Sometimes I hear the strangest SEO Myths. The most popular I always hear is “PR Doesn’t Matter“. The reasons always are:

PR is just 1 of the many factors
Lower PR pages rank higher than higher PR pages
Toolbar PR is not used in the algorithms

There are a bunch more of them. But these 3 are the most famous. (If I forgot one, feel to post them)

PR is just 1 of the many factors

Yep, that’s true. But just keep in mind that SEO is a chain of factors that need to be done right. And how strong is a chain? As strong as the weakest link! So no PR means you have very few important backlinks which mean nobody tells Google what your site is actually about.

Lower PR pages rank higher than higher PR pages

I love this one! It makes absolutely no sense, but many people seem to think that this proves PR doesn’t matter. As mentioned before, PR is just 1 of the factors that are used in the algorithm, so a page can rank higher than a much higher PR page because other factors are giving it more reasons to rank high! But think of it, why is that high PR page ranking high between many lower PR pages? The answer is simple: Because it does have a high PR. Likely this page is less relevant that the lower PR pages, but because it does have a high PR, it actually is sitting there in between lower PR pages. If this page would have the same PR as the other pages, it wouldn’t have been there in the top 10. I don’t know how to explain this any simpler than I just did.

Toolbar PR is not used in the algorithms

I think that´s partly true. PR in the algorithms is not used the same way as it is presented in the toolbar. That's why Google calls it a representation of PageRank. But you can use Toolbar PR very effectively to determine some basic factors like link popularity, and more importantly, how the page/site is doing in relation to other sites in the same SERP.

PR is a real factor, important to a certain degree. I will always agree that people that are focusing everything on PR have little chance of succeeding in SEO, but to say that PR doesn’t matter, is the dumber way of looking at it.

SEO Myth - PR Doesn’t Matter