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That's a question that lots of newcomers to this industry must ask themselves. After all, if you look at the major industry message boards it's not hard to believe that most of the people behind those nicknames are really quite young and, depending on the board you're looking at, many of the people posting really are quite young.

But then, on some of those boards, most of the posters aren't Webmasters at all ... they're just wannabe Webmasters who will never succeed because they can't handle the hard work. The fact is that you're prepared to work hard then you're never too old for this business.

While there are plenty of people out there who think that marketing on the Web is something for young people that's just not right. Marketing on the Web is a business for anyone of any age. It doesn't matter whether you're barely 18 or moving on into your seventies; if you're prepared to learn and prepared to work hard there's no reason why you can't succeed at selling on the Web.

Age should be no inhibitor if you want to do other things on the Web as well. You don't just have to sell things. You can be involved in search engine optimisation, you can be involved in web design, web hosting or just about anything that might be related to the Web.

When I first landed on one of the better known newbie boards the leading expert in making money from great search engine listings was a guy who was into his sixties. Several of the guys who are running well-known TGPs are in their fifties and several other top TGP and link list owners are in their forties.

Every one of them started late in life by today's standards yet they are still here making money and way out in front of a lot of younger people. Of course there are lots of people who will try and tell you that the Net is a young person's game and even some venture capitalists are now trying to suggest that you're too old for the Net at 30 but they miss one very important point.

Sure, young people have lots of great ideas and the drive to make them happen but older people have experience of real life and that's something that you really need to understand if you want to be able to reach out to people. It doesn't matter whether you have some new application that might take the Net by storm or you're trying to sell something online, without the experiences that real life can teach you the chances of achieving success are reduced.

Sure those who want to tell you that the Net is a young people's world will suggest that only the young can handle the paradigm shifts that new applications require but if you're older just tune out to that propaganda because it's based on nothing more than wishful thinking. As one self-confessed old fart put it very succinctly; 'Just because I have gray hair, fathered a couple of kids, been divorced more than once ... doesn't make me or any of my generation any less of a potential to shift more than the occasional paradigm.'

So if you're thinking of getting into online marketing or any other form of business on the Net don't let the thought of age stop you. This is not a young person's business and Steve and I will tell you that from personal experience. Here in the town where we live we're running rings around several mainstream web developers who are less than half of our age. They might be young but they lack experience and quite often it's experience - and experience in real life - that will help anyone get ahead.

Any time you see anyone on a board suggesting that this is a young person's industry just move on. They're trolling and the chances are that they won't be around the industry for much longer. Don't let them put you off, just use their clueless comments as a spur to drive you on to even greater success.

Google and eBay
Last week I mentioned that eBay had taught Google a rather unpleasant lesson when they withdrew all their advertising from google.com. On Saturday Hitwise reported that eBay had resumed advertising with Google on a limited basis but it doesn't seem that they did so because eBay was suffering a loss in traffic.

Hitwise suggests that the loss in traffic to eBay that came as a result of eBay pulling their Google advertising was very very small.

That's one thing about marketing on the Web that should attract lots of older people; there is never a dull moment here and I wouldn't be working in any other industry.