The Need for a New Gauge: Moving Beyond Visual or “Toolbar” PR Rankings
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Contrary to popular opinion, visual PageRank is not the best tool for evaluating the popularity of specific Web pages. Not only is it often out of date, but there are important factors that it does not take into consideration. This article discusses why so much attention is paid to visual PR, as well as alternatives to examine when trying to determine a Web page's true value.
"Man oh man! When are we going to get a PR update? “Ugh! I’m tired of waiting for it. The hours are turning into days. What exactly am I waiting for anyway?”
There are really only two viable reasons for the fervor associated with the infamous PR update:
People want to improve their visual Pagerank so that they can improve their bargaining position with regards to reciprocal link exchanges.
People want to improve their visual Pagerank so that they can improve their bargaining position with regards to the selling of text link advertising.
Both of these reasons are tied to the belief that visual PR is the best gauge for evaluating the potency or overall SEO value of specific Web pages. Visual PR has a long-standing reputation for being the “be all and end all” tool for determining the SERPs value of a Web page. Webmasters have become accustomed to consulting visual PR data in order to determine the value of a link from a specific Web page, but the truth is that there are other, much more accurate means for determining the SERPs value of a link from a specific Web page.
Think of it this way: if you were doing an SEO analysis of a Web page to determine its “potency” in terms of SERPs, would you rely simply on PR value? Any established SEO webmaster will surely answer “Hell No”!
Search Optimization 
