RIP Google PageRank score: Another “vanity marketing metric” falls by the wayside
As I have said in the past, marketers often try to demonstrate their expertise by trumpeting any one of a number of what I call Vanity Marketing Metrics (VMMs). Clicks, Likes, Shares, Page Rank, etc. However, at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is the number of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) that Marketing delivers to Sales, an how many of those MQLs turn in to real customers.
You can generate a plethora of VMMs, but if you can’t show that your efforts are actually contributing to revenue, you may be the first one shown the door in the next revenue crunch or cost-cutting effort. Calling VMMs marketing success without showing revenue impact can be the equivalent of throwing a no-hitter and still not winning the game. Marketers need to track analytics that span the entire customer journey, from initial acquisition, all the way through an actual sale. That way, you can properly analyze the results, putting more effort and budget into the items that are driving sales and retiring those that are not.
BTW: You can visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Hawkins to see how a pitcher threw a no-hitter and still didn’t win the game.
While Google will remove PageRank scores from public view in the coming weeks, the way those scores dramatically reshaped the web will remain.
Source: RIP Google PageRank score: A retrospective on how it ruined the web