Early Christmas Present

Position No.1 achieved..
It's just in UK google, but I am pretty pleased with acheiving a No.1 search result for my chosen keyword this week (which I'm afraid I will still not be revealing anytime soon...). I am still getting position 3 in Google.com, but as my target 'audience' is UK users (to match my eBay affiliates which are aimed at UK users), I would rather have a better result in the UK.
I don't suppose that I will retain this position long-term although the older the domain becomes, the better chance I will have - just to stress a point though - the site I am referring to has NO PageRank.

• Question: Can you achieve position 1 without PageRank?
• Answer: Yes!

There are reports that Google has started to make some major search engine changes recently, making some fundemental changes in the way that search results are compiled. Whether this success is as a result of these changes (and therefore more likely to be a long term effect) or just a coincidence will become clearer in time.

New Flooring ideas

I have been struggling for a while with how to replace my bathroom floor. I Have already taken up the old vinyl bathroom flooring long ago and the wooden flooring that remains has some problems. Although the floor has been nicely sanded, stained and varnished, the boards have gaps which ordinarily would not be too much of a problem.
Underneath the bathroom, however is the kitchen and I have lowered the kitchen ceiling in places and inserted ceiling lights which are very visible through the bathroom floor.
I am left with the conclusion that if I don't want the kitchen lights shining through the bathroom floor, I have to think about Fitting laminate flooring or replacing the original boards with some oak floorboards.
I really like the idea of having the real wood floor, but am equally attracted by the practical advantages of laminate flooring. Let's not gloss over the fact that laminate can be had for less than £5 per square metre, as opposed to from around four times as much to more than ten times as much for solid oak flooring.
I am also quite taken with the range of finishes avaiable from the range of laminates on the market, but it will be a while before I get round to the bathroom floor, so I will have plenty of time to consider my final choice.

As the end of the year approaches

It's time to take a long hard look at the years activities. I have had some small successes with my SEO project and can report earnings of £14.38 for contextual ads and £4.51 for eBay ads giving a grand total of £18.89 in the first six months, which I am confident will cover any costs (£25) by the time it has been up for 12 months. Interestingly, this project has helped me form some ideas about the relationship between PageRank and Search Engine Results Position. I have achieved great results in terms of SERP for my keyword (which is not that difficult when the keyword is part of the URL), but I have no PR whatsoever - which leads to the question: If you are looking to be ranked #1 for your keyword, as most people are aiming for, how does PR help??
My only conclusion is that if you have found a niche keyword, you can optimise without any PR, but if your keyword is heavily competed for, you may need PR to acheive SERP??
I have tried heavily competed keywords before and got nowhere, in contrast the results for my niche keyword were impressive and more or less instant. This is one in the eye for those that bang on about needing on-page AND off-page optimisation, when you can actually get to #2 of page #1 with virtually no off-page optimisation at all...
I am first to own up that a potential profit of £10 per annum is not terribly exciting, but there are a few riders that I would add to that:

1. The rate of earnings is likley to rise from the initial faltering start
2. I plan to move this to a hosting plan that will be virtually free
3. I plan to repeat the experiment for other related keywords giving me similar income (hopefully) a number of times over.

I hope to show that this niche well-worked could be worth a few hundred pounds a year at least...

One remaining gripe is that the site is not yet listed by 'Bing', and I have tried submitting it again as I think Bing is going to be a big deal and seems to be seriously targeting Google. I will continue to keep tabs on progress with this particular issue...