Google has dropped the PageRank report from Webmaster Tools. We have always treated the PageRank of a site as one of the starting points when looking at how a site is doing on Google. If the PageRank is low or nonexistent then this can be an indicatior of something wrong. Equally a high PageRank is always a good indicator of quality incoming links.
Google themselves have been playing down the importance of PageRank for a while now. The following is a statement from Google:
We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.
Although Google has removed it from Webmaster Tools it is still available on the Google Toolbar. Sometime ago Google was taking feedback on removing PageRank from the Toolbar but did not take it any further. There is some feeling that they won’t remove it as it is too much part of the Google branding.
From a Web site owners point of view what does the down playing of PageRank by Google mean? The building of quality incoming links is and will continue to be important. However, the obsession with which some site owners (and their SEO companies) treated the importance of PageRank will now be seen to be misguided. In other words it is an important consideration but not to the exclusion of other considerations.
Site owners should continue with creating new and interesting content, that has always been the case. Measurement of the value of this will be an increase of incoming links, increase of traffic and increase in conversions. Simple.
However I am somewhat saddened by the lessening of PageRank as a feature as it was what made Google different and a better search engine ten years ago. PageRank went from an exciting concept, to an important day to day tool to now yet another element in an extensive universe of factors of what search engines use to determine the relevancy of your Website.
