I have seen a good amount of misunderstanding when it comes to what page rank is and how it effects where your site will show up in search engines. To help combat the spread of less than accurate information; here are the answers to a few common page rank myths.

IF I link out from my page, it will give away page rank – TRUE…. Usually.

The typical link will indeed pass Page Rank through a link to the page you’re linking to. In case you’re wondering, there are ways to keep your links from passing page rank; the most common being the use of a rel=nofollow in your links.

If my page is giving away Page Rank, it loses some of its own – FALSE

With the exception of linking to or from a number of spammy pages, your page will not lose the page rank it has by passing page rank to another. Think of it like your page having two pockets. One pocket holds the page rank it is going to keep and the other pocket holds the page rank it can give out through links. When you take from one pocket, it does not deplete that which is held in the other.

PR is THE MOST IMPORTANT factor that Google uses to determine my
ranking in the SERPs - FALSE

While page rank is still used as one of many variables to help determine rankings, it is by no means the most important factor Google employs to decide where your page will land in a SERP. Generally, you’ll see higher page rank on those in the top spots for popular key phrases, but not always.

PR is useless – FALSE
Page rank is still used by Google as a tool to help determine such things as crawl rate (how often your page is crawled), rankings, and more. The important thing to remember here is that this tool is never used by itself. Its like a socket wrench. The wrench alone is useless without a bit on the end of it.

Once my page rank hits a level, it won’t go back down - FALSE
The factors that your page rank is based on can change so in effect, so can your page rank.