Google has stirred the webmaster’s pot this weekend as their toolbar no longer shows PageRank. This is not a localized event, webmasters from all over the world from Scotland to Australia are witnessing and reporting the same “gray-bar” in their toolbar.

So the question is….

• Is it a major bug fix?
• Is it an impending major PageRank update?
• Is the Google PageRank gone forever?

Some say it’s a major update as Google’s cache was also acting up recently. Some are *wishing* that it’s a major update of some kind. Brett from Webmasterworld.com says “The toolbar pr indicator has been offline many times before. It’s just a “we are working on it” glitch…”.

Some are wishing that this may mean the end of PageRank and the PageRank obsession.

Who does this affect?

The webmasters most affected by this PR outage are those involved with link exchanges or those buying or selling text links, pretty much anyone who uses PageRank as “currency” online.

Is it time to panic?

Not quite yet, the consensus on the Webmasterworld.com forum is that it’s just a glitch or an update as this isn’t the first time the PR indicator has been offline.