyone to link to you without it!!

Let's clarify what we are talking about, because the biggest problem is that people don't really know what PR is or what it is supposed to do for their site.

1) Most people are referring to Toolbar PR

This is the little green bar that shows the PR for the site. Here are the reasons it doesn't matter:

• Toolbar PR is flaky. Sometimes it reports nothing, sometimes it reports weird numbers, sometimes it changes depends on what datacenter you are looking at- it could show different numbers at different times of the day or viewed from different computers
• Toolbar PR is only a general approximation. It shows a number between 0 and 10 relative to every other page in the index of billions of pages. Pretty inexact is an understatement.
• Toolbar PR tells you nothing about how your site ranks for any certain term or how much traffic you get. Nothing. Sites with PR 0 can rank for many terms while sites with PR8 may still not be on the first page for their desired keyword phrases. Sites with lower visible toolbar PR can rank more highly than your page.

2) The elements that make up Page Rank are important:

• Link popularity refers to how many pages link to your page.
• PageRank is a measurement of how many pages link to your page multiplied by the weight or importance of those links. Pages with higher link popularity have more weight than pages with lower link popularity and therefore, more "weight". However, the weight of the votes each link get is divided by the number of links on the page.
  • A link on a lower weight page that has less links can be more helpful than a link on a high popularity page that has hundreds of links on the page.

3) What you do to increase PR is important- get more links from high quality sites. What the toolbar displays really doesn't matter- see #1. It doesn't work reliably.

4) The goal of having a "PR7" site isn't a goal at all. PR doesn't buy your groceries or pay your taxes. Goals of improving sales, gaining business partners on the web, and building your brand image do have an effect on your business- a green bar scale does not.

5) Yes, I know it's easier to point your boss to the PR bar to proudly prove that you are good at your job because it shows a 6 or 7, but if the site isn't profitable, you are still going to be let go. You can have a great PR number and still have lousy rankings, traffic, and sales.

6) A great site that has a PR of 0 does not mean it's a bad site. It could be new, it could have had server trouble recently, or the toolbar could be on the blink.

7) If you PR shown goes down a notch, it doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. As stated before, it is a relative measure and when more pages are added to the index, the numbers shift around as to what makes a 4 or a 5. Before panicking, check your rankings and your traffic. More often than not.. there's no change. Cause the PR number does NOT determine your rankings.

What toolbar PR is helpful for

• If a site seems... somehow wrong or dodgy to you, it's been around a while and has no PR, it may be an indication that a site doing something wrong. It could also be a glitch, so use your good judgement with that.

[Scottie]

Adding a "Rankings Don't Matter" Explanation

If you read one of us post that rankings don't matter, you are likely to think we've lost our minds. Aren't rankings what SEO is all about?

Rankings Alone Are Useless

It's amazing how many people brag about their top rankings for terms that no one searches for. You can rank well for literally thousands of phrases, and still have no traffic to your site. You have to rank well for terms people actually search for.

You aren't optimizing for bragging rights, you are optimizing to bring people interested in your subject or products to it, right? Rankings don't pay the electric bill- people buying from your site does.

If you are impressed with the ranking reports you are running or your SEO is giving you each month, take a few minutes to look through your web statistics programs and see which of those terms are actually being used to find your website. A few? Any? The ones actually bringing qualified traffic are worth bragging about. The rest are like a tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it...

Focus on Results Not Rankings

Yes, you probably will need to monitor rankings for your key terms, but not as much as you need to monitor your results.

If traffic, clickthrus and sales drop, you'll need check your rankings to see where you stand. Starting out, you'll want to watch rankings to see how things are progressing. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about how your site is ranking.

Just remember, the ranking itself is not the goal. It's one of the strategies for achieving your goal.