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For a long time now some people, me included, have been trying to inform the rest of the planet that page rank - that little green line in the Google toolbar - doesn't really count for anything. But I guess I was wrong ... in fact all of us who have said that about page rank have been very wrong because it really does count for something.

How much does it count for? Well if you believe the brains behind a major online store in the United Kingdom it must count for millions of dollars. You see that's what his business got in venture capital funding because his new business and it's associated site was showing a PR of 5.

Now if that sounds a little strange then believe me, I did not make it up. The site in question is called Arena Flowers and you can find it at arenaflowers.com. It's a very attractive site and the people behind the site have certainly put a lot of work into it but it wasn't really going anywhere without some form of funding and they got it ... because the site was a PR5 ... at least that's what the head of design and development claimed in a recent interview.

Now if those venture capitalists really did bet their money on this site based on the fact that the site was a PR5 then they were very lucky. You see they really did back a winner and the business really is growing year on year and the people behind the site really do know what they're doing but perhaps those capitalists didn't.

But if those capitalists invested their money simply because it was a PR5 site then you have to wonder if they're not the least bit worried now. Even though the business is growing the site isn't a PR5 anymore, now it seems to only have a PR of 3 so obviously the business is headed for the rocks.

Of course I really don't believe that the business is on the skids just as I don't believe that page rank counts for much ... even if it did get those guys at Arena Flowers a truckload of cash. They were just lucky that the investors were impressed by green lines that really don't count for anything much at all and if you've got some PR5 sites I bet that right now you're wondering where you can find someone silly enough to invest money in your site.

Funding and PR rankings aside that site certainly is interesting and has much to teach anyone who wants to sell anything online. For example if you look at the front page the first item for sale that you'll see is the one that has been most popular throughout the day. It may not be the most expensive item they have for sale but as long as it's the most popular that's what visitors will see first.

Now is there a way that we could sell our products in a similar way?

I'm not convinced that there is but it's always interesting to spend some time looking at how other people sell things on line to see if there isn't something in their techniques that we could adapt to what we sell. In this instance the site displays a thumbnail of their most popular products with a ‘buy now' button and it could be possible to adapt that to our sites. Perhaps it's possible to display a bunch of thumbnails featuring adult images on the front page of an adult site with a link that would take surfers to gallery pages or something similar and from there move them on to the sponsors.

It's just something to think about if you're interested in gaining some advantage in this industry. So many people here in adult just copy one another and who says that the way we're doing it now is the best way to sell adult products ... whether they be site memberships, video on demand or even sex toys? If we're not prepared to do a little experimenting now and again we're never going to do anything other than follow the herd and fight over the crumbs that the real marketers in this industry leave behind.

Something else that you may learn if you spend much time wandering around mainstream sites is just how good we have it here in adult. Hosting is one area where, if you're sensible and work with established hosts, you'll get a much better deal than mainstream does.

We came across one guy recently who owns the copyright to his site that's been built with Joomla. He has access to the site via the Joomla control panel but doesn't have FTP access at all. Now he wants to move the site to a new host but the old host won't give him access so he can grab the files he needs.

It's a nice way of ensuring that your customers never leave you when they find out that you're actually charging them five times the going rate for hosting.

And people think that adult is full of crooks ...