The perceived importance of PageRank can vary widely depending on who you talk to.  Some have become borderline obsessed with the green little bar graph, while others claim that it really doesn’t mean much at all.  And while I personally don’t put much emphasis on it throughout my daily work, it can be useful in certain situations.

Most people use PR to gauge the value of a link that they are trying to get.  The problem with this, however, is that the link quality that a certain page can carry is determined by much more than just the PageRank.  The quality of your link would be affected by the number of other outgoing links on the page, the type of link (contextual vs standalone), and the location of the link, just to name a few.

Where the PR can be helpful, however, is when you’re comparing two very similar sites that would provide a “similar-in-nature” link.  In this regard, PR can give you a general feel for the differences in authority that the two pages may carry.

How I Mainly Use PageRank

In my own practice, I find myself using PR mostly as a filtering tool.  When link building, it becomes important to find the good and weed out the bad link opportunities as quickly as possible.  In that regard, PageRank can be a quick litmus test to see if I want to further explore the possibility of getting a link from that source.  If I come across an opportunity with a PR of 0, you can bet that I’m not going to put much effort into deciding if I want a link from them.  If a quick glance at the toolbar, however, shows a PR 8, I’ll certainly look further into the possibility of receiving a link.

So in your link building efforts, take PageRank for what it is.  A general (and historic) view of the overall authority of a website.  All things equal, a link from a PR 4 is better than a PR2.  But when are you ever going to find “all things equal?”  Use PR as a filtering tool and not as the basis for most of your link building decisions.