LooseSuits

It amazes me how people still hang on to the power of page rank, but I guess they do so because it is easier to sell ads claiming you have a PR of 7. In either case as the web grows there has to be a restructuring of who gets placed where on the PR scale so it only makes since that some sites drop and others rise. If you consistently stayed the same or continued to go up the system would lose its significance (which can be argued it lost it a long time ago).

If people are really concerned about it then all they have to do is consistently get linked by other important websites by providing something useful to the web.

Have I seen a drop? No.

Do I care? Yes.

Why do I care? No real reason. I still don't sell ads, though maybe I should start. Currently AdSense is fine for what I do.

I doubt, though that Google would be concerned about people making money because of the PR. However, I'm sure even they know it's only a part of the whole equation. (Alexa rankings, overall strength, etc...) However, the company is always concerned with people gaming the system, which screws around with their whole mantra of relevancy in results (and which is why they have the legal/illegal SEO guidelines).

Edit: And as Scrivs pointed out, if the web's getting bigger and the ranking system stays the same (0-10), then it would figure that as it grew sites went down and up relative to their "importance" at any given time.

Page rank, for us, is about an meaningful as Alexa rankings. I think we're a 5.

@Scrivs: The sad thing about this is that people abuse the way they get incoming links and border on content spamming. I've seen a meme passed around the net that involves a list of peoples blogs. The objective? Pass it around while adding your name and gain more incoming links from all the blogs that passed the meme around.

Pointless and I'm not surprised if Google penalised them for that. But that's what happens, that's what people do and it strips all forms of quality from blogs that care about the money. It makes me sick and frankly, I'm happy this happened.

Maybe for those people who've always been doing things legit, it's the people who abuse the system without passion for blogging who you should be pointing fingers at.

I hadn't noticed it. I seem to still have a PR of 5. *shrug* I don't really care much. What ads I do sell are through Text Link Ads, and since folks keep buying them, I suppose I'm fine.

My PR just went up, actually, and I'll admit that I'm pleased, but only for personal bragging rights (as in, bragging to myself about myself). I don't sell any ads of any type, nor do I ever plan on selling my domain, so PR doesn't matter one bit (except, as I said, for the admittedly silly above reason).

My PR has dropped from a 5 to 4, but this usually happens when they're updating; then it returns to its normal level. My level of caring changes, really, depending on why I would want or need a good PR. I think many of us will agree that it's actually quite unimportant in reality, but those who don't understand the Web very well tend to think it is paramount (which is, at best, debatable, especially depending on the site), and so the importance is made through that lack of comprehension.

I think it's difficult for anyone to know the importance of something when no one is entirely sure how PR is dictated. We have rough ideas, some more accurate than others, but it is a trade secret, and rightfully so. So, there is some mythology that surrounds it, making it probably a lot more mystical and amazing than it actually is.

Page rank doesn't really matter to me.

I've stopped caring about PageRank... it just damaged my self-esteem!

I don't think I even have a pagerank.

I don't think I even have a pagerank.

True. True. Same here.

I forgot about Page Rank. If I show up in search results, cool. Am I trying to be #1 for anything in particular? Nah, I'm just a blog...

Is any of that valid anymore?

With people out there begging for links, stumbles and favors, I can see no validity in it. It almost seems like it would become less valid as a gauge of anything as time goes on. I have no key word I need to show up in google for, so I don't see that page rank matters to me anyway. I do check it though, not often. I don't know why.

Probably the same reason we check any statistics: its somehow a gauge of our success or ability (even if it really isn't).

Don't you care what other people (even if that person is Google) think of you? ;)

Random googler for "fun with rape" or "bad poetry" no. Random googler for "smartest and most down to earth fabulous blogger on the internet" - yes. ;)

To be honest, I haven't even got a clue how to check what my pagerank is. I don't sell adds on Bright Meadow and I seem to do pretty well on google searches.

Yes, it would be nice to say "I have a pagerank of..." but *shrug* I'd rather have 10 regular commenters than a sky-high pagerank.

Random googler for "smartest and most down to earth fabulous blogger on the internet" - yes. ;)

FTW!!

@Cas: You're a PR5. Just so you know and can tell people should they mention it. Be proud though...cause you built that up the honest way. Not like what other people do through viral marketing and shady linking.

Damn...my standards of quality have decreased.

we dont need no stinking page rank

My PR went from 7 -> 6 in this last update, but I blame that mostly on laziness. To get it to 7 I was posting a few times a week and was getting good links back on good content. Lately I've posted less with less original content. Content is definitely king.

kami: I doubt that page rank is in any way a measure of your standards of quality.

I think it's pretty notable that the sites that seem most impacted are the ones that have paid links with nofollow (i.e. Text Link Ads sites). I'm pretty sure that if TLA actually heeded the warning that has been handed down from Google for literally months, then they wouldn't make themselves liable for the plummet of hundreds if not thousands of sites.

Whether PR is important or not - eh, who knows. Regardless, PR is one of the metrics of a sites success and many people took a hit simply because of paid links without a nofollow.

The pagerank you see is just not that important. Focus on stuff like links and actual rankings instead.

@Cooper: I know. That's why by me actually taking notice of it, MY standards have decreased. :)

My page rank has stayed the same. I don't think it matters that much, although I often look to see..... :-)

@technosailor: Good point. Interesting too because isn't TLA forced to ask for less money from advertisers given their inventory has lower rankings?

Yes, it would be nice to say "I have a pagerank of..." but *shrug* I'd rather have 10 regular commenters than a sky-high pagerank.

Ditto but I sell ads too! :P

Father to kid: I forbid you to use the Internet for the next 3 months.

Kid to father: Huh? Why not?

Father to kid: Pagerank everywhere just took a drop. Let's sit it out and wait for the quality content to come back.

Kid: >.>

Kamigoroshi, I have seen that meme titled "Pass it on" in blog comments. I have also seen things like high ranking blogs on technorati offering to link to your blog if you review theirs and link to it. Interestingly many of the blogs are actually using these tactics don't have any original valuable content in the first place that's attracting a loyal readership.