No, because it counts citations from influential papers with a higher weight.

That's the same with academic scores. Citations in the "Self-published journal of amateur chiropractors" don't buy you much academic credit...

In fact PageRank was inspired by academic rankings in that aspect:

"PageRank was influenced by citation analysis, early developed by Eugene Garfield in the 1950s at the University of Pennsylvania, and by Hyper Search, developed by Massimo Marchiori at the University of Padua. In the same year PageRank was introduced (1998), Jon Kleinberg published his work on HITS. Google's founders cite Garfield, Marchiori, and Kleinberg in their original papers."

Isn't that how is done in academic circles? Maybe not quantatively but qualitatively surely tenure boards or hiring boards or student applicants notice such things.