Google did not say that "We're no longer valuing PageRank as highly as we did." But remember, PageRank is based on the number of incoming backlinks to a website and the comparative quality of those links. Even if PageRank is devalued in the ranking algorithms, does that mean you need to quit pursuing backlinks?
Definitely no! Realistically, the search engines have very little to go from to determine whether one site is far better than another, besides the grade of sites linking back to it. Having high-quality backlinks is likely going to become an essential factor in SEO, regardless of whether the PageRank score quantifies the amount and quality of backlinks remains necessary.
But from a more organic standpoint, backlinks will still always matter because they frequently represent a significant portion of a site's incoming traffic. Whether they are built through blog commenting, guest posting, or profile building (or generated naturally by referring websites that appreciate a site's content), it is not merely link juice or even PageRank flowing through those links -- it's often people as well. Therefore, even if PageRank is devalued, building quality backlinks still makes sense.
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