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But I would not mind the PR vanishing either because I believe it was already being manipulated.
In the past when I was deciding to link to another page, one of the first thing I would look was the page rank, but now, you look more into the real content not the number on the page.
I have seen pages where there is no real value, but it has PR 5 or something like that. I have always asked why? Because they either bought links or had many sites linking to them.
PR, as we all felt, has come to stay. But like good milk gone sour with time, maybe Google decided to replace it with a new system.
I dont think they will scrap the PR system altogether. Afterall, PR has been one of the highlights of Google Technology since long and they may noy like to lose it.
It is always better to improve and repair gadgets than throwing them altogether. Millions of websites swear by the PR hype Google had created, and it is not fair to drop it one fine day. This effects the credibility of Google with all the webmasters.
If they are closing PR system just because (1) No direct revenue and (2) being manipulated; then who knows tomorrow they may just close the search also as even that has been manipulated to an extent.
Afterall they may be feeling that Adwords alone can feed them for next zillion years.