Fifteen-days ago, Google dropped PageRank values from Webmaster Tools and the search community took that as a bold statement. The statement was clear, webmasters “shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much,” said Google.

Last night, Google pushed out a Google Toolbar PageRank update, despite making that bold statement just a couple weeks ago. As Danny explained clearly in his What Is Google PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters, “Toolbar PageRank — is a snapshot of internal PageRank taken every few months.” Yes, months ago and it is far from current.

Despite all of this, Google has updated the PageRank values in the Google Toolbar sending a mixed message to webmasters and SEOs.

Related Topics: Google: SEO

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz