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Brett_Tabke - 12:25 pm on May 29, 2003 (gmt 0)
It got people to download the toolbar, which in turn helps Google with the most important heap of data they have - toolbar data. Click data is more important long term than page rank. While PR counts link "votes" that can be manipulated, the toolbar counts real world live-real-time-votes (eg: clicks). Combined, they are the future bookends of Google search results.
The only benefit if any google got by it is that it helped to spread the PR buzz in the media