Is this good or bad? For a webmaster who has a high pr site it is very good as they will be able to sell links for a longer period. If you have a new site it can be very frustrating as you wait to see if your link and seo efforts have been rewarded.

Google are attempting to do away with paid links and are no doubt hoping that by only updating twice a year will damage the market. With a lot of people buying on a month by month basis this could actually work.

Another idea is that page rank could be replaced by a trust rank toolbar.

This would be a great idea in my opinion.

Steve