Hitting all the Targets

When I founded CoinTalk.org in the fall of 2002, I simply wanted to provide an alternative to the USENET newsgroup that I had been participating in, as an escape to the burgeoning load of spam and trolling that are ubiquitous in an unmoderated newsgroup.  I’m amazed at how far it has come.

In fact, until recently I didn’t really have any plans for it at all.  In fact, in 2004, I even thought of just closing it down because it was becoming more of a pain than anything, and wasn’t catching on fast enough.  Thank God I kept at it.

The community is over 15,000 strong now, and more importantly it’s 15,000 of the right kind of members as well.  We’ve written over 440,000 posts.  Uploaded countless images of coins, both common and rare.  It’s become what most would consider an invaluable resource to numismatists and coin collectors.

My main goals going forward are to increase membership and traffic to the site.  Enabling members to more easily spread the word is the primary tactic.  Also, creating a wider array of resources and tools to allow collectors and numismatists to explore and learn about the hobby is at the top of the goal list.

I’m more optimistic about Coin Talk now than ever, and looking forward to where 2009 will take the community.

CoinTalk Hitting all of the Targets is a post from: Peter Davis

About the Zealot.com Deal

This is one of my longest term projects.  I’ve put a ton of heart and effort into building up this community to where it is today.  As it stands, Zealot.com has over 30,000 members all of whom are very zealous about their hobby.

And what a bumpy road it was.  Along the way there were numerous points when I thought I would loose everything, or ready to just throw in the towel.  Thank goodness I kept with it.  I’m very proud of what I accomplished with Zealot.com and that I didn’t let the community down in the end.

I won’t go into much detail about the transaction, other than to say they paid 50% cash, and the other 50% in equity.  So, I remain involved with Zealot.com, but now there is an incredible support team involved that can do much more than I ever could on my own.

And, that leads to why I choose this time to transact with Zealot.com.  It may have been overdue.  For some time I felt that my technical skills were holding back the community from climbing to the next level.  In fact, if Zealot.com were the only project I had on my plate, I am sure I would not have had to worry about it.  Juggling multiple projects often meant that all of them got second class treatment, and now that’s not a concern anymore for Zealot.com.

Zealot.com Crowdgather Merger is a post from: Peter Davis

I put a bunch of work into BloggerTalk.com over the past few weeks.  It had been a while since I took the time to do any work at all with BT, so it was well overdue.

BloggerTalk.com is a community that I launched in 2003, focused on building community among bloggers and allowing a neutral platform for the exchange of information.  Over the years it has grown slowly to almost 19,000 members.

This summer I took up the project again and refreshed the look of the site and added a front-end to the community using Wordpress.  It’s far from being where I’d like to take it though.  I would like to recruit people interested in blogging to participate by submitting news features, tutorials, and other content useful to people who blog.

The BloggerTalk.com Relaunch is a post from: Peter Davis

Is unique content really better than duplicate? or Why is Matt Cutts so chummy with search engine spammers? is a post from: Peter Davis

Full Circle – How I Bought a Website I sold Two Years Ago is a post from: Peter Davis

My Blog Forum is a post from: Peter Davis

*disclaimer: if any Google employees ever read this, I’m being sarcastic with that final remark, please don’t ban me.

Google Image Search is a post from: Peter Davis

Toolbar PageRank is a snapshot of real PageRank. The most recent toolbar PageRank update happened just a couple days ago. What the toolbar is now showing is how the PageRank appeard at some point in late December.

How do I know this? Well, because it included PageRank from some links that I added in mid-December, but not some that I added on December 30th and 31st. It’s possible that Google captured the PageRank on Christmas weekend itself, and updated the toolbar on New Year’s weekend.

Why is it important to understand that this is a snapshot? The PageRank you see in the toolbar is old news. The search engine itself updates PageRank on a daily basis, more or less. In fact, it depends on the importance of the site how often it’s updated. If you get a link from a very important site (high PR), you’ll get updated far more quickly than if you get a link from a low PR site. You can test this by adding new links and monitoring your positions before, during, and after.

Google Toolbar PageRank – – you may have misconceptions about it is a post from: Peter Davis

Progress toward my end year goal is a post from: Peter Davis

Relaunch About-Auctions.com is a post from: Peter Davis