The recent “crisis” over the Google PR loss of many websites and blogs has caused many SEOs and bloggers alike to question the real value and accuracy of PR (though many in the SEO and SEM industries and otherwise have been thinking this for a long time). Some major sites have had their PR “fixed” (because elitism always enhances the user experience, and this is the point, right?) but many smaller sites are left wondering: WTF?

I have long believed that Google PR means nothing. Most users do not know what Google PR is and so it does not increase the likelihood that people will want to visit your site again if you have a good PR ranking. None of the major blogs that lost PR will lose traffic, and it is for that reason that links on these sites are so valuable - they have referring power.

But why is PR so important still? Even though SEOs hate it and SEOs don’t respect it, why do SEOs talk about it, and why do SEOs get upset when they lose it?

In Freddy vs. Jason, Freddy Kreuger’s weakness is that he only has power so long as people believe in him.

Remind you of something?

It’s only real so long as SEOs endorse it, so long as SEOs believe in it and so long as SEOs include it among the goals to achieve. Furthermore, it is not up to Google to get rid of the green bar… it is up to the search marketing and optimization industry at large. It is up to the people buying links and selling links to find a new set of determinants on which to base the value of their web real estate. If we stop believing in Google PR, Google PR will cease to have value. And then Google can do what they want to PR and the fact that Matt Cutts was not a buddy would no longer be an issue for smaller webmasters that were hurt by this.

Funny personal things that I noticed during the PR update:

• 1 expired domain purchased in the spring lost PR then regained PR3 after this update - a few PR0 links for this site in the interim but no linkbuilding for this site

• 1 expired domain purchased in the spring lost PR and was redirected to another site - after the update I checked the PR and it has PR4, a few links built (4-5 links) - I un-redirected this to check and it indeed has PR4 even though it had PR0 when it was redirected to the other domain

• a friend’s blog has PR4 some links built to this domain, but not over 50 - most links to this were changed when he moved to a new domain

• this domain has P3 - I was previously at another domain (2 weeks before the update) and the old domain has PR3 and this one has PR3 (none of my links had yet been indexed by Google as redirecting to the new domain)