Pedent - 10:33 pm on Oct 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Once upon a time, everyone looked forward to a monthly update. It was never quite monthly, but it was a definite event that everyone waited for with fear, trembling, and hope.

Then came Dominic & Esmerelda, and the monthly update was no more.

What has taken its place? I've read suggestions here that there is some kind of three day pattern to the SERPs update. I also read, just before my site's backlinks updated on the 26th, that the last backlink update took place on the previous 26th and so the next one should happen soon.

And so to the question: Are there any patterns to Google updates (whether SERPs, or backlinks, or PR) anymore?