what does page rank do for your web site.. does it really help u much in SEO. i have seen pages with a pr of 6 and better that have no traffic at all ?

I think most people agree that page rank is no longer very significant, at least not as displayed in the Google Toolbar.

Yep, page rank is not going to help you to get your page cached on SERPs.

Pagerank is ment to be showing your rank by the amount of backlinks to your site and popularity.. however these days its not that important ;-)

PageRank is supposed to be an indication of backlink popularity, but it has now lost it's meaning almost completely.

I have had sites go from PR 5, to PR 0, to PR 1, to PR 4, etc... without a twitch in SERPs over several years. It really doesn't equate to anything in search results.

So then whats the point of pagerank? Doesn't it have to do something for ranking high in google searches? Why do people keep saying pagerank doesn't mean anything.

PageRank used to be a neat little indicator of how many backlinks a site had. Since lots of backlinks indicate good traffic and search engine results, you could say PR was somewhat useful.

Now Google is completely screwing with how PageRank works, and not counting all types of links. It's simply inaccurate now for most purposes.

So in your opinion what is the best way to get on the first page of google and other search engines?

For hosting companies atleast, PageRank isnt really important. It's a measure of how many backlinks you have.

As the other guy said, Google has been screwing around with how the PR system works, so yeah, don't count on it too much.

SEO works well if done right. Choosing the right keywords in your <title> and the meta keywords of your site can make a difference. I guess PR counts a bit too, but not too much, so again don't count on it too much.

Thank yo Bikster for your post

First page listings on google are very hard for a generic term like "web hosting" - however if your hosting company is a targeted niche then getting first page (and even 1st listing) can be accomplished.

We focus on a shopping cart software called X-Cart. However, people searching for "X-Cart" are not our target. Those people are looking for information. Instead we go after the "x-cart hosting" and similar terms. People who already KNOW about the software, and just need hosting.

Choosing your words carefully, matching text within your site to words that people would use to find your company, and having multiple entry pages with information is how you'll gain top positions on the search engines.

very interesting