Is Google PageRank still important in 2026? Yes, for the foreseeable future it is still fundamental. Even though the original public PageRank score is long gone, the underlying concept of authority flowing through links remains essential to how search engines evaluate which pages deserve to rank.
If there were a better, more reliable indicator of quality and authority than link based signals, it likely would have replaced it by now. The reality is that many other parts of SEO are easy to copy. Anyone can spin up a technically clean site, publish longform content fast, and add as much schema as they want in minutes. But none of that automatically earns trust.
You can add schema to a page and it will not make you rank for unrelated topics. You can have perfect technical SEO and still not outrank established sites in competitive spaces. You can publish a 12,000 word article generated quickly and it still will not rank without authority behind it.
PageRank, or at least what it represents, remains a core reason some sites consistently win. It is still essential for SEO in 2026 and beyond.