Remember back in the day of early SEO? It was all about inbound links (no matter where they came from!), keyword density, Title tags and that loaded question “What’s Your PageRank?” Now the question is, “Is Google PageRank dead?”

If ya don’t know, Google PR is a value between 0-10 on an algorithmic scale, 10 being highest. Getting even to a 6, if you are not a huge publisher or brand was always a win, and supposedly helped you place high in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). In fact it was noted as one of, if not THE, #1 factor in determining where your site would rank.

But about a year ago, Matt Cutts, SEO big wig at Google, noted that Google PR is only updated a couple times a year and was being used less and less as a factor in search results rankings. Why? Matt said that a lack of support by browsers such as Internet Explorer and less use of the toolbar had led to Google avoiding updating the PageRank often. Hmm, with the market share Chrome has that seems odd, but oh well.

Google has always used scads of different factors in determining SERPs, and they can change over time. So whatdya do?! Follow some basic best practices, like these:

• Keep your site speedy, have a solid architecture that’s easy for both users and search engine spiders to get through.
• Content, content, content! Regularly publish relevant, interesting articles and posts that will be helpful to your users.
• Extend that great content to your social media channels. Be Active! That’ll help build your ‘social signal’ and helps build your site’s authority.
• Use Google Analytics (or whatever tool you use). Do you have pages with high bounce rates? Figure out why and fix them. Do you have pages that keep people on your site for a long time? Take a hard look at them, distill what’s best and apply that to other pages that might not be so productive.

So, so long PR, PageRank is dead! You never were wicked, though:)

Oh and speaking of SEO here’s a great free tool!