With the last round of Google pr drops, came the accompanying cries of foul by webmasters all over the web. This was to be expected. Along with this came a lot of statements like: "page rank doesn't matter any way," Well, there is truth in that statement.
Let's look at this logically.
Page rank means something to seo's who base reputation on it, and publishers who use it as a drawing card for advertisers. That is about it.
I have noticed for quite some time, that there were some inconsistencies between what the seo folks are saying, and what really is. We have a saying around here when someone continues to go on about something that is obviously not true. "He knows a lot of things that just aint so!"
I spent several hours doing searches for keywords related to my industry, to see just how much page rank effects placement. One example is pretty much representative of all, this is what I found:
The phrase I searched: Texas Outdoor Pest Control.
The top 10:
#1 had a pr of 1, and is a service company.
#2 had a pr of 0, the same company.
#3 had a pr of 2, a Texas A&M page.
#4 had a pr of 0, an EPA page.
#5 had a pr of 6, a University of Texas page.
#6 had a pr of 3, and is a service company from Washington state. Didn't I say "Texas?"
#7 had a pr of 3, and is from Pen State, isn't that in Pennsylvania?
#8 had a pr of 0, a service company.
#9 had a pr of 2, a service company.
#10 had a pr of 2, and was the same as number 9.
The number one spot was taken by a page with a pr of one.
2, 4, and 8, had a pr of 0.
3, 9, and 10 had a pr of 2.
6 had a pr of 3
5 had a pr of 6
None of the top 10 had a pr above six. Only 4 were from edu or gov, two of them were out of state, the pr 6 was a page on custodial care, with very little info related to the topic.
The results can be a bit confusing, but they are what they are, and they have been that way for some time.
When the search was repeated, leaving out the word Texas, only one of these was in the top 20, and, you guessed it, it was the number 1 slot in the above list with a pr of 1, at number 20. To be honest, this page changes position from between 10 and 23 on a regular basis, and the only noticeable change is the addition of some advertisements for one or two of the other pages on the list, which seems to bring some of their sub pages up in the search. When the ads are gone, the site useually comes in at 15 or 16.
conclusions:
In all my searches on regular everyday things, pr means nothing. If it influences search placement, it is only to keep a page there that would otherwise not be there. Pages with a lot of information do well without page rank, under a variety of related searches. Pages with high pr and limited information are limited to very specific search placement. The second of the two search results was filled with ecomerce pages, most of them selling gadgets that do not work. I am not sure what that means, it is just an observation. I did the same sort of search an a lot of products and services related to everyday life. You might get different results from an seo related search.
