Just like they did at the start of 2009, Google has gifted website owners with a PageRank update to start the new year – welcome 2010.

For those of you who follow the little green PR indicator – chances are you’ll have noticed that your PageRank on Google’s toolbar has shifted – hopefully upwards.

Webmasters first noticed some PageRank shifts in mid December 2009 – and as of the 31st Dec 2009 – the reports started rolling in on the shifts. Whilst the results vary depending on the website and SEO activity over the past few months – “most” forum members seem to have enjoyed increases.

Here’s some of the comments from the Digital Point Forums:

• “I got three PR2’s and a PR1 for my new blogs. Not a bad start!” richkid
• “I check my both sites yesterday night and it was showing PR 1 for both site, but from today morning Both site got PR 2.” facerec
• “Yes PR is updated! I got PR0 > PR3 - Really happy!” blog8491
• “Great one for me. My weblog made 2 months ago went from PR-0 to PR-3. The last PR update took place 2 days after I got the domain, so it was not even indexed that time. This time, I had the time to build some backlinks. “Azkaban
• “Google updated its tool bar. 4 of my domains have got PR4 from PR2.” somansathya
• “OMG, my 2 PR4 –> PR1” dien77

The important thing to remember is that ToolBar PageRank isn’t a truly100% accurate reflection of your live Google PR status. Often the PageRank indicator on the Google Toolbar is a few months out of date.

As SearchEngineLand explain it: “Internal PageRank are the PageRank scores that Google uses as part of its ranking algorithm. Those scores are constantly being updated. In contrast, the PageRank scores that Google allows the world to see — Toolbar PageRank — is a snapshot of internal PageRank taken every few months.”

Nonetheless – if you’ve seen your PR jump up like many people are reporting in the forums – congratulations and keep up the good link building work.