PageRank – How Important Is It?

For a few years, PageRank was THE thing to focus on. Website owners paid out fortunes to SEOs trying to decipher how the algorithm worked and figuring out how to maximize links.

Now there is some question as to whether PageRank is really ‘where it’s at’ or if it is just so much hype – one more little ticker in your tool bar that is basically meaningless.

A site with less PageRank can still outweigh one with more on Google. However, so can a keyword stuffed AdWords page, or a brand new Knol – leading some to question the veracity of Google’s entire premise when it comes to organizing listings.

Let’s look at Google for a minute. What is Google really? A search engine, right? You type in a search term, it spits out what you need.

But Google is becoming something more. Google is an advertising giant. They make revenue off of advertising, so they definitely have motive to make things go their way!

Some think that the fight for PageRank is just a smokescreen that Google has set up to muddy the waters so it can claim they use it as a tiebreaker – after all, if a site is linkable, it is clickable, and we want those clickers to add up revenue!

Suppose you have a site carefully optimized for the user, formulated to be easy to navigate and boasting the best prices in town along with reliable, fast free shipping.

You get beat out in the SERPs by a piece of glitzy trash with a PageRank toolbar busting its bounds and much less to offer the customer – but they get a lot of clicks off of all the glam.

When Google puts sites like this at the top of their search rankings it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Makes you wonder if Google isn’t just looking for clicks too. The sudden appearance of Knol groupings on the top of many SERPs results also raised suspicions, but in a slightly different way – advertising clicks are still involved, but with Knol PageRank is kind of out of the picture.

So what is it? Does Google really want the best result for the user on top – or do they want the best result for themselves? Once upon a time it might have been the same thing, but now….

Opinions vary. It is in Google’s best interests to return the best results for the user – but how much does the fact that Google returna something as a top result influence the user into thinking that that IS the best result?

Keep hoping Google keeps the humans behind the screen honest, and don’t settle for a second best listing if there is a better one to be found. I wonder if Google will ever implement a feedback option to let us tell them if there is a crappy site highly ranked on the SERPs the way we can report paid links?

And get rid of the PageRank bar. It’s misleading and untrustworthy.