Page Rank and the influence it has on Google algorithm now?

I would like to raise one of the most arguable questions nowadays – page rank and the impact it has on website ranking positions in Google! I think page rank has not a direct impact on Google algorithm today! Even if it does this influence is much lower today! What do you think about this question? Do you agree with me? If not let’s start discussing this interesting topic!

PageRank doesn't "influence Google's algorithm" because it is Google's algorithm.

PR means absolutely nothing to visitors of a website. That's why Google doesn't waste toolbar space showing it anymore like they used to. http://toolbar.google.com/T5/intl/en/index.html

I have two sites that during the last PR update have come to be valid arguments in either side of a PR debate.

On one hand I have a site that went from a PR0 to a PR2 and it's getting more visitors now.
On the other hand I have a site that went from a PR3 to a PR2 and it too, is getting more visitors now.

I think there should only be three meaningfull levels of PR for anyone other than Google using it to make a decision.
PR1, PR5, and PR9
All other levels should be rounded down to the previous level.

Live from our website: We dropped in PR from a nice 6 to a intermediate 3. Yet, this did not inflict any damage to our SERPs. So the google PR cannot be taken into account when it comes to search engine ranking.

The disadvantage of a low PR is just that links on your site ain't that much worth as they would with a high PR. And exact that is what google does when they see you selling links through open link trade portals, as they drive for selling links their own.

I am not saying about myself, but most of the people consider it a good sign in terms of optimization.

Tell me one thing, if your site home page 0 PR and suddenly it get PR 3 or 4 won't you feel happy about it.

Nowadays, sites owner don't care about how low or high there PR is.. They just care about how there keywords rank in SERP..

PR is just 1 factor affecting the ranking of your website, and don't bother much on having a high PR..Google Algorithm is different from PR, because Google Algorithm is a formula for ranking a website and PR is just a part of it..

It might be said that the higher PR websites can have more pages of them indexed in Google because they will be crawled faster.

SERPS > PR

Forget about page rank, concentrate on more important things like indexing.

PR realistically means very little, forget about it.

Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. Thank you.

PR is one of the determinants of serps in google!
The higher the PR the broader you can scope you keyword phrases!

Now there's a statement I've never seen before.

I've had a competitor go to a PR4 and me from a PR4 to a PR2 and i've dropped in the key search terms I target for. In fact, I've had to get off my haunches and do some good old fashioned SEO!