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Today, I was over at Digital Point, checking out what was going on and there’s a big discussion of a page rank update. People are complaining that their page ranks went up or down for no apparent reason, and it’s freaking them out.

But you know, … Does it really matter?

Here’s what matters: Your site showing up in the results pages. That’s what matters.

I’ve said this before: Page rank is a way for Google to play with your head.

If you have PR6, Google decides it hates paid linking and BOOM! PR0. Happened last year.

If you have a PR3, it’s better than a PR2… why? You have no more listings today than you did yesterday. Who cares?

What you should watch and care about are these things:

• Perform diligent keyword research. Come up with a list of terms that you can compete for and that you can show up in the results for. This should be of MUCH greater concern than what your page rank is. Page rank doesn’t get you traffic, listings in the SERPs does.

• Get a Google Webmaster account if you don’t have one and see which pages are showing up in the listings for what keywords.  If your pages are appearing, you’re doing something right. Do more of that.

• Fix your site. Make sure you have no broken links or outdated pages.

• Use Google Analytics or a service like 103bees.com to figure out what keywords people type into the search bar before they land on your pages. Use those keywords to write articles, blog posts, press releases, etc. if they make sense. If you’re not in the top spots for those words, you can be. Just be sure they get some traffic before you direct a ton of effort to them.

• Don’t try to rank for generic terms that the big boys are paying high-value SEOs to keep their rankings up. They have teams of people creating content and getting backlinks from many different sources. You’ll never win unless you do the same thing.

When page rank really matters is when you’re considering a link. You obviously don’t want to put a lot of time in trying to link to a site with a lower page rank, but even then… how much traffic does that site get? Even if it has a low PR, it might also have a low Alexa (which is good).  You want people to actually SEE your link, right? So, if it has a PR6 and no traffic (which probably wouldn’t happen, anyway, but…) the only one who cares is you. Link to sites in your niche, only when it makes sense. Page rank, smage rank.

Even Google doesn’t want you to focus on page rank that much. They took the metric out of Google Webmaster tools last month. So, consider all of the angles, but don’t let page rank be your be all and end all.  It’s just really NOT that important.

What Google really wants is good, solid, UNIQUE content. That’s all you really need to concentrate on providing. If you do that, you’ll gain readership, search engine love, and your potential customers will love you much better, so page rank… pffft!!!!

And yes, it’s coming from a blog that has none. I made the mistake of renting out to paid links for a couple of years. I lost my advertisers recently, and stopped the paid linking, but oh well… Google is still pissed at me, apparently. But I’m serious… The PR thang just isn’t that important to me. Writing stuff that matters to my readers is and in the long run, it will serve me better to worry about that than that little green filler in my Google toolbar.

If you disagree, I’d love to know your thoughts. Or, if you’re on my side of this issue, let’s hear it! How are you calculating the value of your PR?

Technorati Tags: page rank, google, search engine optimization, search, seo

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