Google has finally written a blog post specifically about PageRank and how Webmasters and SEOs should probably focus on other things.

The blog post is named Beyond PageRank: Graduating to actionable metrics, written by Susan Moskwa, one of the fearless Googlers involved with webmaster communication.

She said, “PageRank is no longer—if it ever was—the be-all and end-all of ranking.” She then goes on to explain:

Susan instead recommends you look at the following metrics that are “actionable” such as conversion rate, counce rate and clickthrough rate (CTR).

This is not the first time Google has downplayed PageRank. They downplayed it in the recent toolbar upgrade and we know that Google’s Matt Cutts has always wanted PageRank removed from the toolbar. Adam, back then “mini-Matt” asked for feedback on the removal of PageRank from the toolbar. Plus we know, many SEOs want it gone from the toolbar. There were rumors in 2008 that Google was removing it and it 2009 they removed the data from Webmaster Tools.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.