Just a quick question for readers - how long did it take you from when you first learned about SEO to install the Google toolbar and check out PR on every site? And, conversely, how many weeks/months/years until you uninstalled it?
For me, it was about 10 days into first learning about SEO back in 2002 that I installed the toolbar. It wasn't until July-August of 2004 that I finally got rid of the thing entirely. Now the only time I use PR is for the tools, and even then, it's just one piece of a rough calculation.
Never installed the toolbar at all, actually - but with Firefox, I did install the Google PageRank Status extension. I do like to keep a sense for the general importance the site has. Obviously PageRank isn't the end all and be all of SEO, but there are clear differences as you move up the ranks!
Well I am actually still in the phase of thinking it's important. :) I am a newbee to this SEO thing and while researching, found that PR is important. Now that you said it's not, I am confused. :)
Thanks :)
Gonna keep reading....
About a week. I do not like the idea of telling G or any one else where I go. G is becoming more like the giant MS. How do you spell monopoly?
Glad you mentioned this because I have yet to install and you just saved me the trouble! I don't like a lot of toolbars and crap on my browsers... Clutters my screen!
I agree with EGOL, even though it is to be taken with a grain of salt, I like to look at it just to get an idea of the "range" of a pages link juice. I find that while it doens't always tell you which sites are bad, that sometimes it will let you know which sites are good. For example, usually anything PR6 or higher is pretty good, and if it's relevant, worthy of trying to get a link from.
I probably installed it in early 2003. I still use it and I still pay attention to the PR of websites.
Yes, I know how you feel. I thought that is THE tool you need to have , as everyone else was telling you to do so. then I started noticing variations in the PR of a particular website I monitored. I got very confused. Until I learned to forget about the PR Toolbar, hence I have just turned it off. :-) I've used it I would say for about half a year.
I installed it when I got sick of popups and google seemed like the best SE to get a toolbar for. Then I figured out what PR was. I haven't uninstalled it because I use google so much, but PR is only a novelty any more.
Still use it! I like having the google search box right there in addition to the PR and pop up blocker.
I installed the toolbar when it became available.
Page Rank used to be very important and back in the summer of 2003 PR was everything. It was a hugely important ranking factor back then.
I never really though of myself as a SEO, before April 2004. I adopted Firefox early and stopped using Internet Explorer at that time.
I don't remember when I first installed the Google toolbar, but I remember when I stopped using it - first time Firefox was released.