Is pagerank still important in google SEO?

Question

I have always been under the impression that having a high PageRank score is the key to getting placed highly within a google search. Today whilst doing some research within the keyword term 'software reseller' I noticed that the number 1 spot was a PageRank 4 and the number 10 spot was a PageRank 5. This blows my belief clean out the water and I'm now really confused. What is the purpose behind google's PageRank? How does a site get rewarded a no1 spot without it? Please help because I'm trying to optimize my site while it's in the sandbox so I can get a good placing when I am indexed. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

 There is a lot of confusion between PageRank and Search result rankings. Many people unnecessarily obsess over the importance of PageRank. The general assumption is that high PR equates high rankings. This is not necessarily true. There are PR8 sites that cannot be found in Google unless you specifically search for them by their company name. On the other hand, there are PR3 sites that can be found in the top search results for their specific keywords.

The truth is that PR is just one of the many factors that determines a page’s actual rank on search result page (SERP) for a given search query.

It is very common to that a page with a lower PR is positioned higher on a SERP than a page with a higher PR. This shows that PR is not the most important factor in Google’s ranking algorithm. A low-PR site that is properly optimized for a keyword phrase can outrank a high-PR site which is not keyword-optimized.