Nick Stamoulis posted this today, and I thought y’all would like. You can see more of his work here: http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2009/10/28/google-pagerank-matter/

One of the hottest all time search engine optimization debates online centers around the importance of Google PageRank. At one time, it was the holy grail of Internet marketing. Then link sellers started exploiting it for personal gain. A lot of marketers noticed and began to discount PageRank as a gamed system that no longer has any relevance. Google fought back by targeting link buyers and sellers, penalizing sites that engaged in this behavior. Personally, I think it was the right thing to do. Google has a right to protect the reputation of its ranking system and I respect them for doing that.

Google PageRank has established some relevance again, but is it still worth it a metric? Titus Hoskins says yes.

I actually like what he has to say in this paragraph:

Now while you can have a lower PR number and still rank above other higher PR pages for your chosen keywords, I have even had many times when my PR drops but my actual SERPs rankings in Google goes up, mainly due to building related relevant backlinks. So PageRank counts little towards your keyword rankings, but it can’t be totally dismissed.

I agree with this. Google PageRank can’t be completely dismissed. But it’s not as important as visitors your website receives from the search engines, search engine rankings and developing long term search engine trust. You can have a No. 1 position for an important keywords and still not have as high a PageRank as your competition.

But some people do still look at Google PageRank as an important judge of your reputation and trust. To completely dismiss that is to miss the boat. However, to put undue focus on it is to miss the boat in another way. Google PageRank still have some relevance even if it isn’t the holy grail. Consider it, but don’t rely on it completely.