Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

---

• Meaningless Greek Deal Supposedly Reached; Deal Won't Hold
• Disability Fraud Holds Down Unemployment Rate; Jobless Disability Claims Hit Record $200B in January
• Why Greece Must Exit the Eurozone, How it Will Happen (and Why Portugal and Spain Will Follow); Does the Euro Act Like a Gold Standard?

Meaningless Greek Deal Supposedly Reached; Deal Won't Hold Posted: 20 Feb 2012 07:15 PM PST Reuters reports Deal reached on second Greek bailout package Euro zone finance ministers struck a deal early on Tuesday for a second bailout program for Greece that will involve financing of 130 billion euros and aims to cut Greece's debts to 121 percent of GDP by 2020, EU officials said. "The financial volume (of the Greek package) is 130 billion euros and debt-to-GDP (will be) 121 percent. Now it's down to work on the statement," one official involved in the negotiations told Reuters. Another official confirmed that the financing would total 130 billion euros with the aim of reducing Greece's debts from around 160 percent of GDP now to 121 percent by 2020. Deal Won't Hold Even if true, the deal won't last. It may not even last a month. In fact, it may be nothing but a setup to convince Greeks to leave their money in banks. Greek Debt Nightmare Laid Bare Please consider Greek Debt Nightmare Laid Bare A "strictly confidential" report on Greece's debt projections prepared for eurozone finance ministers reveals Athens' rescue programme is way off track and suggests the Greek government may need another bail-out once a second rescue – set to be agreed on Monday night – runs out. The 10-page debt sustainability analysis, distributed to eurozone officials last week but obtained by the Financial Times on Monday night, found that even under the most optimistic scenario, the austerity measures being imposed on Athens risk a recession so deep that Greece will not be able to climb out of the debt hole over the course of a new three-year, €170bn bail-o It warned that two of the new bail-out's main principles might be self-defeating. Forcing austerity on Greece could cause debt levels to rise by severely weakening the economy while its €200bn debt restructuring could prevent Greece from ever returning to the financial markets by scaring off future private investors. A "tailored downside scenario" in the report suggests Greek debt could fall far more slowly than hoped, to only 160 per cent of economic output by 2020 – well below the target of 120 per cent set by the International Monetary Fund. Under such a scenario, Greece would need about €245bn in bail-out aid, far more than the €170bn under the "baseline" projections eurozone ministers were using in all-night negotiations in Brussels on Monday. The report made clear why the fight over the new Greek bail-out has been so intense. A German-led group of creditor countries – including the Netherlands and Finland – has expressed extreme reluctance to go through with the deal since they received the report. We are supposed to believe all of that has been magically fixed? Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Disability Fraud Holds Down Unemployment Rate; Jobless Disability Claims Hit Record $200B in January Posted: 20 Feb 2012 11:18 AM PST Looking for another reason for an artificially low unemployment rate? Consider disability fraud, people claiming disabilities they do not have such as mental illness. Prior to the great recession 33% of applicants claimed mental illness. The number is 43% now. There was fraud before, of course. There is even more fraud now. Please consider Jobless disability claims soar to record $200B as of January Standing too many months on the unemployment line is driving Americans crazy — literally — and it's costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. With their unemployment-insurance checks running out, some of the country's long-term jobless are scrambling to fill the gap by filing claims for mental illness and other disabilities with Social Security — a surge that hobbles taxpayers and making the employment rate look healthier than it should as these people drop out of the job statistics. As of January, the federal government was mailing out disability checks to more than 10.5 million individuals, including 2 million to spouses and children of disabled workers, at a cost of record $200 billion a year, recent research from JPMorgan Chase shows. The sputtering economy has fueled those ranks. Around 5.3 percent of the population between the ages of 25 and 64 is currently collecting federal disability payments, a jump from 4.5 percent since the economy slid into a recession. Mental-illness claims, in particular, are surging. During the recent economic boom, only 33 percent of applicants were claiming mental illness, but that figure has jumped to 43 percent, says Rutledge, citing preliminary results from his latest research. His research also shows a growing number of men, particularly older, former white-collar workers, instead of the typical blue-collar ones, are applying. The big concern about the swelling ranks is that once people get on disability, they're unlikely to give it up and go back to work. What's the Number? The above article says there were 10.5 million individuals receiving disability checks. A quick check of Fed data shows there are 27.5 million Civilian Noninstitutional Population - With a Disability, 16 years and over Unfortunately the data only goes back to mid-2008. I would like to see the pattern before the recession began. We can see a brief recovery for a year following the end of the recession. However, since mid-2010 the number of people with disabilities has risen by 1.5 million. All of them dropped out of the labor force and are no longer counted as unemployed. Household Survey Data click on chart for sharper image In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,565,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 1,145,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,420,000. That is an amazing "achievement" to say the least. Disability Math If one million of those disability claims are fraudulent, the civilian labor force would rise to 155,395,000 and the number of unemployed would rise to 13,758,000. The resultant unemployment rate would be reported as 8.9%, not 8.3%. However, we need to go back further  because there were certainly fraudulent claims prior to the recession. For the sake of argument, let's assume 25% of the total is fraudulent. Unemployment Rate with 25% Fraud 25% of 27.5 million is 6,875,000. The civilian labor force would rise to 161,270,000 from 154,395,000 The number of unemployed would rise to 19,633,000 from 12,758,000 The resultant unemployment rate would be 19633/161270 = 12.2% Don't like that number? Let's assume a minimum of 10% fraud. Unemployment Rate with 10% Fraud 10% of 27.5 million is 2,750,000. The civilian labor force would rise to 157,145,000 from 154,395,000 The number of unemployed would rise to 15,508,000 from 12,758,000 The resultant unemployment rate would be 15508/157145 = 9.9% Is there anyone who thinks disability fraud is less than 10%? If not, then the unemployment rate would be at least 9.9% assuming those in fraudulent claims started looking for work. For more on the incredulous, artificially low unemployment rate posted by the BLS, please see ... Fundamental and Mathematical Case for Structurally High Unemployment for a Decade   Fewer Nonfarm Employees Now Than December 2000; Unemployment Rate: Some Things Still Don't Add Up; Obamanomics?   Gallup Reports Unemployment in February Increases to 9%, Up From 8.6%; Underemployment Increases to 19%   Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Why Greece Must Exit the Eurozone, How it Will Happen (and Why Portugal and Spain Will Follow); Does the Euro Act Like a Gold Standard? Posted: 19 Feb 2012 11:49 PM PST Several people have asked me about statements I have made that "Greece is in a hopeless situation until it exits the Eurozone." Actually Greece is in a horrific condition whether or not it exits the Eurozone as the Troika literally destroyed Greece (perhaps purposely to protect French and German banks), by dragging this mess out the way they have. A Primer on the Euro Break-Up To understand why Greece (then Spain and Portugal and perhaps even Italy) must exit the Eurozone, one must first understand the flaws of the European Monetary Union. In general terms, the question at hand is "what makes good and bad currency unions?" The best answer I have seen written anywhere is also in the same article that explains in depth how sovereign defaults and currency devaluations happen. Please consider some pertinent snips from A Primer on the Euro Break-Up by Jonathan Tepper of Variant Perception. THE NEED TO EXIT: A ONE SIZE FITS ALL MONETARY POLICY Europe exemplifies a situation unfavourable to a common currency. It is composed of separate nations, speaking different languages, with different customs, and having citizens feeling far greater loyalty and attachment to their own country than to a common market or to the idea of Europe. Professor Milton Friedman, The Times, November 19, 1997 Before the euro was created, Robert Mundell wrote about what made an optimal currency area. It is a groundbreaking work that won him a Nobel Prize. He wrote that a currency area is optimal when it has: 1. Mobility of capital and labor – Money and people have to be willing and able to move from one part of the currency area to another. 2. Flexibility of wages and prices – Prices need to be able to move downwards, not just upwards. 3. Similar business cycles – Countries should experience expansions and recessions at the same time (technically this is referred to as "symmetry" of economic shocks). 4. Fiscal transfers to cushion the blows of recession to any region – If one part of the currency area is doing poorly, the central government can step in and transfer money from other regions. Europe has almost none of these characteristics. Very bluntly, that means it is not a good currency area. The United States is a good currency union. It has the same coins and money in Alaska as it does in Florida and the same in California as it does in Maine. If you look at economic shocks, the United States absorbs them pretty well. If someone was unemployed in southern California in the early 1990s after the end of the Cold War defense cutbacks, or in Texas in the early 1980s after the oil boom turned to bust, they could pack their bags and go to a state that is growing. That is exactly what happened. This doesn't happen in Europe. Greeks don't pack up and move to Finland. Greeks don't speak Finnish. And if Americans had stayed in California or Texas, they would have received fiscal transfers from the central government to cushion the blow. There is no central European government that can make fiscal transfers. So the United States works because it has mobility of labor and capital, as well as fiscal shock absorbers. The fundamental flaw of the euro is that it provides one monetary policy for the entire euro area. This has led towards wildly divergent real effective exchange rates and has produced asset bubbles. ... Does the Euro Act Like a Gold Standard? Here are a few more snips that caught my attention. EURO AS A MODERN DAY GOLD STANDARD: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic. All of us, from the Governor of the Bank of England downwards, are now primarily interested in preserving the stability of business, prices, and employment, and are not likely, when the choice is forced on us, deliberately to sacrifice these to outworn dogma... Advocates of the ancient standard do not observe how remote it now is from the spirit and the requirements of the age. John Maynard Keynes, 1932, in "A Retrospective on the Classical Gold Standard, 1821-1931" and in Monetary Reform (1924), p. 172 The modern euro is like a gold standard. Obviously, the euro isn't exchangeable for gold, but it is similar in many important ways. Like the gold standard, the euro forces adjustment in real prices and wages instead of exchange rates. And much like the gold standard, it has a recessionary bias. Under a gold standard, the burden of adjustment is always placed on the weak-currency country, not on the strong countries. All the burden of the coming economic adjustment will fall on the periphery. Under a classical gold standard, countries that experience downward pressure on the value of their currency are forced to contract their economies, which typically raises unemployment because wages don't fall fast enough to deal with reduced demand. Interestingly, the gold standard doesn't work the other way. It doesn't impose any adjustment burden on countries seeing upward market pressure on currency values. This one-way adjustment mechanism creates a deflationary bias for countries in a recession. What modern day implications can one draw from the gold standard-like characteristics of the euro? Barry Eichengreen, arguably one of the great experts on the gold standard and writer of the tour de force Golden Fetters, argues that sticking to the gold standard was a major factor in preventing governments from fighting the Great Depression. Sticking to the gold standard turned what could have been a minor recession following the crash of 1929 into the Great Depression. Countries that were not on the gold standard in 1929 or that quickly abandoned it escaped the Great Depression with far less drawdown of economic output. It is odd then that Eichengreen and most economists today encourage peripheral countries to stay inside the euro as a proper policy recommendation when they would have encouraged countries in the 1930s to leave the gold standard. Barbarous Relic - Not Anyone quoting Keynes in a positive manner is going to elicit a negative reaction from me. Gold is hardly a barbarous relic. Nearly all of the problems cited with a gold standard have little to do with gold per se, but everything to do with fractional reserve lending, the rampant expansion of credit, and arrogant central bank planners who think they (and not the markets), know how to set interest rates. Russia Central Planners vs. Central Banks By trying to prevent recessions and bail out banks every time they got into trouble, The Greenspan Fed, followed by the Bernanke Fed spawned the biggest housing and credit bubbles in the history of the world. Can someone, anyone tell me why economists correctly railed against communist Russia central planners, yet openly praise complete fools at the Fed who think they can plan where interest rates ought to be? Setting interest rates by central planning committee cannot be done, and the results speak for themselves. Indeed, history has proven that central bank malfeasance spawns boom-and-bust cycles of increasing amplitude over time.  It's high time we stop blaming the gold standard for problems and instead lay the blame where it squarely belongs, on fractional reserve lending, central banks, and government interference in the free markets. Currency Controls, Bank Holidays, and PIIGS to the Slaughter The above section constitutes my main complaint in an otherwise brilliant article, packed full of historical examples as to how sovereign defaults occur. It's 53 pages long and well worth a read in entirety. Ideal Breakup The ideally, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain should all drop out of the Eurozone at once, but it's far more likely this will drag out over time. If so, Portugal is on deck, followed by Spain. In spite of recent praise of Portugal by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, it would be foolish for anyone to trust what he or chancellor Merkel says. Like Greece, the situation in Portugal and Spain is hopeless, just not far enough progressed yet. Fate was sealed on February 7, with Merkel's Official Denial "I will have no part in forcing Greece out of the euro"; Schäuble Starts Salami Tactics on German Participation, Calls for Vote. Note carefully how the "I"s are being dotted and the "T"s crossed: Germany Draws Up Plans for Greece to Leave Euro; Athens Rehearses the Nightmare of Default; Merkel's Denial Rings Hollow Look for Greek CDS to Trigger in March possibly with preceding bank holiday ahead of the March 20 bond due date. The weekend of March 11-12 or 18-19 look like ideal candidates for a bank holiday and Greece exit of the Eurozone. If you have money in Greek banks, get it out now! Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

You are subscribed to email updates from Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Damn Cool Pics

---

The Journey of Jeremy Lin [Infographic] Posted: 20 Feb 2012 01:16 PM PST Jeremy Lin is not only a Christian athlete. He is also the NBA's "first U.S.-born player of Taiwanese or Chinese descent." With all the recent talk about the big guy, here is an infographic to give you the 411 on this giant. Click on Image to Enlarge. Via: infographicworld

You are subscribed to email updates from Damn Cool Pictures To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Monitor Which Social Networks Your Visitors are Logged Into With Google Analytics

---

Monitor Which Social Networks Your Visitors are Logged Into With Google Analytics Posted: 19 Feb 2012 01:14 PM PST Posted by Tom Anthony At Distilled's SearchLove conference in London back in October, Mat Clayton from Mixcloud provided a great snippet of Javascript that could be used to record whether visitors to your site were logged into Facebook or not. This has a few uses, such as customising which social buttons you show your user or just for recording how many of your users are logged in to Facebook and then using this to show your boss that you guys should really be interacting with your visitors there. I wanted to take this idea and extend it to Twitter and Google+, and record whether users were logged in there too. It wouldn't provided me with any immediately actionable intelligence, but over time I'd love to see the trends of what percentage of a website's visitors were logged into the different social networks. As a side project, I was also interested to record what percentage of visitors were logged into a Google account and were therefore responsible for the dreaded (not provided) in my Analytics, and also what percentage of these users were registered for Google+. However, whilst Facebook provides an API to allow this kind of intelligence gathering, there is no such API for Twitter and Google+, and a bit of research failed to turn up any techniques that worked across all the browsers. So I rolled up my sleeves and did some digging around, eventually finding a way to trick the login mechanism of these sites to reveal whether a visitor to my site was currently logged in. If you want to try it out visit my Social Network Login Status Detector Demo; it should return something like: Setting up the tracking If you're a code junkie and don't need any help then you can just go and pull the code from this template page. Otherwise, let me walk you through it. There are two main steps: Setup an empty Facebook app. This is free and only takes 60 seconds - it is required for the Facebook API code to work for your domain. Install the Javascript code. Complicated, eh?! Setup a Facebook App I'm going to blast through this quickly; but if you want more details there are plenty of tutorials online. If you already have an App that is registered for the domain you wish to track then you just need the AppID and can skip to the next section. We need to create an empty Facebook App because the Facebook API will only allow code on a domain to make requests regarding an App that is linked to that domain. Login to Facebook. Go to the Facebook Developers page: https://developers.facebook.com/apps Press "Create New App" in the top right corner. For "App Display Name" enter anything you want; I used "TomTrack". Check the box to agree to the FB Policies and on to the next page. The next stage is pretty easy, just enter your domain in both the "App Domain" and "Website" sections: Hit "Save Changes" . Grab the App ID from the top of the page and save it ready for the next section. Install Javascript Code Firstly, make sure you have your Google Analytics on the page; the code below is for the asynchronous version of the code. Next you need to add this snippet of Javascript to the top of your page in the <head> section; this function will do the recording to analytics for us: So far, so good. You'll notice that I used _setCustomVar, whereas Mat had originally used _trackEvent - I'm sure there are pros and cons to both, and the code on the template page provides both options. Next we add the following code to the bottom of the page before the </body> tag, ensuring you replce the appID in the Facebook code with that AppID you created above. You can copy and paste the code from the source code of this template page. That's it - your tracking is all set! Setting up Google Analytics Once the code is installed you will be tracking right away, and can view the data in Audience > Demograhics > Customer Variables, assuming you are using the 'new' layout in Google Analytics. However, the power of this data becomes far greater when you setup Custom Segments so you can view how users logged into different Social Networks interact with the site compared to one another and compared to regular visitors. Setup Custom Segments Custom segments are really easy to setup, and can give a keen insight into your analytics when used well.  Click "Advanced Segments" at the top of your analytics screen (once you're into the relevant profile), and hit "+ New Custom Segment" at the bottom right of the drop down. You'll be prompted to select a name for your segment and to select which facets to base it on. We'll be using the Custom Variable slots that the Javascript tracking code uses. Analytics allows 5 Custom Variable slots, and the code above uses 4 of these (1 = Google, 2 = Google+, 3 = Twitter, and 4=Facebook) [side note: I think you could cram all these into 1 slot possibly]. We'll make a segment for each; here is how I setup my Twitter segment: Hit "Save Segment" and you're done. Now repeat this for each of the other variables. Ensure you are selecting "Custom Variable (Value xx)" and not "Custom Variable (Key xx)". You're done and are ready to play with some data. Viewing the data in analytics Once you have the tracking installed and segments setup you need to wait a few hours before you will see the first data appearing in Google Analytics. Once you have data coming in, the first step is to select which segments from your shiny new advanced segments you'd like to use: Select those you are interested in and "All Visits" if you also wish to compare against all the traffic, and hit Apply. You can now go into any of your regular report screens and see these 2 demographics against one another; here you can see Facebook visitors to one of my test sites starting to be tracked after I installed the tracking code on Feb 13th: We can immediately see that about 40% of the traffic to this site are logged into Facebook whilst browsing the site and the trend of visitors generally correlate. By adding a couple more segments I can see at the top of the page this breakdown across the networks It turns out that most staff of this website are on Twitter and Google+, hence the quite high number for Google+ (this is a non-tech website) and the correlation between the 2 figures. There are loads and loads of metrics you can compare and find of interest and you can spend hours playing around and digging down into the data for your site yourselves. One interesting one for this site, which has an explicit Conversion Goal (yes - comparing conversions could be a lot of fun) of trying to retain users on the site for 10 minutes or more: Looks like driving users over from the Facebook page could be an area to think more about! They reach this target 50% more of the time than the average user. Just another little example of the kind of things you could be thinking about - I'd love to hear more suggestions and discussion in the comments for what other facets could be useful to look at. Wrap Up Currently, whilst Facebook provides a 'proper' API to access this information, Twitter and Google don't, and you should be aware that they might 'fix' the way this process works anytime soon. In the meantime I think there is some really actionable analytics you can gather in the meantime, beyond measuring the details in analytics. You might want to change the details of which social buttons are shown, or maybe provide a popup window to prompt further interaction via a particular Social Network. In the meantime, I'd love to here what sort of suggestions people have for actionable intelligence based on the analytics you can gather via these techniques. I look forward to hearing what people suggest in the comments. :) Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Broken Link Building Guide: From Noob to Novice Posted: 19 Feb 2012 12:21 AM PST Posted by Anthony D. Nelson This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. Howdy Mozzers, My name is Anthony and I'm from Fargo, ND. First-time YouMozzer here. After reading this post, I hope you (in?)voluntarily scroll back up to the top to follow me on twitter (@anthonydnelson) and check out my blog Northside SEO. Today's post is about broken link building. It's been a popular topic in the industry, but I also noticed that SEOmoz didn't have a lot on the subject, so I thought it would be nice to write a kick-ass piece for the large SEOmoz community. Now, on to the post. BROKEN LINK BUILDING: From Noob to Novice Broken [broh-kuhn] adjective: not functioning properly; out of working order Link [lingk] noun: anything serving to connect one part or thing with another Building [bil-ding] verb (used with object): to construct (especially something complex) by assembling and joining parts Definitions taken from dictionary.com. Broken Link Building [lingk bil-ding gohld] verb: the act of acquiring a link to your website by pointing out a broken link on someone else's website What is Broken Link Building? Broken link building (sometimes called dead link building) is a technique that involves pointing out a link on another website that is no longer working and also asking for a link to your website. Often the broken link leads to a 404 page. The link will be on a page that is relevant to your niche and appears to be a good fit for inclusion of your site. You perform a solid by pointing out the broken link to the webmaster and in return, suggest that your link be added or be used as a replacement. Why has Broken Link Building been so Popular Lately? SEOs feel like they are making the web a better place. They are helping webmaster's deal with the problem of link rot. SEOs care about the quality of the web. The fewer broken links, the better. It gives the link builder an easy value add to their email. You are helping them out, before asking them to help you out. It can result in quick links. When broken link building emails are successful, you usually get your link within a day or two of sending the email. Much quicker then allowing a site owner to try and review a product or spending time making a connection and pitching a guest blog post. It's a relatively new technique that has already yielded good results for numerous link builders.       Broken Link Building Required Tools: A website that doesn't suck (no one is going to link to your crappy site, even if you point out a broken link) Google Chrome with Check My Links Extension or Domain Hunter+ (Domain Hunter+ was recently featured on YouMoz) Open Site Explorer: Limited use for everyone if you register for a free account at SEOmoz Additional Tools for Increase Efficiency: Xenu Link Sleuth (unless you're really cool like me and use a Mac) Screaming Frog W3C's Link Checker Gmail plugins Rapporative and Boomerang Canned Responses in Gmail or saving stationary templates in Mac mail are major time saving wins How to Find Broken Links Use the Check My Links Extension on any webpage you happen to visit and cross your fingers. Check Top Pages tab in OSE for any competitor or site in your niche and look for 404 pages with external links pointing at them in the Top Pages tab. Use search operators in Google to find relevant sites (my examples just below). This should result in hundreds of sites with lists of links specific to your industry. Switch your search settings to display the top 100 results and export them to a CSV using the MozBar's SERP Control Panel. Sort by Page Authority or Domain Authority and you're good to go. Find more useful link building search operaters or advanced search queries on Himanshu's site. Visit the sites and run a link checker extension. intitle:KEYWORD inurl:links -exchange intitle:KEYWORD inurl:resources inurl:links KEYWORD - Add exported lists of links to Xenu/Screaming Frog to find 404 pages and easily run them through OSE. Alternatively, you can run a single page through to easily find the status codes of its outbound links. Run a website through W3C's Link Checker to find broken links When you find a broken link, run that link through OSE to determine who else is linking to it. You may find 5-10 other good link prospects from a single broken link. Export numerous competitor's followed back link profiles in OSE. Combine results. Filter for URLs containing Link, Directory, Where to Buy, Resources or whatever words fit your industry. Sort sites by PA/DA, visit, run link checker, email. Determining Link Target Quality After you find a page with some broken links on it, you have to decide if it's worth your time sending an email and asking for a link. Ask for a Link Don't Bother • Noticeable Page Rank / MozRank • Approximately one thousand links on the page • Signs of social sharing • Spam links present (viagra, ipods, etc) • Nice web design • Over 10 broken links But there are too many broken links! It's a bit of a road block to run into a page with decent authority only to realize that it contains a ton of broken links. When you find a page with too many broken links on it (10+), you have a few options. Decide the page is low-quality and choose not to contact them. Send an email pointing out two or three of them and pretend that you don't know about the rest. Point out all 10+ broken links and risk overwhelming them to the point that they decide not to update the page at all or completely delete it. It's totally up to you to decide what is right for you and the site you are building links for. Personally, I've gone with all of the techniques above. Often times, it doesn't matter what you decide on because you may not hear back from them at all. Finding a Website Owner's Contact Information Look for their email address on the contact page, about page or footer of the website Google site:DOMAIN.COM email Google site:DOMAIN.COM @DOMAIN.COM gmail.com hotmail.com yahoo.com msn.com live.com Look for their Twitter handle. A great casual way to introduce yourself Check WhoIs Look for a contact form on their website Citation Labs The Contact Finder if you are working with a large list Stalk them to the best of your ability. It's OK if they feel a little uncomfortable that you found them through their sister's Twitter account. No contact, no link. Broken Link Building Email Templates Now that you know what broken link building is and how to find websites to target, let's get on to email outreach. I'm going to show you five email templates I use which will hopefully help you start your own successful broken link building campaign. Each template is slightly tailored for a different type of website or client. You may find that one of them works best for you, or you may find that you hopping back and forth between styles will give you the best results depending on your client, the niche or the targeted site for link acquisition. Broken Link Building Email Template #1 - Quick and Dirty Subject Line: (DOMAIN.COM) question Hey (WEBSITE OWNER FIRST NAME), Are you still updating (DOMAIN.COM)? I found a broken link I'd like to point out. -(YOUR FIRST NAME) Who to Send it to: Perfect for use on websites that look like they were made in the 90's and seem as if they are no longer being updated. Also good for sites that are questionable in quality. Don't waste too much time with on an email for a site you don't expect to reply. Why it Works: This short and sweet email has one of the highest response rates of any of the templates I use. It comes off as genuine and helpful and leads with a strong question that illicits a response from all webmasters who are actually updating their website. When they reply, simply follow-up by sharing the page and the broken link as well as suggesting your website and explaining the fit and value it offers to that page. Broken Link Building Template #2 - The Pressure is On Them Subject Line: (DOMAIN.COM) broken link Hi (WEBSITE OWNER FIRST NAME),   My name is (FIRST NAME) and (I WORK FOR COMPANY NAME or I HAVE A WEBSITE CALLED SITENAME) . I'd love to have (OUR/MY) website (WWW.DOMAIN.COM) added to your great list of (LINKS/RESOURCES). (LINKS/RESOURCES URL)   Also, I found a few broken links on your site. Is this the right place to report them?   Look forward to hearing back from you.   -(YOUR FIRST NAME)    Who to Send it to: Any website that has a list of links or resources (with a broken link) that you think is a good fit for your site. Why it Works: You come clean immediately in the email explaining that you want a link. The webmaster might feel the need to include your link in order to find out what links on their site are broken. No webmaster will email you back and say, "No, I won't link to you. Now please show me the broken links." You get a link or they are on their own. Broken Link Building Template #3 - In and Out Who Should Use This Template: Any link builder that doesn't have time to follow up. This is a one and done send. Subject Line: (FIRST NAME), (DOMAIN.COM) broken links Hey (WEBSITE OWNER FIRST NAME), My name is (YOUR FIRST NAME) and I wanted to let you know I really liked your post about (TOPIC OF ONE OF THEIR BLOG POSTS - NOT THE EXACT TITLE AND NOT THE MOST RECENT ONE). The part I particularly enjoyed was the part about (QUOTE FROM POST BECAUSE....)   However, when I was looking at your (DESCRIBE PAGE/POST), I noticed (A/SOME) broken (LINK/LINKS). (LINK 1) (LINK 2) (ETC)   When you are fixing the page, I also think you should consider adding these two resources: (SIMILAR TRUSTWORTHY WEBSITE #1 NAME - WWW.DOMAIN.COM) - (BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SITE - NOT A CORPORATE DESCRIPTION OR SLOGAN) (YOUR WEBSITE #2 NAME - WWW.DOMAIN.COM) - (BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SITE - NOT A CORPORATE DESCRIPTION OR SLOGAN)   (PERSONAL ANECDOTE ABOUT HOW THESE TWO SITES HAVE HELPED YOU).   I hope this email reaches you safely and helps you out a bit.   I look forward to hearing back from you soon.   -(YOUR FULL NAME) Who to Send it to: Any website that has a list of links or resources (with a broken link) that you think is a good fit for your site. Why it Works: When you nominate two unaffiliated websites for inclusion on the webmasters list of links, they will simply think you are trying to help them. You want to point out some broken links and also give them some additional sites to consider. Make sure the alternate suggested site is not a competitor to your site. Broken Link Building Template #4 - Brand Power Who Should Use This Template: Link builders (consultants or in-house) who work for a semi-recognizable brand name in their particular industry. Subject Line: (SITE OWNER FIRST NAME), (DOMAIN.COM) broken link Hey (WEBSITE OWNER FIRST NAME), My name is (YOUR FIRST NAME) and I wanted to let you know I really liked your post about (TOPIC OF A BLOG POST - NOT EXACT TITLE AND NOT THE MOST RECENT ONE). The part I particularly enjoyed was the part about (QUOTE FROM THEIR POST). I work at (COMPANY NAME) and after being in the INDUSTRY/NICHE field for a few years, I've become really passionate about INDUSTRY/NICHE and I'm happy to have found your site. When I was looking at your (DESCRIPTION OF PAGE WITH BROKEN LINK) page, I noticed that one of the links was broken. The link labeled (BROKEN LINK ANCHOR TEXT) isn't currently working. (OPTIONAL: DO YOU KNOW WHERE THAT LINK IS SUPPOSED TO GO?) Also, I hope you would consider adding our website (WWW.YOURSITE.COM) as an additional (RESOURCE/RECOMMENDATION/ALTERNATIVE) to your great (DESCRIPTION OF PAGE WITH BROKEN LINK) page. We'd be honored to be included on your site and I think the link would provide great value to your visitors due to our (BRAND UNIQUE SELLING POINT). Have a nice (DAY/NIGHT). I look forward to hearing back from you soon. -(YOUR FULL NAME) -(COMPANY NAME) Who to Send it to: Any website that has a list of links or resources (with a broken link) that you think is a good fit for your site. Why it Works: The website owner is flattered by having someone from a recognizable brand contact them with complements about their site. On top of that, they are grateful for you pointing out the broken links. How could they not give you a link? Broken Link Building Template #5 - Zen Master Link Builder The fifth template is essentially using no template at all. The Zen Master Link Builder builds a relationship before asking for a favor and the placement of a link. I'll outline the basic process below. Comment on one the website's blog post. Make sure it's thoughtful and genuine. Send first email with complement and question about a post of theirs or the niche they are in. After they reply, you email back kindly thanking them. Consider repeating steps two and three if the conversation goes that way. Follow them on twitter. Casually tweet at them or about their content to remain on their radar. Email again to point out the broken link as an FYI. Mention your website as a replacement or addition to the page. Who to Send it to: Ideally everyone. Realistically, use this technique on high quality websites. Sites where links are hard to come by. Why it Works: You've shown that you care and connected with the website owner on a personal level first. The website owner should be grateful for your support (comments, tweets, emails) and will most likely happily add your link to the page in question. Note: The Zen Master approach is the best approach to take for all link building outreach. It is definitely not exclusive to broken link building. The ultimate hang-up comes to the overall time and resources required to execute. Outreach Email Link Building Tips: Send emails one at a time. From you, to them. Be real and try to offer as much value as possible. Don't use full URLs or hyperlinks in your actual email. This increases the chance your email lands in the spam folder. Find the website owner's email address and real name. Cyber stalk them to get it. Google them, find their twitter and check WHOIS. The email templates above will work even better if you personalize them more. Show some personality. Being unique and odd can be more effective than professional and stale. Be a person, not a canned response, even if you start your post from one. Use a woman's name. End emails with a question or a sentence that implies they need to respond to you. Always double check and proof your email. Using templates can be dangerous if you're not careful. Make sure it is personalized to the right website. If you do make a mistake in sending a templated email, come clean and do this. Hustle. You will never get a link for an email you don't send. Pro Broken Link Building Outreach Tip If the website has a phone number, call it. A real conversation will monumentally increase your chance at landing a link. Admittedly, I still send emails 99% of the time. 301 Redirect Broken Link Building - Double Dipping Sometimes the link you point out in your outreach email doesn't even have to be broken to get the webmaster to take action and change the page. I've had success pointing out links that 301 to a different site. Simply put, if you tell a site owner that they are trying to link to domainA.com and the result is a link to domainB.com they are often willing to remove that link. The benefit of this can be great. Study your competitors' external backlink profile and find the urls of other websites that are 301ing back to them. Example: DOMAIN1.com is redirecting to COMPETITOR.com. Contact the sites who are linking to DOMAIN1.com and explain to them they are not linking to the site they were once intending to. Be sure to offer your website as an additional resource. The end result: Your competitor loses a link and you gain one. Double win. This technique will not work for links where the redirect clearly goes to the same company/website at a different URL. This technique works best when combined with an email pointing out a few broken links. "These links are broken and this one doesn't go to the right spot..." Link Exchanges and Directories Pointing out broken links is often enough to get you listed in a paid directory or on a site that is requesting link exchanges for submission. Of course, this only means something if you find a paid directory you actually want to be listed in or a site that exchanges links in a non-spammy way. Content Recreation Sometimes in the hunt for broken links, you'll find a 404 page that has 5-20 external links pointing at it. Some of them are juicy links. Links that you want. Bad. The problem is, your site doesn't contain a direct replacement for the 404'd content. Here is how you can get them. Even though your site is in the same niche, your site didn't originally publish the results from that study in 2005 that was referenced so many times and no longer exists. You need to recreate the content. The first step is to put the broken link into the Wayback Machine to find out what the content originally was. Recreate the content for your site. If possible, feel free to repurpose it a bit to fit your branding and style. Once you have created the similar content, contact the webmasters with the broken link pointing at the now non-existent content and gently nudge them towards your new piece. The exact piece they were looking for. This technique takes a lot of time and effort but can definitely pay dividends. It is already established that the content you are creating is link worthy in the eyes of multiple webmasters. 18 Additional Broken Link Building Resources 40 Broken Link Building Resources by Garrett French on Citation Labs Broken Link Building In Action by Nick LeRoy on nickleroy.com A Tactical Guide to Broken Link Building by Cleo Kirkland on ROI Factor Blog The Reciprocity Link Building Method by Melanie Nathan on Search Engine People Easy Link Building with Your Competitors' 404 Errors by Fabio Ricotta on Ontolo Need Links? Make Up For Your Competitors Shortcomings by Napoleon Suarez on SEER Interactive Blog 5 Creative Broken Link Building Strategies by Jon Cooper on Point Blank SEO Broken Link Building for Content Promotion by Garrett French on Search Engine Watch Check My Links Chrome Extension - A Link Builder's Dream by Jon Cooper on SEOmoz Broken Link Building - A Case Study by Ben Jackson on SEO ROI Broken Link Building: Feast On Your Competitors This Thanksgiving by Napoleon Suarez on SEER Interactive Blog Fixing the Web's Lost Content: An 8 Step Guide for Link Builders by Jeremy Bencken on Search Engine Watch 15 Questions with Nick LeRoy on Broken Link Building by Garrett French on Citation Labs Broken Link Building: How Napoleon Suarez Gets 8-12% Conversions by Garrett French on Citation Labs Broken Link Building Tips: an Interview with Melanie Nathan by Garrett French on Citation Labs Busted Links as Reason for Link Request by Wheel on Webmaster World Forum Improving Corrective Value-Adds in Link Request E-mails by Ross Hudgens on rosshudgens.com Broken link building with Raven's Link Manager and local directories by Eric Scism on Raven Blog If you know of a great broken link building resource that I am missing, please post it in the comments and maybe one of the mozzers or I (not sure how this YouMoz editing will work) will be able to add it to the list. Noob to Novice I gave this post the title from Noob to Novice because reading blog posts is not going to make you an expert or advanced link builder. You have to get out there and get your hands dirty. Send emails. Send a lot of emails. Try different techniques. Test and record. Broken link building is still a technique that is in its infancy and there is a lot of room for us all to improve and refine our techniques. I still consider myself a novice link builder. There is so much to learn and the game is always changing. Broken link building or any outreach based link building campaign is never going to compete with someone who creates link worthy content. Content that will continue to build links on it's own. Content that will build links on the weekends when they're not working. Outreach link building definitely has its place. It's something I do a lot of. However, you should do it to supplement the natural links your amazing content organically gets. Useful, high-quality content is still king.   Be sure to drop a comment and let everyone know about your broken link building successes or failures. It is still a relatively new technique and we can all learn from sharing. Don't be shy on giving this post a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Feedback is needed to grow. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

You are subscribed to email updates from SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610