What page rank should I aim for with a new site?

New sites coming in at PR 5.

[sandpetra]

Some of the sites I am building are coming in at PR 5 (obviously not at the moment). What's the most a new site has ever been assigned in the first update since it's launch?

How much PR is too much? Obviously I'm 'sandboxed' for quality keywords but do you think the PR now is just a heads up from Google that your site is trusted?

I know it has little to do with traffic and more vanity! But it can be a good indicator your site is trusted to a certan extent.

[texasville]

>>>>I know it has little to do with traffic and more vanity! But it can be a good indicator your site is trusted to a certan extent. <<<<

Now I'll probably get a lot of flack for this but pr is a reflection of link popularity is it not? A mid line pr such as 5 is nothing to sneeze at in most sectors. And Big daddy seems to be all about links does it not?
Of course BigDaddy seems to denote a separation of site and pages. If your main page is pr5 and your internal pages have very few or none of the incoming links then BigDaddy kicks in and drops those pages or turns them supplemental. Seems to be the case anyway. Seems pages don't pick up pr from internal linking.

[sandpetra]

I use a full web method which spreads my pr on all pages, so no problem there.

When I say it's vanity, I mean it's not traffic. I use PR to determine how well the site is built, and how google rates it (primarily through IBL.

Then it's about traffic generation, int it?

[texasville]

>>>> use a full web method which spreads my pr on all pages, so no problem there<<<

but what I am talking about is sharing pr thru the whole site may not be enough to keep your pages in the index. Each page may need it's own inbound links. Spreading site pr may no longer be enough.

[sandpetra]

I do agree. Even when my site was hit by the recent 'dump' - PR 3 pages in my site that were not linked to from external sources dissappeared from the site: command in the index - although they still had PR 3 in the toolbar.

Id be interested to know if any sites have launched and immediately been assigned a PR of 6 for instance (a business site - not some charity event with worldwide exposure, for instance).

Also - at the moment Im not using Google sitemaps - and to be honest I am a bit hesitant to tell Google the improtant pages on some of my sites! I am a great believer in A) letting google find your site itself and b)letting it work out what are the important pages and c)reacting it it to optimise those pages for Google and users.

Am I missing a trick with sitemaps?

Also - regarding PR - I use it to let clients know if the site is making improvements in Google since I took over it. Apart from that I'm realising that it doesnt represent a massive shift increase in traffic in niche areas in the first months (because your sandboxed) - rather that when you come out of the sandbox you have a trusted site and you will eventually start to recieve better placement in the serps for relevent keyphrases - especially with new pages.

Regarding the dropped pages. I was under the impression the dropped pages was something to do with low pr ie 3 pages and external links from those pages to exetrnal, possibly 'irrelevent' sites - for instance text link adverts for other sites.