PR versus position in Google's listings

What's the difference?

[NigelT]

I am sure there is a simple answer to this question so forgive me, as a relative newbie, for asking it!

Which of the two - PR, or position in Google's listings (I'm sure there is a technical term/acronym for this), the most accurate reflection of relevance. Or are they measuring different aspects of a web site?

My question is prompted by, what seems to me to be the strange fact that, for my most important keyword phrase, No.1 in the listings is a site with PR3, and sites with PR6 and 7 are listed at No.9 and much lower on the second and third listings pages. Shouldn't the sites with PR7 be at the top and those with PR3 much lower down? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

[dwilson]

PageRank is a measure of how popular a page is. It is based on inbound links vs outbound links. The PR of those inbound links figures prominently into the recursive algorithm.

There is another algorithm to determine the relevance of the page to the particular keywords. That result, as I understand it, is multiplied by the PR.

It is not unusual to see a PR3 page beat a PR7 page if the PR3 is more relevant to the particular search. PR becomes important for highly competitive keywords where many sites bear similar relevance to the keywords.