We got confirmation yesterday that Google has completed a PageRank update for the Google toolbar.  The update does not affect your listing on Google search engine result pages, but you may want to check to see how you are doing.  Every 3 or 4 months, Google exports data to the visible PageRank tool on Google toolbar.  So, if you see a change, it may be reflective of something that happened a few months ago.

PageRank is a measure of website importance (based on the number and quality of links to your website) as determined by Google. This determination is based on over 500 million variables.  The Google PageRank tool is a visual representation of a website's importance on a scale of 0-10.  Page ranking that affects search result pages is constantly updated but the graph that you see on the Google toolbar  is only updated quarterly at best. 

Too many webmasters and SEO's obsess with PageRank as if it were the number 1 determining factor of a website's search results.  It is only one of 200 factors that determine search results.  I am not saying that PageRank is not important, but it is not as important as some people would have you believe.  Achieving high page rank is like receiving a award for having a well developed website with fresh, relevant content. It is better to win by outperforming your competition than by trying to lobby the judges.

PageRank develops organically as visitors and happy customers spread the word to others by linking to you.  So, instead of spending your time on link building - just write some quality text that describes who you are, what you offer, and how it is going to change the world.  Then, find the most appropriate ways to let the people who know you to know about your website so that they can tell others who tell others.