Is the PageRank Toolbar dead?
On October 2013, Matt Cutts (the head of Google search spam) indicated we would not most likely see any further Toolbar PageRank updates. By accident (according to Google) the Toolbar Pagerank was updated in late 2013 (December). Since that time, we have not have any further updates. And Google has given no indication that they will be updated again.
Why does Google keep the Toolbar Alive?
Good question, since the toolbar has not been updated for a while and no indication that it will ever be again, why do they keep it around? The answer seems that they are using it not for SEO but as an indicator to help users determine the value of a website that shows page rank. Matt Cutts further explains in this video.
Another reason is, even though internet marketers don’t really use it as often as once before, Page Rank is still a big part of the Google Algorithm and helps non-technical people have a visual toolbar. Page rank is still considered a ranking factor and very viable one at that.
Long Live Page Rank? …
No. It’s about time newbies stop using Page Rank to gauge the quality of back links. Since its been a few years since it was last update, you will never know whether a domain still retains the back links that led to a high PR.
There are of course other useful metrics to determine the quality of a domain such as Moz.com’s Domain Authority (DA) and Majestic’s Trust Flow (TF). You are much better of using a combination of these two metrics than using PR.