PageRank Predictor and Google's Gone Wacky

Yes, yes, we know that to real Search Engine Experts, Google's PageRank doesn't mean all that much. But to us amateurs, and to a lot of companies purchasing links and bragging about their sites, PageRank is a convenient way of explaining the popularity of your site.

Personally, I use PageRank like some people use Alexa. If it goes up, you're doing something right. If it goes down, you need to make some changes. Most of the work we do is based on traffic, dedicated topics, ranking of posts in search engines (we use real content, which of course is the key). For Branding, PageRank is great. You know if you get to a PageRank4 of 5, then you're doing a great job, and can then focus your message more tightly to attract the right audience.

So one of the tools I use, in addition to CheckPageRank (.net and .com), is iwebtool's PageRankPredictor.

So that's my view on PageRank, but a word of caution. The game is not just PageRank. It's a tool, one of many for competent SEO's, and if you're just focused on gaining PR, then you're not getting the point. I don't try to get PR - I just do what I know how to do, and PR comes.

And lately, (the last 60 days or so), it may all be moot, as Google's algorithms have all gone wacky, returning different results on different days and on different computers. That's particularly tough when I send a search result to a client and they tell me they can't see their site.

Good for Google - as manipulating SEO is kinda anti- the point of search engines - but it does make it tough. It just goes to show you that you are better off focusing on building regular readers and better content, and looking at the SEO as gravy.