Darren Rowse takes an in-depth look at PageRank on ProBlogger

So is Page Rank important?

I would argue that it is on some levels. I can’t see that Google would keep it going as a system if it were not. Their PR updates come every couple of months usually and must take significant energy and resources for them to do. I doubt they’d do this just to keep us believing they still used it. It must have some usefulness to them.

I keep an eye on my blog’s page ranks because it gives me some sort of indication as to how important Google thinks they are. It may not be directly linked to traffic but it gives me an indication if I’m on the right track to improving quality which I believe eventually leads to more traffic.

PR is also important to me because it also helps me monetize my blogs. On a number of my blogs I sell text links to other site’s operators. One of the few ways that seems to be used to judge the worth of a site for such purposes is Google’s PR. As a result if I see one of my blogs promoted from one level to another it’s a cause for a mini celebration. I guess in addition to this it’s good for the prestige and reputation for your site to be highly ranked.

I agree that PageRank has its place in our set of tools to understand our blog, our readers, and our profitability. It plays a good role in determining your search engine placement, which is important to drive traffic to your blog. But it is only one factor involved in this placement. So, as Darren suggests, use PageRank as a guide to how you are doing.

Another great value in PageRank is what it can offer to people who sponsor your blog with text links or banners. The link back to their own site is valuable for their own PR. As I move closer to this attempt myself, I look forward to offering an ever improving PageRank as a benefit to advertisers.

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