Interestingly the way backlinks are shown in Google seems to have changed completely. All my internal links have disappeared from the link: search and a ton of <PR4 links have shown up. Looks like the old back link must be PR4 or greater to count might be dead.

My PR has stayed the same too. I think it's largely eye candy anyway. The last few updates showed absolutely no change in SERPS on the day of the update, but rather a gradual thing as I did my SEO. A good example of this is a PR7 link I picked up had a big effect on my SERPS a couple days after it was posted, and a few days later when the Google BL update happened I saw no change in SERPS.

Cheers,

Check out this thread = http://www.daniweb.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8160

So you're saying that lets say on Monday I get a new backlink from a high PR site. By that Friday, my ranking in the SERPS will reflect this? Even though the backlinks shown on link:www.daniweb.com aren't recalculated yet? That would be cool if it's true!

"Whenever your site adds a new incoming link, Google will find it when its spider crawls your site. That link will be calculated at the time of its indexing. The link will provide its link boost to your site in the search engine rankings upon its discovery. What that means, in simple terms, is by the time the actual backlinks are displayed by Google, the links have already had their values included in the search calculations."

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google/Go...d-for-Panic/2/

Definitely something I didn't know. Thanks for that

ewokforhire is correct. PR is eye candy and updates seem to have nothing to do with updating SERPS any longer.

Thanks for that. So I guess the PR toolbar's functionality is limited to getting webmasters to believe your site is worthy of having their link on it?

I think you're absolutely correct. In 12 months I didn't get one request for a link, but when I put up a links page and it hit PR4 hey presto, three requests in the first week.

I think also it helps to keep the 'my PR is bigger than yours' element entertained. But that's more of a side effect than a reason to have it. :mrgreen:

What you guys are saying seems to be making sense. Diminishing the true value of the google toolbar's PR definitely goes with Google's plans to eliminate the buying and selling of PR for PR's sake.

hey Dani... PR is poop! :p

neener neener neeeeener!!