How important is Page Rank

[Lookfab]

How important is Page Rank in ensuring good SERPS, i.e what other deteminants are there to achieving a good ranking.

Having a debate with a technical colleague and she says PR is the all important thing. However, surely good content the correct title tag as well as in and out bound links plays a part.

One of the dilemma is achieving rankings for keyword phrases that are not written into the content of our site, e.g. buy shoes online. For example, one of the catalogue pages (e.g. our shoes section), with links to all the other kinds of shoes (e.g. blue, green, red etc) i.e. good PR for each of these pages as well as the general catalogue page, my technical
colleague says that the site will rank well for 'buy shoes online' (even though it is not in the title tag or in the visible content on site) because of the good page rank which is being passed down. I am of the opinion that if the content does not exist then the site will not rank well for this page.

What do you guys think. Apologies if the above unclear - basically, I acknowledge how important PR is it the be all and end all as I feel other issues such as content are being neglected

[arius]

Google can't recommend you until it indexes you. Once it has indexed you it calculates your link popularity and summarizes that with a PR rating. The more popular you are the more likely you are to be deep indexed. Then your quality content will come into play. You need PR for your content to matter.

[sootledir]

Visible Toolbar PR is probably not too useful. However, we'll need to assume the Google still has an internal PR system that is important. You need incoming links.

[Lookfab]

Our dynamic site has a PR of 5 and does not rank. We have since created a static version and are now waiting for this to get indexed......

[Marketing Guy]

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...4066#post44066

Refer you to the thread above for my opinion on PR.

With regards the specific post - it's like comparing to apples and oranges.

Content plays a large part in ranking - content being a combination of many factors itself. However, it can be "overwritten" by sufficient inbound linking with the appropriate text (see "Googlebombing").

PR - no more than a reflection on your inbound link popularity - it's the links that are important, not the PR - plus the concept of what PR actually is differs from person to person.

One of the dilemma is achieving rankings for keyword phrases that are not written into the content of our site

Write content for it. Optimise.

Without a HUGE amount of IBL's with keyword anchor text you will not rank for a specific keyword when you have no on page optimisation. You need content.

MG

ADDED:

Our dynamic site has a PR of 5 and does not rank. We have since created a static version and are now waiting for this to get indexed......

You could be sandboxed, hence no ranking.

[Lookfab]

Thanks Marketing Guy - our static pages contain loads of relevant content all linking to our 3000 pages. The main page of our dynamic site, listedon google, has loads of referrers to it. Ironically, Yahoo and MSN do index our dynamic site and we get Top 10s for the majority of the brand names we carry.

[martinuboo]

You have to have the words "buy shoes online" either on the page or in the anchor text of the inbound links (preferably both) in order to rank for that phrase. All the PageRank in the world can't help you if the words aren't there!

As MarketinGuy pointed out, if the phrase is not on the page, you would need more inbounds with the anchor text "buy shoes online" to rank for that phrase.

[Dominic]

How important is pagerank? Well it depends on:
1. Where you get it, and
2. The associated anchor text (on two fronts)

Lower impact PR
*From links within our own site
*From pages unrelated to your page's theme

High impact PR
*When pages within your search results link to your page (relevence)
*Desired anchor text (leading to the page they link to you from i.e. not 'Links Page') and in the link to your site itself.

Look for pages with decent PR and minimal links among which that PR is divided. e.g. take a link from a PR5 page with 30 links on it over a link from a PR6 page with 230 links on it.

[Carlos Chacón]

I just came from Toronto’s SE Conference and learned that now the PR is just a green bar on the Google’s toolbar.

Believe it or not!

[Dominic]

I'll believe that you actually believe that when you tell me you turned down a link from a 'toolbar' PR8 page.

[Mel]

Originally Posted by Dominic

How important is pagerank? Well it depends on:
1. Where you get it, and
2. The associated anchor text (on two fronts)

Lower impact PR
*From links within our own site
*From pages unrelated to your page's theme

High impact PR
*When pages within your search results link to your page (relevence)
*Desired anchor text (leading to the page they link to you from i.e. not 'Links Page') and in the link to your site itself.

Look for pages with decent PR and minimal links among which that PR is divided. e.g. take a link from a PR5 page with 30 links on it over a link from a PR6 page with 230 links on it.

I think perhaps you are a bit confused Dominic between PageRank (the Patented system used by google for link popularity) which has no relationship to anything other than the PR of the page it comes from and how many other outbound links there are on that page, and the ranking of pages.

My personal estimation of the ranking value of PageRank is that it is a minor consideration in Googles ranking algo, perhaps only really coming into contention for breaking ties there are many pages very closely matched on the relevancy rankings and in helping Google decide spidering order etc.

Now the commercial value of PageRank is tremendous, with webmasters believing (mistakenly IMO) that the value of a PR8 link is great ranking wise and setting link and domain prices on that basis.

Give me a choice between a non anchor PR8 link and a PR5 anchor text link and I'll take the PR5 every time.