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Wow it's just a couple of days off the end of the month and Halloween is two days away ... where did the time go? I guess it's time to go out and stock up on plenty of treats for the neighborhood kids because, even though Halloween is something almost unique to the United States, it's certainly beginning to catch on here in a big way.

Trust Rank ...
... and you thought that the whole concept of Page Rank had devolved into a can of worms? Well just wait till all the search engine optimization gurus start getting their teeth into Trust Rank ... I'll bet you'll see some amazing theories and 'facts' put out there about this one.

Trust Rank has been around for quite some time ... at least a patent that deals with Trust Rank has ... and many people have thought that Google 'owned' that original patent. However the research that produced the original patent for Trust Rank involved Stanford University and Yahoo and Google was nowhere to be seen.

Now though that's all about to change for last week Google was granted a patent for a process that allows web pages to be ranked based on labels that people might add to those web pages. That may well tie in with Google's latest attempt to screw everyone's web sites ... otherwise known as Sidewiki ... but some genuine experts believe that Google's latest patent and Sidewiki aren't related at all. They also believe that Google's version of Trust Rank is quite different to the earlier Trust Rank developed by Stanford and Yahoo.

So what does it all mean and is Google already using this process to rank web pages? Well Google doesn't usually wait for a patent to be granted before it implements the process so the chances are that it's already in the mix with Google's algorithm but what does it actually do? Basically we don't really know but I'm sure we're about to see a sudden eruption of definitive 'facts' about this from any the SEO world.

All it will take is just one person to make a pronouncement and all the other 'experts' are going to jump on it too.

Please keep some records
While I'm writing this column I'm also dealing with the hosting transfer of three domains for a client. These domains have been around for a couple of years and they're being moved because the last host wants to wind up their business and basically retired. It's a very small host and they don't want to sell their server to another host so the sites have to be moved.

Now I've done this sort of job for a client maybe a hundred times but this one is turning into a nightmare and it's all because the client has never bothered to keep adequate records covering usernames and passwords issued by their domain registrars for their domain names. We have probably wasted four or more hours on this and I'm about to start tearing my hair out. These are three totally unrelated mainstream sites so I'm not sure why the same registrar wasn't used for all three domain names ... but they weren't and that's just compounded the problems.

So my advice to you is to keep records ... a hard copy filed somewhere in your office where you can find it and a soft copy filed somewhere on your computer where you can find it. Keep those records updated and if the sites are never going to be linked for search engine optimization purposes then use the same registrar for all your domain name purchases.

I often see people shopping around for the cheapest registrar when they want to buy a new domain ... hell I even see some of the leading industry experts asking on Twitter for recommendations about cheap registrars ... but that's just totally lame unless there's a very good reason and the cost really shouldn't be a reason at all.

When you don't stick with the same registrar you're making it harder for yourself to keep track of the domains you own ... and if you don't keep records where you can find them at a moment's notice you're just making the situation even worse.

And don't you believe that sorting out a problem like this can be that hard ... I started doing this four days ago and it's still not resolved. In a few minutes I'm going to have to sit in a phone queue for quite a while till I can talk to someone in the support section of domain name registrar and even then the problem may not be resolved.

So if you like to be totally frustrated and waste time then keep no records ... or lose them ... or put them somewhere that you can't find them ... or maybe believe in miracles. Whichever option you choose out of those the end result could be that your business is damaged.

On the other hand, if your domain names are important to your business then keep your records where you can find them at a moment's notice.

And now, before my frustration destroys my keyboard I'll stop and transfer all that angst to the phone. See you next month.