I was panicking recently when I checked my page rank. I thought that it had gone to zero and I must have done something wrong. I did delete a post that I thought was not what I wanted to be promoting and I didn’t bother to do a 301 redirect.

That would have created some broken links. Any way as it turned out, my page rank is different for icooltools and www.icooltools. One is PR3 and the other PRO.

This actually is a minor game but I always wanted to have a PR5 or PR6 site.

The page rank looks like it’s heading up to PR4 on the next update. Maybe some people will want to link to me then and drive it up to PR5. That would be a nice Christmas present, but I’m in no hurry. This site is more of a pleasure than anything else. I know people are reading it because they regularly comment and send me emails, but I never know how many.

I’m working on some great projects at the moment which is cool because things just sort of evolve and then you get back and something changes.

Waiting for page rank is like watching the grass grow. I’m not doing anything overly aggressive to achieve it with this site. I’ve just commented appropriately on various blogs that relate to my theme, which is COOL TOOLS.

It’s funny you know, I thought Google had smacked me because I’m running Chitika ads at the moment, but it was just paranoia. The new Yahoo Publisher network is a much bigger horse than Chitika. As soon as I realised that, I was fine.

But the story has a happy ending. PR3 and soon to be PR4 within a fairly short period of time. And hopefully soon to be PR5 and PR6.

Just in case you haven’t been there yet check out Site Point. It’s a very well run forum and there is a wealth of knowledge for webmasters there. I’ve just recently bought a domain from the domain buy and sell section and came close to buying a whole site.

As well as that there is a ton of good advice on php, java and almost any language and application you can think of.

Another forum that is also pretty cool is digital point. I just like the style of the guys who run it. They are not serious at all, but they have a great range of free webmaster tools.

You’ve probably heard of the warrior forum right? It’s a regular hang of most internet marketers. I’m a member of that as well, but I don’t visit that often. It’s reputation is very good and it’s a great place to learn some internet marketing. I probably should visit more.

How are you with forums?

I tend to visit and contribute in spits and starts. This month I’ve spent a lot of time at Site Point. They are Aussie like me, but they’ve really made a great success of themselves, like I’m working on - haven’t got there yet but getting there.

One thing I don’t like about some forums is the negative people that get on there. They really stand out like a sore thumb. You get them on all forums. One of the best things I have done in my life is to learn how to recognize destructive personalities and get them out of my life no matter what it costs. I can say now that I am pretty well sorted in that regard.

Since I have taken this step it’s amazing how my life has smoothed out and much better things are happening.

Most forums self-police themselves - the social members will object to some negative personality having a rant. And this is I suppose a good thing - except when the effort to correct turns into more to and fro.

That’s where the moderators come in. A moderator will keep the peace, keep it on topic and make everything go smooth. A really well run forum such as digital point or site point usually has great moderators that are worth their weight in gold.

You may be shocked to find that the person who invented spam has finally confessed. It all began in 1994 one summer …

The person who invented spam