No other rank is talked about more than Page Rank. Everything from advertising rates to web site bragging rights are based on a site’s page rank. It’s not surprising that many people value a website solely based on its page rank.

Page Rank is that ubiquitous ranking that Google gives to every web page in their index. It’s not based on the popularity of a page or even the quality of a page. No, it’s based on the number and quality of links pointing to the page. More than that, the actual page rank of a page is never divulged. Instead a toolbar Page Rank is published for each page every 3 to 4 months. Instead of being a completely algorithmic way of ranking sites, Google tweaks the results to fit their own business needs, opinions and prejudices. As a pure ranking system, it is dubious at best.

Research has shown time and time again that toolbar Page Rank has nothing to do with rankings in the search engine results page and nothing to with search engine traffic. With or without a toolbar page rank, you will pass link quality onto other sites and help other sites rank well in the search engine results.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there is some value to Page Rank. You can get better offers when someone wishes to have a link from your page to their page. Advertisers that misconstrue Page Rank with popularity will also pay more for an ad based on your site’s Page Rank.

If you notice, one of the only values of page rank is that having page rank will give you more advertising opportunities. It’s simple really, advertisers consider a link to a site with a higher page rank to be more valuable.

But herein lies the big problem. If you sell a link that is more valuable because of your page rank, Google will take away your page rank. In other words, if you sell a link without a nofollow tag on your site, Google will strip away your page rank. Let’s put it in a little different terms. If you sell your page rank, ie the only way to access the value of having page rank, Google will take it away.

I had an epiphany about 8 months ago. I realized that Page Rank has no value unless it is being used and once you start using it, it will go away. I decided that I could make a choice. I could let Page Rank sit on the shelf giving me no value or I could use it now and access the value in it. I chose to access it now and I have never regretted it. The traffic on my sites have increased and I had immediate access to the Page Rank value I had built up.

I am not a fan of Microsoft. You probably know this if you have spent very much time reading my blog. In fact, I loathe Microsoft, but lately I have been seeing some of the great new online ad technologies that they are coming up with and I think they actually might be on to something.

Search advertising is quickly reaching a saturation point and new avenues need to be taken to keep ad growth positive. Some of the ideas that Microsoft has are simply amazing. Imagine watching a video and then speech recognition software picks keywords out from the video so that ads are displayed next to the video. The text ads change with the content of the video.

This is simply amazing. All of a sudden, millions of online videos become a huge source of ad revenue through contextual ads. This could literally revolutionize the online ad marketplace. No wonder why Google is scared of a Microsoft and Yahoo tie-up.