There are also some theories that state it's all a big hoax by Google itself, sort of a shell game to keep people's attention away from what's really going on. Others swear by it. How important is it? Well, that really depends on you and what you want.
First off, anyone who wants to make a living on the Internet needs to understand that Google treats information like mercy in an Inquisitorial dungeon. In other words, they do not hand it out if they can at all help it. If you've got the free little tool on your browser that allows you to see Page Rank, remember that the Rank in question can be up to three months out of date. Google updates those about every three months, and there is no program known to the Internet community today that can reliably tell you someone's real, current Page Rank. Page Rank works off an insanely complicated mathematical algorithm that's based on the idea that any given page has a certain value. By linking to other sites, they transfer some of this value. They keep their own value, but the amount of value they have to give other sites is limited. If you are one of twenty sites linked too off a particular website, in effect you get one-twenty of that website's value. Of course, that's only an approximation. Most people have to attend college for a science degree to really start understanding the core of the algorithm itself.
So, how important is it? That's the real question, after all. Survey says not important enough to worry over much about, at least not in the beginning. What you really need to worry about first is your traffic. If you're number one for your chosen keywords in the search engine results pages, Page Rank will come on its own in time as naturally as rain falls. If you provide a quality site, people will naturally link to you as a reference or resource. It's certainly not worth giving money to worthless link farms that may even bring your Page Rank or worse, your place in the results pages down. The search engines do not like "link farms" too much, they rightly see these link farms as yet another attempt to manipulate their results. As problematic as it may be, there are no quick fixes in business. Creating a business that will last takes time, effort, persistence and patience in addition to providing a quality product. Do that, become or hire a decent SEO copywriter, and the Page Rank will take care of itself.
