If you haven’t noticed, Google did a toolbar PageRank update a few days ago, which has sparked alot of PageRank discussion as it usually does. Buddy Shearer, a long time member of my Internet Marketing Forum, recently asked “If Google gave you a PR4 what would you do with it?”

Since Buddy has been a long time member of my forum, he knows the truth about toolbar pagerank. But he also knows that many people out there still think that toolbar pagerank REALLLLLLY means something, so he is looking to leverage that into something positive.

So what is Google Toolbar PageRank REALLY Worth?

We know on a page by page basis toolbar pagerank is nothing more than just eye candy. But how can we leverage it into something positive?

1. Perceived value and credibility – Many people who are misinformed, believe a high toolbar PageRank means lots of traffic and authority, whereas a low toolbar PageRank means low traffic and low authority. This is simply not true, but MANY people think it is. So the higher the toolbar PageRank your pages have, the higher perceived value your pages will have to those viewers.

2. Increased advertising value - Among several other things that some advertisers will look at is toolbar pagerank, which means you could potentially ask for a little more cash for advertising spots.

3. Increased resale value – Just like it raises the advertising value, it also raises the resale value. Most people would rather buy a PR6 site than they would a PR0 site and most people would pay more for that PR6 than they would for that PR0 even though it has the same exact content, authority etc. Just for that eye candy.

4. Higher listing in some directory type sites – Some sites, particularly web directories, show listings in order from the highest toolbar PageRank to the lowest. So the higher your pagerank, the higher your listing will appear on these sites.

5. And as Milan said in that thread in the forum, it gives you a good chance to brag about it on forums That’s my favorite.

So as you can see, for the most part the actual value of the toolbar PageRank is very low. BUT because many people do not realize how low the actual value of toolbar PageRank is, it actually raises the value, if that makes any sense. In other words, the value that exists is derived from those who are misinformed and believe there is some other kind of value.

However, there is one instance where toolbar PageRank can actually be valuable from a keyword research standpoint.

The ONE thing Toolbar PageRank brings to the Table

If you notice, I use the phrases “for the most part” and “on a page by page basis” alot when referring to toolbar PageRank. That’s because when looking at the average toolbar pagerank of a group of sites in a tight niche, you can actually get a fairly accurate reading of the authority of that group of sites. For more on this, read my easy niche marketing keyword research technique.

I hope this post has helped shed some light on the almighty Toolbar PageRank that is so often explained inaccurately.

img credit: worolf

You may come upon the situation where you need/want to remove the sidebar for one particular page on a WordPress bog. There are many situations where this may happen. In one case, if you use Google Custom Search (within Adsense) for your blog search and you want the search results to match your blog (highly recommended) the minimum width for the results page is 795 set by Google. That means, with most themes, the ads on the right in the search results are going to overlap your sidebar.

So, here is the solution:

WARNING: Always make a backup of any file that you edit, no matter what it is you’re editing or who is giving you the advice!

Open page.php in your favorite editor, or even in notepad.

Replace the following line:

< ?php get_sidebar(); ?>

With this:

< ?php if (is_page('X')) : ?>
< ?php else : ?>
< ?php get_sidebar(); ?>
< ?php endif; ?>
< ?php get_footer(); ?>

Replacing the x with the page number. To find the page number, login to WordPress, go to pages and hover your cursor over the page you want to edit. Then look at the status bar of your browser and look at the URL. At the end of the URL you’ll see post=(the number)

Next, add the following code directly after the closing php tag ?> in your theme’s functions.php file:

< ?php
add_action('wp_head','wpi_custom_page_styles',11);

if (is_page($pid) ): ?>
<style type="text/css">
/* full width 926px + 25px (left &amp; right) padding */
#content{ width: 901px }
</style>
< ?php endif; } ?>

That’s it.

About 6 months ago I was driving down the road in Greenwood, IN as I came up on a traffic light. The light had just turned yellow
and I was at that spot to where I could either slam on my brakes in order to stop for it, or just go through it while it’s yellow.

I decided to go through the yellow light. Well, there was a guy in an SUV coming from the other way in the other lane who wanted
to turn left, crossing my lane, but he was stuck in the middle of the intersection and his light was red.

He saw other cars beside me slowing down to stop, so he started to turn. We both slammed on our brakes to avoid a collision. Well, there was a cop behind him and he pulls me over!

So I ran a yellow light (perfectly LEGAL) this other guy runs a red light nearly causing an accident IN FRONT OF the cop (ILLEGAL)
and I get a ticket. WHAT??? That really happened and I wanted to tell EVERYONE I knew about it!

Let’s consider my options.

1. I could call people, but I don’t have everyone’s phone number and of those I do have many were working etc. I would also have
to tell the story over and over and over and over again.

2. I could tweet about it on twitter, but I’m limited to 140 characters and if that’s not enough, not even half of the people
I know are on Twitter.

3. I could post about it on Facebook, but once again, I’m limited to 420 characters, not nearly enough to tell my story, and not
everyone I know is on their either.

4. I could write an email, but I don’t have everyone’s email either and is this really something you would email people about? I mean,
some people, yeah, but not everyone.

5. I could write a blog post, but I don’t have a blog that this story would fit in with. (The average person doesn’t have a blog
either.)

I needed a solution that would allow me to tell my story ONCE and share it with everyone on Facebook, Twitter, via email, via
Telephone etc… to combine my audience in a way. But I couldn’t find a solution. I searched everywhere, nothing!

So I created the solution! It’s called QuickScrib!

http://www.QuickScrib.com/

QuickScrib is quite simply an online, sharable notepad. You just go to the site, enter a title for your “Scrib” enter the text and
click “Scrib it” and it will create a custom URL for you.

You then have the option to share your scrib on Twitter, Facebook or via email. Or you can just take your URL and share it any way
you want.

This is NOT an Internet Marketing tool and the Spam filter is always being tweaked! I do allow links, but they are all nofollowed, which means they will not offer any form of SEO benefits.

This is a great way to share a story, recipe, joke, instructions or anything else you can think of. I’m excited to launch this site and I hope you get some good use out of it. Be sure to bookmark it for future use and tell all of your friends

I’m not a big fan of Toolbar PR because in most cases it’s very inaccurate, but I know people still love to talk about it I’ve got to admit, I still like to see 5 or more green pixels on my sites.

There have been a few reports of toolbar PageRank being updated and I can confirm that I’ve seen a few sites going up and down as the datacenters propagate.

So far the only tool that seems to be working is at http://www.livepr.info/livepr.php and I can’t say whether or not it’s 100% accurate, but some datacenter readings are showing accurate changes that I’ve seen.

The tool above is showing this blog at a 4 on a few datacenters (72.14.253.104 and 72.14.255.147 at the time of writing) and the main directory at a 5. This blog has been stuck at a toolbar PR of 3 nearly since it’s creation because I used to sell links. I haven’t sold links on here for quite some time, so we’ll see if it goes up to the 4-6 that it deserves.

Have you noticed any changes?

Many of you know that I’m fairly “technically challenged” and that causes me to outsource much of the technical aspects of my business.

Although I do know the basics and do alot of redirects myself, I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving advice on the subject. So, I found someone who knows quite a bit on the subject, Alan Peterson from IMNirvana.com and he’s agreed to an in-depth guest post on the subject of redirects.

————————————————————————————————————————-

The question of website redirection is one of the most frequently asked questions being asked at the popular webmaster/Internet marketing forums. There are several reasons why you would want to redirect traffic from one site to another. Perhaps, you’ve decided to change domain names or you’re promoting another site as an affiliate. Lets take a look at those two redirection scenarios and the best way to use redirection without losing site authority or violating affiliate program rules.

Search Engine Site/Page Redirection

The best way to prevent the possibility of losing any page authority your site has already earned is to not redirect it. However, sometimes a domain change is just inevitable. Perhaps you’re re-branding your site or you just need to redirect a specific folder or file. For whatever reason you may have–you want to minimize any negative impact from Google.

301/302 Redirect

The easiest way to do this is by a 301/302 redirect. Basically when a visitor lands on the old URL they will be redirected to the new URL. This happens behind the scenes and usually unbeknownst to your visitor.

There are many types of redirect (HTTP, Meta, CGI, etc.) but those methods can be considered black hat by the search engines because they can be used to trick the search engine for the purpose of gaming them. The most search engine friendly way of redirecting is by way of 301/302 redirect. Google accepts that as a proper way to redirect sites and pages.

Most of the advice online on the subject of redirection is doing a 301-redirect. A 301 redirect means the redirection is permanent. There are several response codes all beginning with 3 that redirects a browser to go to another location. The response code simply tells the browser and bots if the redirect is permanent (301) or temporary (302). There are a few other response codes but for our purpose we will only use 301 and 302 response codes.

Although, 301 is the most popular and often recommended way to redirect your site or page, it might actually do more damage than good, at first.

The 301 redirection is instant but in the world of Google and search engine algorithms it’s not automatic. Google places a lot of importance on domain aging so if you’re doing a 301 redirect you might end up playing catch up. Meaning the page ranking and authority you’ve worked so hard to achieve could be gone. Google could send your old site to no-man land while they catch up to the new domain.

Redirect in Two Phases

The best way of tackling your redirection is in two phases. Phase one is 302 redirection.

Several SEO experts suggest you first use a 302 temporary redirect at first–which flags the move as a temporary redirect.

A 302 redirect allows the original URL to stay in Google’s index so you maintain your site ranking and authority since the page is still there. But visitors who click on that original link will be taken to your new URL, which is where you want them to go anyway. You accomplish your redirection goals while keeping the status quo of your old page with Google.

Like a good wine you want your new URL to age. Begin your linking campaigns to the new site right away and let the new domain age for at least 6 months. Once your new domain begins to pop up in the rankings you can move to phase two: 301 redirection. Now it’s safe to make the redirection permanent. Simply change the status code from 302 to 301 and you’re good to go. And don’t forget to let your linking partners know about the change so they can update their links to your new domain.

How to do site redirection

The actual redirection process is very simple and you do not need to be a tech geek to do it.

A server side redirection is the simplest and fastest way to do this. That simply means the redirection is done from your hosted account’s server rather then from your visitors browser. This makes the redirection a lot faster since it’s happening from the server and you keep control of the redirection since it’s occurring on your domains server.

If your host is using a Linux server with Apache Mod-Write enabled, you can use a directory-specific .htaccess file for your redirection by simply adding a single line of code to your .htaccess file:

Redirect 302 /oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html

To change domain names add this code to your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=302,L]

The .htaccess file is found in your root directory. If you don’t have one you can create one your self. If you’re unsure if your host uses Linux/Apache server just ask them.

If your host doesn’t use an Apache server, you can still use the 301/302 redirection using a scripting language called PHP.

It’s a very simple process and you do not need to know PHP, you just need to copy the following PHP code and paste it to your old sites index.html file and change the extension to index.php instead of index.html. Then replace the URL with the URL of the site you will redirecting to.

< ? Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); Header( "Location: http://www.newdomain.com" ); ?>

Affiliate Link Cloaking

Another popular use of redirection is to cloak your affiliate links. It’s a good business rule to not use naked affiliate URL’s since they leave you vulnerable to link hijackers and by-passers which will will cause lost commissions. Your affiliate links will also look more professional and you’ll be branding your own URL, which is always a good idea.

What looks better?

http://www.affiliate-programs-url.com/funkyandweirdlookingcode?thatjustdoesntlookgood_aff?_ID1232998

Or http://www.YourUrl.com/Recommends/Product

There are several software products in the market that will redirect your affiliate links for you but you can easily do it for free.

PHP Redirect

Although there are several ways of doing this, in my opinion, the best way again is doing the redirect using a server side scripting language called PHP. All you need to know is how to copy and paste and upload the file to your web server via FTP or Cpanel.

This is the code you will need:

< ?php
header("Location: http://affiliateurl.com");
?>

Copy and paste that code into notepad. Replace the dummy URL with your actual affiliate URL. Save the file as a .PHP. And now upload it to your server. That’s it. I use the product name for my file naming convention and I upload the PHP file to a directory on my server called “Recommends”. That way the URL redirect will look like:

http://www.YourURL.com/Recommends/ProductName.php

Using redirection will not only shorten and make your affiliate URL’s more professional they will reduce your exposure to link hijacking and bypassing. You also maintain control for your redirection campaigns. If a merchant stops selling a product or shuts down their affiliate program you can easily change the redirects since they’re occurring on your server.

So whether you’re changing domains or you want to cloak your affiliate links you will find server side redirection is the best choice.

Alan Petersen has been an affiliate marketer since 2005. He is the author of The Definitive Guide to Link Cloaking and maintains an active Internet marketing blog at www.IMNirvana.com. To grab a copy of Alan’s Link Cloaking Guide, go to http://linkcloakingguide.com

photo credit: Leo Reynolds

According to WebProNews Microsoft, the world’s largest Software Company and one of the Worlds largest Search and online advertising companies, has offered $44.6 Billion to obtain Yahoo!

No word yet (that I’ve heard) whether or not they’ve accepted or denied, but if it were to happen Google may need to up their game in various avenues.

Yahoo and MSN are Google’s most serious competition. I’m no financial expert, but it seems to me that if the two combined that would equal some serious trouble for Google.

If it happens I see it as a good thing. It would weaken Google’s monopoly and give us more options and competition between companies is always good for the consumer What do you think?

If you notice, many of the more successful online marketers use ticket systems to manage their support, advertising and inquiries in general. Just off the top of my head I know that Willie Crawford, Mike Filsaime, Jonathan Leger and many others have ticket systems set up.

I’ve been noticing them pop up for a while now, but it wasn’t until I recently spoke with Jonathan Leger that I really thought about starting one for myself.

After searching and finding paid options thinking higher quality would be provided for a monthly payment, and being disappointed, I came across Maian Support, which is absolutely Free and functions perfectly!

I’m now using it for my support desk at Ask Josh Spaulding dot com

The installation was easy (registered the domain, changed the nameservers, installed the script and was running in under 25 minutes) and there isn’t a single thing I don’t like about it.

There are three reasons I really like using Ticket Systems to handle support:

1. It eliminates all of the deliverability (if that’s a word) issues that are generally associated with email. Create a ticket and 99.9% of the time it’s going to be read and 99.9% of the time you will receive your reply.

2. It helps organize communication, which improves the quality of support you provide.

3. It adds professionalism to your support process. It shows that you’re serious about support and have a professional means of communicating that support.

You don’t have to have a product to benefit either. You can use it just to manage business email, JV proposals etc.

No matter what you use it for I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a step up from traditional email!

Dan Thies just pointed out to his newsletter subscribers a blog post by Paul Colligan who just announced that TechSmith is offering free versions of their incredibly popular screen capturing software, Camtasia Studio. The free version is version 3, while the new version is 5, but version 3 is still incredibly useful and profitable!

I paid the full $300 about a year ago and it was one of the best investments I’ve ever made!

Camtasia is perfect for whipping up quick tutorials, how-to guides etc. I’ve even created and sold products that consist solely of camtasia videos and made loads of money with them!

I don’t know many details about this though. It may be a limited time thing. It may just be a limited trial, but from what Dan and Paul are saying, it’s a legitimate, full version.

If you don’t already have Camtasia, I highllllllly recommend you jump on this!!!

Heres the link again: http://www.paulcolligan.com/2007/11/21/free-camtasia-studio/

For those of us who are not very technically inclined, learning the ropes when it comes to Website management can be a very frustrating experience.

I’ve been marketing online for several years now, which for me involves managing a bunch of Websites. When the number of domains you own starts to grow to twenty, thirty or more you tend to make a point to learn how to do things as easy and painless as possible!

For many people transferring domains from one host to another means having the new Host do the transfer for you, but that can, and often does, include screw ups on their part, which more often than not results in down time for one or more of your sites.

The longer a site/page is down, the more likely it is that it will start dropping in the SERPS and that’s bad, bad news!

If you haven’t learned the following yet and you make your living online, or hope to someday, I highly recommend that you take the following advice and run with it.

Changing Hosts with Zero Downtime in 4 Easy Steps

Step 1. Download all your files so you have the most recent version. If your site is using a database use the backup function in Cpanel (if you use Cpanel hosting) or have your host do it for you (they should be able to pull that one off, it’s not that difficult.)

Step 2. Login to your new hosting account and add the site you’re transferring to that account. After you add it, it should tell you what the FTP login details are. If not, just go into the FTP function of your hosting account and it should be there. Write down the FTP UN and PW as well as the IP address that the site will be running on and the nameservers of the new host. If you don’t see the IP in your account, or if you don’t know the new nameservers for some reason just contact the new host and ask them. If they can’t answer you, find a new host!

(I once spoke with a “technical support” agent from 1&1 who didn’t know what nameservers were! which is fine, but she’s level 1 support for a domain registrar and host…WOW I’m no longer with 1&1)

If your site is using a MySQL database, use the backup option to upload it into the new account. If you don’t have that option have the new host upload it for you.

Step 3. Connect to the new FTP account with the new login details, but instead of using the domain as the host name, use the new IP. Using the domain will not work because the nameservers are still pointing to the old host. Once you’ve connected just upload all the files.

step 4. Login to the account from wherever you registered the domain. Go into the DNS settings of that domain and change the nameservers to your new nameservers that you wrote down previously. If you can’t find where to do this, just contact the registrar.

Optional Step 5 Do the happy dance because your site now has a new condo. Of course it could take up to 48 hours for the nameservers to settle, but once the nameservers are done propagating your site will be transfered with absolutely no down-time

Obviously the first round of PR reductions was just a primer. Sometime in the last 24 hours or so the big G downgraded even more blogs, most with a good amount of authority. They even poured salt on the wounds of some by reducing their PR once again!

Andy provides a list of some of the bigger blogs that were hit by the PR reduction this time around and goes into his thoughts on what may be going on.

Vlad tells his readers to stop linking to him, as he was one who lost some PR this time around. I won’t be taking his advice on this one though. If Google wants to penalize me for linking to quality blogs then they can kiss my ass and bite it too!!

Caroline dives into PR and why we should, or shouldn’t care about Toolbar PR.

It sounds like most of these blogs are only suffering from a reduced toolbar PR and not the actual PR, as I haven’t heard of any of them losing spots in the SERPS. I’d imagine Matt Cutts will be asked about this a million and one times so I’m anxious to see what he says about it.