Around 3 weeks back our Google Pagerank dropped from PR6 to PR3. The blogosphere was abuzz as the pagerank crashed for several top blogs across the internet and the Google penalty was attributed to selling text links. Today the Google toolbar is again showing PR6 for QOT!
Though we have not been selling paid text links (had used TLA a few months back) or paid link paragraphs on high PR pages or any other hidden links, our site met with the Google penalty. Though the search engine traffic remained same as before, the Google toolbar and pagerank tracking tools displayed a clear drop from PR6 to PR3.
I had filed a Webmaster Reconsideration Request in the Google webmaster tools and requested a review of our site, clearly telling them that no paid text links or hidden links are currently sold on our site. I assured them our site was compliant with Google quality guidelines. I guess some Googler had a look and fixed the issue and the Google toolbar is displaying PR6 again. This is possibly the best Blogger gift I can get from Google.
I checked Live Pagerank for PR across Google datacenters, and they all show zero. Similar is the case with other Pagerank checking tools. SEO Roundtable has noticed that multiple third party applications that check PageRank are broken.
It seems another Google pagerank update is in progress or maybe Google is manually fixing affected sites. Have you got your pagerank back?