Well, another round of Google PageShank, erm PageRank Updates hit this weekend. While those who have not been initiated into the PRSlap club sit on the edge of their seats to see if they gain a measly point or two in precious PR juice, those of us who are seasoned members of the PRSlap club sit back and laugh. Once again, our old friend we love to hate, Google, is spreading fear with their dreaded PR updates.

It comes as no surprise that this blog dropped a point on the homepage but gained a point or two on a few deep pages. No biggy either way since I don’t earn a living here. Besides that, my SERPs and RSS subscriptions continually grow with each posting. Those SERPs and subscriptions are far more important than some arbitrary number Google assigns. Nevertheless, a couple of my other sites gained some PR both on their homepages and deep pages, which will be good for advertising revenue, but not much else.

Still, PageRank is here, broken as it may be, so we have to live with it. For myself as well as many other web professionals, there are much more important metrics to consider than PageRank. Unfortunately, the average “webmaster” may not be aware of these metrics. Instead of focusing on factors that are important, they waste precious time and resources trying to get naked one-way backlinks from high PR sites, while completely ignoring sites that can help generate much more traffic in a shorter time and for less money.

While you sit and watch the little green bar on your screen helplessly, please do take the time to learn more about other metrics that are truly important to growing your online business. Once you understand how to interpret and capitalize on these issues, you too will laugh at the panic of others who scramble for the all mighty PageShank.

In fact, I have a few sites that have PR0s and I can assure you, I’m not sweating it. Why? Because PageRank doesn’t matter. Those sites have SERPs, subscribers and generate revenue as well as provide background services to other sites I own. That is what they were built to do and they do it well, regardless of what number Google wishes to assign them.

If you want to break free from PageShank slavery, learn how to read and understand ALL the factors that influence your site’s growth and sales.

Holy erratic economy Batman! Entrecard is for Sale!

When I got up this morning to check my mail, I noticed Entrecard was seriously slow. As someone who has been the recipient of a Sitepoint traffic slam, I should have suspected something was up. It wasn’t until I checked the morning’s RSS feeds that I realized what was going on.

On September 25th, 2008, Entrecard was listed on sale at Sitepoint. For just under a cool million, you can pick up a relatively popular social networking site. Not a bad deal at all! Here’s a bit more detail on the sale.

• URL: http://entrecard.com/
• Established: Tue Nov 06 2007
• Uniques/Month: 85,000
• Page views/month: 3,250,000
• Monthly Revenue: 2000
• Google Pagerank: 5
• Listed: Thu Sep 25 2008

Description:
OUR AD NETWORK DELIVERS:
• 80 MILLION IMPRESSIONS PER MONTH
• 3 MILLION CLICKS PER MONTH
• GROWING AT 16% MONTH-OVER-MONTH without any marketing

What really surprised me about this sale is the relatively low monthly revenue of Entrecard. I figured that site pulled in somewhere in the $$,$$$ range. Go figure.

Whether the site sells or not and how a sale will effect the service is yet to be seen, but this is certainly one website sale that will have the blogsphere buzzing.

They pull you in with their words from sweet tongues
They lower your guard with times of laughter and fun

Do not fall into their charm and allure
For their poison there is no human cure

They share enough of themselves to gain your trust
But keeping your guard against their deceit is a must

Beware the friendly-faced vipers
The friends that prove to be liars
Know their words are poison to you
Real friends are truly the few

Give them not a chance to strike at your fragile heart
For it is your life they will surely try to tear apart

They will strike where you are weakest regardless of the cost
For their conscience is empty and their souls are lost

All of your family and friends are fair for their games
These vipers are quick to point at you and cast blame

Beware the friendly-faced vipers
The friends that prove to be liars
Know their words are poison to you
Real friends are truly the few

We all know a friendly-faced viper or maybe a few
Being honest with yourself that viper could be you

They are those that spread lies and rumors about others
No matter the harm to children, fathers and mothers

Surely they will give account one day for their harm
Until that day keep yourself and family well armed

Beware the friendly-faced vipers
The friends that prove to be liars
Know their words are poison to you
Real friends are truly the few

In between unpacking boxes (yes, I’m moving right now) and cooking dinner for the family, I wanted to put up a quick post to let everyone know that yes, I am here. Yes, I have read your comments. No, I’m not ignoring you. Finally, yes, I will be returning to blogging.

In fact, I wanted to take this opportunity to announce that I am officially going full-time with Blogging by the beginning of October. By this coming weekend, you will start to see more posts on this blog.

For those who are observant and have noticed some changes in my MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog profiles, I’ve already been quite busy with rolling out a couple niche blogs and getting them off the ground. This has been my primary focus for the last few months. Once I get finished with what I need to do on those sites (by Oct. 1st), I will be launching 2 More blogs.

One of the new blogs, which will announced here, will focus on fitness training for the average guy using average equipment, working around hectic schedules and dealing with all the trials that 25-35 year old working, family men face daily. My neighbor (27 yr old) and I (31 yr old) are the willing victims and co-authors who will be posting our journey’s, successes and failures as we document going from dough boys to ripped muscle men over the next year. The other blog is adult in nature and this will be the only public mention of it you will hear from me.

More will be revealed later as to why I disappeared and what all has been going on behind the scenes, but for now, this work-at-home dad needs to get some food on the table and get back to unpacking.