On March 24, several PageRank tools put the Chrome download page at 7.

Computerworld confirmed the improved PageRank by running searches using words such as "browser." That term now pulls a results page with Chrome in the third spot on the first page. During the penalty period, Chrome's download site was pushed all the way down to the sixth result on the fifth page.

Mozilla's Firefox remains the top result of a search using "browser."

Although Web metrics company Net Applications for the largest-ever decline in Chrome's usage share during January, numbers from Irish measurement firm StatCounter told a different story.

According to StatCounter, Chrome's share continued to climb during the penalty period, increasing by 1.1 percentage points in January, 1.4 points in February and 1 point so far this month. The gains were very much in line with StatCounter's tracking of Chrome increases during 2011, which averaged just over 1 percentage point each month.