Google Page Rank, why you shouldn't worry about it...

Rumour is that google will be phasing out the little green bar shortly.

I've heard that, and they seem to be dropping more hints about the end of PR. But it is after all a marketing gimmick, but one that has become completely embedded into online business planning and thinking.

Like alexa, you can take it with a pinch of salt, but together, you can get a rough idea of how a site is doing.

Would you pay money to advertise on a site with a PR of 0 and an Alexa rank of 20 million?

What we need is somekind of official barometer of greatness. At the moment all we really have is PR, Alexa and a few similar tools. Until we all make our analytics public, there can't be a reliable single tool.

My wife said something interesting yesterday - she said that I had more knowledge of the internet than most because I am involved in it and that most people just go to google search and go to a site.

The new mantra seems to be focus more on content and conversion than PR ratings as at the end of the day being position 1 in google with a PR5 website is no good if your end users thing your site stinks!

Remember also that end users are getting better at surfing so now its's what they see in the search results that is as important as the position on page 1

very true, the old adage "content is king" still stands, but from a business point of view, we have a lot of business owners who sign up with us because they are impressed by our Alexa rank, or are happy with a PR 3 or 4.

So it will take quite a mindset shift in attitude to move people away from PR, mainly because so many so called professional SEO outfits are still preaching it. But I agree, the average surfer couldn't care less, maybe as younger surfers start their own digital empires, the wind will change