The problem with that question is that it can be overhyped. Just like with meta tags, there are people who think it can do things it cannot do. The problem is that just because something can be overhyped, doesn't mean it in truth is unimportant. Important things can still be hyped beyond their importantance.

A similar question would be, is the anti-pagerank trend overhyped as well?

Makes for a good thread Chris.

After reading that thread it looks like DP must share some posters with WMW.

The problem with direct democracy is sometimes the peasants don't know what they're voting on. I've seen people say link popularity was never used. I've seen people say PageRank takes too many on-page factors into account. Others say PageRank is hyped because it obviously isn't the only factor in the serps..... it makes me want to cry.

I think PageRank is a nice indicator of what Google thinks of the page and site. I know of 137 ranking factors both on the page and off, I am sure there are more. I don’t think PageRank is one of them, it is just an indicator of some of those factors, mostly link quality, and that the site has links to it. This is similar to the speedometer in your car, it is not the speed of the car just a representation of the speed. I do get a nice warm feeling when I finally get a PageRank and it is fun to see it improve as I work on the site and make improvements. Ask the question, “Would you like to have a PageRank of 9 or 5?” See what your response is then. It is what it is.

Barry, I apologize in advance for the longish comment, but user-generated content never hurts, right? (And I already posted about this on my blog so that's out)

I think chasing TBPR instead of building link magnets is silly. But I think its also important not to confuse low ROI SEO tactics and what we know about how search engines work. When you're dealing only with uninformed opinions, a poll is the worst thing you can run. Just because 90% of the people say the earth is flat isn't going to stop the earth from being round. Instead, let's look at the big picture.

If PageRank doesn't matter, why is it calculated on a daily basis? Why doesn't Google just let PageRank pass through nofollow links if PageRank wasn't all that important? Why do Google threaten to nullify the ability for link selling sites to pass on PageRank if PageRank did not influence ranking? And why in the world would Matt Cutts claim PageRank is the primary factor detrmining supplemental results?

For a long time, PageRank has been faulty and inaccurate. New sites are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to PageRank and people could manipulate PageRank by link exchanges, buying links, and comment spam.

But no more - or so they say. Google is now claiming it can detect link manipulation. Googlers claim they're devaluing the PageRank on "non-earned" links, and they advise us to slap nofollow on paid links so that those links "do not influence ranking."

Again, why do they bother telling us all this if PageRank was irrelevant to ranking and link buying didn't actually work?

Let's go back to basics and re-read a quote out of the Google Playbook:

http://www.google.com/technology/

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The heart of our software is PageRank, a system for ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. And while we have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to provide the basis for all of our web search tools...

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search.
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Now all this academic stuff is intersting to me, but let's not forget PageRank is just good food for thought at best. Thinking 24/7 about PageRank will not improve your ranking. What will improve your ranking are - pardon the cliche - "good content" and "good marketing."

Surely, pagerank is quite important. Good content and comments will help.