Central Perk

marți, 14 septembrie 2010

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Currency Intervention Madness; Japan Intervenes to Weaken the Yen; Selected Quotes
59% of Canadians Live Paycheque-to-Paycheque; Implications of a Canadian Housing Bust; How Sound are Canadian Banks?
Retail Sales Rise .4% from July - How Far to Pre-recession Levels? Where to from Here?
Political Debate: What Should Congress do to Stimulate the Economy?
Shuffling the Commercial Real Estate Deck

Currency Intervention Madness; Japan Intervenes to Weaken the Yen; Selected Quotes

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 09:45 PM PDT

After months of attempting to talk the Yen down, Japan Intervenes First Time Since '04 to Rein in Yen.

Japan intervened in the foreign-exchange market for the first time since 2004 after a surge in the yen to the strongest against the dollar in 15 years threatened to stunt the nation's economic recovery.

Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda confirmed the intervention, speaking to reporters today in Tokyo. He said Japan contacted other nations about the step, without specifying that today's measure was taken unilaterally. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said the ministry considers 82 per dollar to be the line of defense, after it reached a high of 82.88 earlier today.

Japan hadn't intervened to sell yen in the foreign-exchange market since 2004, when the yen was around 109 per dollar. The Bank of Japan, acting on behest of the Ministry of Finance, sold 14.8 trillion yen in the first three months of 2004, after record sales of 20.4 trillion yen in 2003. Noda didn't say how much was used in today's action, while that figure will be released at a later date.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner declined to comment about the prospects for currency intervention in an interview last week, instead saying that Japanese officials should do what they can to help their economy grow.

Recent Japanese data have pointed to the expansion losing momentum. The government yesterday revised its July industrial output figures to show that output fell rather than increased from a month earlier. Japan's economy expanded at a 1.5 percent annual rate in the second quarter, less than half the pace of the previous period, and consumer confidence slid to a four-month low in August.

Is Currency Manipulation OK or Not?

Both China and Japan are intervening in the Forex markets for the same reason, to strengthen exports and stimulate the economy.

Pardon me for asking the obvious question but it needs to be asked: Why does Geithner give the green light for Japan to intervene in the currency markets but China is threatened with a currency manipulator label for doing the same thing?

Boosting the Dollar

Please consider a few select quotes from the New York Times article Japan Moves to Boost the Dollar

JOHN VAIL, CHIEF GLOBAL STRATEGIST, NIKKO ASSET MANAGEMENT

"Clearly the U.S. is not going to be too friendly towards it although they may not argue too much about it in that Japan is a big customer for its Treasury securities."

"I'm not sure we are going to see a major weakening of the macro statistics in Japan, but if we do that would obviously help weaken the yen, but exports were quite strong in July both on a nominal and real basis so it's a bit of a quandary for Japan."

"But the biggest problem for Japan is not the U.S. cross rates, it's the Korean won, and the Korean won has just been ridiculously weak. Yet G20 officials have yet to really pressure Korea on this at all, which I think is really to Japan's detriment."

Bang for the Yen

If Japan's exports have been strong, why does Japan need to weaken the Yen to boost exports?

If the Problem for Japan is the Korean won, what the heck is Japan doing buying dollars? It certainly would get a lot more bang for the Yen buying Won.

TAKAO HATTORI, SENIOR INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, MITSUBISHI UFJ MORGAN STANLEY SECURITIES

"The size of the currency market is no longer small enough for intervention to change the trend in the yen. I am interested in seeing how the government would announce its stance and its approach to support the economy.

"If they intervened, it was good for the government to show its strong stance but the market is too big for the intervention to change the yen's trend."

Sheer Madness

Takao Hattori says that the Forex market is too big for intervention to work but "it was good for the government to show its strong stance".

Excuse me for asking but how can it be good policy to take actions that cannot work?

Prior Currency Intervention Madness

Please consider Currency Intervention And Other Conspiracies.

.... Note those numbers. Japan spent hundreds of billions in 2003 starting in August, attempting to prop up the dollar.

Japan halted its currency intervention in March of 2004 according to the International Herald Tribune article EU officials soften stance on yen's weakness.

Yen vs. Japan's Intervention 2003-2004

click on chart for sharper image

If ever there was proof of the absurdity of currency interventions there it is. Ironically the Yen started plunging shortly after Japan stopped trying to force down the value of the Yen.

It has been proven time and time again that currency intervention does not work. Yet, somehow it is "good for the government to show its strong stance".

Line of Defense

click on chart for sharper image

Note that the "Line of Defense" is right near the 1995 high.

Intraday Intervention in Action

click on chart for sharper image

Some might think the above chart shows that intervention works. It doesn't except possibly in the very short term.

In 2008 the Fed intervened multiple time to support Fannie Mae. In one such move, the share price doubled from $7 to $15 in less than a week on a short squeeze. A couple months later Fannie Mae collapsed to a buck.

Central banks cannot change the prevailing trend.

Assuming Japan was going to have a "line of defense", one near the 1995 is a spot where there would be technical resistance anyway. If the Yen does drop in a sustained way, it will not be because of the intervention, but rather because the Yen had outrun fundamentals and was simply ready to drop.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

59% of Canadians Live Paycheque-to-Paycheque; Implications of a Canadian Housing Bust; How Sound are Canadian Banks?

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 05:30 PM PDT

In today's Breakfast with Dave, Rosenberg notes "Most Canadians Still Living Like It's A Recession"

According to Statistics Canada, Canada's recession was short-lived, beginning in Q3 2008 and ending a year later in Q3 2009. But why doesn't it feel like that for nearly 60% of Canadians?

According to the Canadian Payroll Association, 59% of Canadians are living paycheque-to-paycheque and report they would be in trouble if their paycheques were delayed by a week. This is the same number of people that said they were stretched last year when this poll was conducted (and the economy was in a recession).

Risks to Canada's Economic Outlook

The OECD published an in-depth report on Canada. Before launching into the negative aspects of the report, it pays to stand back and appreciate that the world recognizes that Canada was able to weather the recession quite well due to "a sounder banking system, a less leveraged corporate sector and a relatively strong fiscal position".

Despite these strong fundamentals, there are significant risks to Canada's economic growth. Yesterday's release of the National Balance Sheet accounts was case in point, showing that the household debt-to-GDP ratio is now at a record high of 94.2% and debt-to-personal disposable income is at 146% (about 20 percentage points HIGHER than the U.S.), which the OECD says "implies a growing vulnerability to any future adverse shocks to any future adverse shocks."

As the OECD points out, most of the increase on household balance sheets has been through mortgage debt. They figure that "housing looks too overpriced on the basis of price-to-rent and price-to-income measures." Our models suggest Canadian home prices are about 10-20% overvalued, which would pose another negative risk to the economy.

How Big is that Bubble?

10-20% overvalued is overly optimistic. Vancouver in particular could easily see a 40% haircut if not much more.

Like Australia, it is more difficult in Canada to "walk away". See Australian Lenders Learn Nothing from US Housing Bust: Mortgage House offer 105% Mortgages, Westpack offers 97% Mortgages for a discussion.

Question of Soundness

The so-called "soundness" of Canadian banks stems from the fact that Canada's central bank is on the hook guaranteeing the vast majority of residential mortgages.

That Canadian banks do not have a skin in the game allows housing bubbles to build over a longer time period and get bigger than they otherwise would.

Is that a good thing? For who? The banks or the taxpayers?

The answers should be obvious: The ultimate setup is similar to US taxpayers bankrolling Fannie and Freddie for unlimited losses. Alternatively the Canadian Central Bank could print money and paper over the losses.

Neither setup is any good.

No Escape from Illiquid Greater Fool's Games

The most important question is "when will it matter?" There are signs now of hugely growing inventories and that is how a housing bubble always bursts.

Nonetheless, it will not matter until it does. When it does matter, it will be sudden and irreversible (as is typical of every illiquid Greater Fool's Game or Ponzi scheme). There will be no escape for underwater sellers, just as happened in the US, with the further restriction that Canadian borrowers simply cannot walk away.

The economic implications are enormous with so many living paycheque-to-paycheque already.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Retail Sales Rise .4% from July - How Far to Pre-recession Levels? Where to from Here?

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 11:59 AM PDT

Inquiring minds are investigating the Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report for August 2010, noting the discrepancy between what is reported and reality.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for August, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $363.7 billion, an increase of 0.4 percent from the previous month, and 3.6 percent above August 2009.

Total sales for the June through August 2010 period were up 4.7 percent from the same period a year ago. The June to July 2010 percent change was revised from +0.4 percent to +0.3 percent .

Retail trade sales were up 0.5 percent from July 2010, and 3.7 percent above last year. Nonstore retailers sales were up 10.5 percent from August 2009 and gasoline stations sales were up 9.6 percent from last year.

As typical, Calculated Risk has some nice charts of the data.

Calculated Risk writes "This graph shows retail sales since 1992. This is monthly retail sales, seasonally adjusted (total and ex-gasoline). Retail sales are up 8.4% from the bottom, but still off 4.3% from the pre-recession peak."

Although that is what the data says, I don't buy it. If retail sales were back to within 4.3% of the pre-recession peak, sales tax collections would be back towards the pre-recession peak, if not exceeding the pre-recession peak.

Why might they exceed the peak? Because of numerous state sales tax hikes.

The Slow Rebound - Very Slow

September 02, 2010: State Tax Revenues Slowly Rebound, But ...

The Nelson Rockefeller Institute reports State Tax Revenues Are Slowly Rebounding. However, as always, the devil is in the details. Let's take a look.

Preliminary tax collection data for the April-June quarter of 2010 show improvement in overall state tax collections as well as for personal income tax and sales tax revenue. However, revenue collections remain significantly below peak levels and are still weak in a number of states.

The Rockefeller Institute's compilation of data from 47 early reporting states shows collections from major tax sources increased by 2.2 percent in nominal terms compared to the second quarter of 2009, but was 17.2 percent below the same period two years ago.

State Tax Collections

Sales tax collections increased by 5.9 percent in the second quarter of 2010 compared to the same quarter of 2009, but were still 5.4 percent lower than two years ago. With 42 of 45 sales-tax states reporting so far, only seven states reported declines in sales tax collections compared with the same quarter last year.

Sales Tax Collections Down 5.9% June 2010 vs. June 2008

In spite of numerous sales tax hikes, tax collections are still 5.9% lower than two years ago. Moreover, June of 2008 was not the pre-recession peak. November of 2007 was the pre-recession peak.

Bear in mind the Rockefeller reports are from June and Calculated Risk's charts are for August, but that would barely dent the comparison, if at all.

The proper conclusion is that retail sales are down 10% or more from the pre-recession peak, especially if one factors in tax hikes.

Many states look at the Census report trying to figure out why their sales are lagging the national averages. The problem is the Census Bureau national averages are a blatant distortion of reality. The key to the states' conundrum is Census Bureau sampling methodology does not take into consideration stores that have gone out of business. Sales tax collections obviously do. Closed stores make no sales and collect no taxes.

Major Revision Coming?

I wonder how long it will take the Census Bureau to do a major revision, but as it sits, the retail sales report data is totally screwed up and paints a much brighter image of the "recovery" than has actually occurred.

In a genuine recovery, new stores would be opening and the data would be off in the other direction, with sales tax collections expanding faster than reported by the Census Bureau.

Where to From Here?

The number of store closings has probably peaked and that will make census reporting a bit more accurate going forward.

Currently all sign point to a renewed consumer slowdown. Thus, I suspect state tax collections will soon start to drop. With census bureau year-over-year comparisons starting to get more realistic, I expect to see that drop show up in the Census reports as well, even though the Census charts will remain totally screwed up from all the store closings in 2008-2009.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Political Debate: What Should Congress do to Stimulate the Economy?

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 10:30 AM PDT

On the Department of Education

Opening Statements

Closing Statements

In 2010 voters have a choice:

David Price - Congressman David Price is a Political Science Professor, 22-year incumbent politician who supports government bailouts, social welfare programs, protecting the environment and Obama's Health Care reform. He votes with Nancy Pelosi more than any other congressman.

or

B.J. Lawson - William B.J. Lawson is a Constitutional Conservative, father, Medical Doctor, engineer and small businessman who supports reducing taxes, cutting spending and repealing unconstitutional legislation.

4th district voters will choose principle over Washington rhetoric this November.

Money is always welcome, but so is your time and energy! Please click here to Volunteer Time or Services to B.J. Lawson.

Please do what you can to support B.J. Lawson. He is of a rare Ron Paul mode, and we cannot afford to let any opportunities to elect such candidates slip through the cracks.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Shuffling the Commercial Real Estate Deck

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 01:00 AM PDT

According to the Star Tribune the Minneapolis suburban office market suffers from 20 percent vacancy rates. Recent large deals have done nothing to dent that glut of inventory.

Please consider Deals don't make dent in the southwest metro's empty offices

Several high-profile office leases have been signed in the Twin Cities' key southwest submarket this year, grabbing headlines and generally giving the impression that things might not be as bad as they seemed in terms of vacancies.

Rasmussen College took 48,000 square feet in the Normandale Lake Office Park's 8300 Tower. Meanwhile at the next-door 8200 Tower, Plato Learning signed a lease for 27,400 square feet. But, given the fact that the southwest submarket was significantly overbuilt with new office space in the pre-recession boom times, the new leases have barely made a dent in the area's 20 percent vacancy rate.

Even with the new transactions, the "absorption" effect on the southwest's vacancy rate was minimal because companies are essentially making lateral moves, said Northco Senior Associate Heather Alderink.

"Every single deal that I did in the southwest submarket in the second quarter was a case of someone coming into new space from somewhere else in the area, rather than completely new companies coming in," she said. "It's been a lot of shuffling from one space to another. They may be taking a little more space in their new offices, but usually it's a little less space."

Indeed, a closer look at some of the recent big leases reveal why they aren't doing much to alleviate the southwest metro office vacancy crisis. Plato Learning vacated twice as much Class B space in Bloomington in its move to the 8200 Tower; Rasmussen's new digs in the 8300 Tower includes employees relocated from Eden Prairie and Lake Elmo; and the U.S. Bancorp move to Richfield involves shuffling 1,600 workers from its Shepherd Road facility in St. Paul.

Deflationary Pressures

Companies are moving at the drop of a hat to get better rates or a better location for the same price. The effect of this is of course deflationary, adding to price pressures and more commercial real estate defaults.

Remember that commercial real estate lags residential and residential real estate has not yet bottomed, and indeed may not bottom for years.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Link Building 101 - The Almost Complete Link Guide

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 05:45 AM PDT

Posted by scott.mclay

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.

A lot has changed since I got into link building a few years ago - link exchange is dead, ad banners are no longer all about gaining referral traffic, and buying links is more dangerous than ever before. Because of the changes mentioned and a whole load of others the majority of link builders don’t like to give away their secrets to sourcing links, even though it’s all pretty much the same at most agencies.

Most of the advice I will be giving throughout this post is most likely available from a large number of sources including SEOmoz but I felt it would be great to bring everything together under one simple guide.

Creating your link building strategy
Before building any links to a website it is important to ask yourself a few questions like:

What kind of links do you need?
Do you need nofollow and branded links?
Do you have a wide enough range of anchor text and landing pages?

Sadly every strategy is different and people can’t answer these questions for you but hopefully you can use the following information to help answer the questions.

Link Placement
In recent times Google has started placing value in link placement, in-content links passing the most value and footer links passing the least, although a good link profile should make good use of every link type as going out and sourcing only in-content links would be a very big sign of an unnatural link profile.

Nofollow & Dofollow
A lot of people go out and source dofollow links, but in doing this they do more harm to their link profile. Every website should have a good balance of nofollow links - there have been cases where sites with a very low number of nofollow links have not ranked as highly as others who keep a good balance.

Branded Links
I believe Domain Authority and Domain Trust make up a fairly large chunk of the ranking algorithm. Even though there are loads of factors in measuring these attributes, one good sign of both is having a good number of brand based anchor text pointing to your website. Some people make the mistake of only building branded terms to the homepage, when in fact there is more value in building links using these terms to landing pages throughout your website.

Anchor Text & Landing Page Distribution
When working on a link building campaign, it is important to work on a wide range of landing pages, using a variety of anchor text for each. Working on a small keyword / landing page set can upset the balance of a website and can have a very negative impact long term.

Content Relevancy
Since the Google May Day update this year, relevancy seems to play a larger role in the ranking factors. Even though the days of keyword stuffing are over, there is still a need to reference your keywords within your content, header tags, URI structure and title tags. Content may not be king but it is one of the keys to a successful link building campaign.

Sourcing Links
Once you have your link building strategy done and dusted the next step is to find suitable websites to source links from. There are many techniques that can be used for this job, some of which rely on tools and others that use manual search queries.

Link Building Tools
If you plan to use link building tools then chances are you will be looking at links going to competitors’ websites. This is one of the best ways to start a link building campaign and can lead to positive results, some of the best tools for this job are:

Open Site Explorer (Free / SEOmoz Pro Members)
- OSE
- How to Use OSE
Competitive Link Research Tool (SEOmoz Pro Members only)
- Competitive Link Research Tool
Majestic SEO (Paid)
- Majestic SEO Website
Yahoo Site Explorer + SEO Quake Plugin (Free)
- Yahoo Site Explorer
- How to use SEO Quake

Manual Search Queries
It is said that it’s not the links your competitors have that will give you the edge but the links the competitors don’t have. To find these you will need to find link opportunities using manual search queries - the best way to do this is by using advanced search operators.

Advanced search operators are not as complicated as they sound but if used correctly they can provide a very nice set of search results. An introduction to advanced search operators can be found here and a short introduction can also be found on my personal blog under the post finding the links that matter.

One search string I would recommend when looking for suitable blogs for most niches is:

[search term] -site:Wikipedia.org -site:blogspot.com -site:telegraph.co.uk -site:wordpress.com -site:about.com -site:nationalgeographic.com -site:guardian.co.uk -"directory" -"add link" -"advertising"

Depending on your niche other domains can also be stripped from the results.

Directory Submissions
Directory submission is the most boring and repetitive job, but sadly it is an important task in any link building campaign. These links make up the numbers when it comes to branded links. Submit to the right directories and they will improve your overall domain authority.

Blog and Forum Commenting
Blog and forum commenting for links is seen as spam due to many people taking advantage of unprotected blogs and forums. If blog and forum commenting is part of your outlined strategy then some effort should be put into them.

The best way to act on this kind of link building is by using Google’s blog search to find the most recent articles published within your niche then make a genuine comment based on the content of the article, using the Name field for branded anchor text. This type of link building is best for increasing the number of nofollow links to your website.

Guest Blogging Communities
Guest blogging is a great place to find blogs within your niche, but instead of offering to do a guest post why not offer to write a few pages (I say pages as they are linked to via the top navigation) of content for them? After all these people want content and being able to source multiple pages not only saves time but can also lead to Google seeing the links as trustworthy, just remember to link out to authority sites within your niche as well.

Widgets & Theme Designs
There has been a lot of talk about creating widgets to increase the number of natural user generated links, which does work, but the widget you create does have to be unique and worth having so there isn’t a gap for this in every niche.

Another way to increase the number of user generated links is by creating a WordPress theme, a lot of people have said there is low value in this but if the theme is good enough it can generate 40k+ links (from previous experience). If you wish to go down this route the best way to market it is via your monthly newsletters, just put in a small section about it and wait for results, but remember to also submit it to theme hubs around the web for additional exposure.

Link to Us Pages
Link to us pages are not only great for increasing the number of user generated links but great for masking other link building activities. I would suggest having a link to us page displaying all the branded terms used within your campaign and have different types of links for each (Banner Ad, Contextual Ad, Text Link).

Competitions
If you client is running competitions contact bloggers in your niche and ask politely if they would blog about it. Although getting targeted anchor text through this tactic is harder it can help build the number of generic keywords linking to your domain.

Contacting Webmasters
Making contact with webmasters is one of the most difficult jobs - just about every email sent out needs to be personalised and in some cases contact is needed via social media before an email has been sent.

When sending an email to a webmaster, remember they are a real person just like you, so ask yourself a few simple questions before drafting:

If you were the webmaster what would persuade you to link out?
Would you rather a relationship was formed before receiving a link request?
Should the email be from an SEO’s point of view or would it be better keeping it simple and to the point?

Tracking Progress
Tracking the progress of your link building campaign is something that needs to be done. This can be done in a variety of ways but the best solutions I have found is using Raven Tools for overall tracking of performance and using an Excel document to keep a list of links built containing metrics such as Page Rank, mozRank and Domain Authority.

Having a list of metrics for each link enables you to display a variety of information relating to your link building campaign which helps when generating reports for your clients.

Conclusion
Although link building is a tough task in itself if you plan your strategy properly, build the correct links and track the progress of your strategy the job will become easier over time and you will begin to see what works and what doesn’t for your client.

Just remember every link building campaign is different, even if you deal with clients within the same niche as each website has a different infrastructure and domain history.

If you enjoyed this post then why not visit my Blog or follow me on Twitter.

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What is Mobile Search Engine Transcoding?

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 11:21 PM PDT

Posted by Suzzicks

Ok, in the mobile world, it is important to understand that Google sometimes lies (Uhhh! Say it ain’t so!) Actually, all of the major search engines do it with mobile results - It is called 'transcoding.' In some cases, the search engines will want to rank a particular page in mobile results, but they know they shouldn’t because they can tell that it will be a bad mobile user experience. (Usually because the file size is too big, or the page has lots of mobile-unfriendly code like Flash or loads of JavaScript).

When this happens, the search engine will show the full search engine listing for the mobile-unfriendly page (like normal), but when you click on it, they will automatically take you to a temporary url that represents a ‘transcoded’ version of the page you requested, (rather than delivering you to the actual page listed in the search results). This temporary transcoded page actually lives on a subdomain hosted by the search engine, and shows a scraped version of the page you requested. The scrape usually just shows the text and small images of the page, but omits anything that might cause problems for a mobile browser; sometimes this can include background images, big images, animations, videos, iFrames, and heavy/complex code.

You Might Want Transcoding, but Probably Not

If you have totally ignored the mobile web, transcoding can be a good thing, because it allows you to rank in mobile results when you otherwise might be omitted. (Ranking with transcoding is better than not ranking at all). Unfortunately, none of the search engines do a stellar job with their transcoding. In Google, pages that are transcoded usually closely resemble the ‘text-only’ version of the page that Google keeps in its cache. In some cases though, the transcoding can really mess up a page, missing core navigation, breaking long pages into multiple pages at odd places, or cutting out important sections.

Remember that the search engine use of transcoded pages differs from phone to phone, so just because pages are not being automatically transcoded from search results on your phone does not mean that they are never being transcoded by the mobile search engines. The less sophisticated a mobile browser is, the more likely the search engine is to transcode a page; based on my experience, this is happening mostly on BlackBerry's and WindowsMobile devices. To see what a page looks like when Google transcodes it, there are two options:

1.) You can perform a search on a mobile phone, then click the ‘options’ button to the right of one of your results in the SERP, and then select ‘Mobile formatted.’ (Illustrated below)

2.) You can also put your url into Google’s tool, here: http://www.google.com/gwt/n? from your computer or your mobile phone.

The image below shows what Realtor.com looks like when it is transcoded by Google, and it is obviously not a great experience. You can see, in this instance, that two header images are missing, including the logo. It also turns the JavaScript navigation into text links that are a bit squished together, and hard to understand (Find a Home Home Finance Home & Garden). Last, since the transcoding software can't render JavaScript, it has been served an error message, telling it to turn on JavaScript.

Preventing Transcoding

If you are pretty confident in your mobile site rendering, you can include the ‘no-transform’ cache control in the headers of your template, and that will usually prevent your pages from being transcoded by the search engines, but it is not 100%. The good news is that with faster network connections and better mobile browsers, transcoding by the search engines is becoming much less common. The important take-away here, is to at least test to see what your pages look like when they are being transcoded (even if you have a no-transform cache control in place). In many cases, minor on-page code tweaks can make the transcoded experience much more user-friendly and palatable, improving your ability to reach the widest range of mobile customers, regardless of the phone they are searching from.

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Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog

Book Review: The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 07:49 AM PDT

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr proposes the following: that the Internet and all of the its shallow content is actually rewiring our brains and how we process information.

the problem also lies with a lot of authors, especially the wordy ones…

I’ll be completely honest–of all the books I read this summer, this was the one I least looked forward to reading and the one I most disagreed with. That said, it’s also the book I learned the most from. The premise of this book is that the Internet is actually changing our brains. One of the things I learned is that our brains have the ability to “rewire” themselves. Based on what we do with our brains on a daily basis, they function in different ways. An example from the book shows that taxi drivers in London have higher development in the areas relating to spatial relations because those parts of the brain are used more often as they navigate London’s complex streets. A second thing I learned from this book is that this rewiring continues throughout our lives. It doesn’t stop once we reach adulthood, and there’s a lot of scientific evidence in the book to back that up … a lot … which brings me to my problem with this book.

One of the author’s main complaints is that the Internet is changing how we think by removing our ability to deeply concentrate and think. Instead, we always remain on the surface with any type of reading. This is where the author and I disagree. While I will concede that some people are losing the ability (and desire) to focus deeply, the problem also lies with a lot of authors, especially the wordy ones. Back when I was in high school, we were assigned to read Moby Dick. At the time I thought it was awful, it was boring, and I never made it through the whole book. Later in life, I decided to try and re-read Moby Dick, and it was still bloody boring and wordy and in need of an editor. If the book was half the size, it might have some value. Compare that with the Old Man and the Sea. Now there’s a story I can recommend. It’s not just that I have a short attention span: after reading Moby Dick, I read Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson, which I loved. It had none of the slow moving wordiness of Moby Dick.

There are some authors (and bloggers) who love the sound of their voices and seeing their words on the printed page or screen. They spend time lovingly crafting each sentence so that the reader can slowly meander through the content at a leisurely pace. Then there are authors like Michael Crichton who cut right to the chase. Most readers prefer one type and, to them, the other will be either boring and wordy or superficial and without any complexity. Its not that I can’t read long books: I reread the Lord of the Rings trilogy when the movies came out a few years ago and read all of the Harry Potter books. I just prefer books that move at a faster pace.

It’s interesting that I read this book right after Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus and Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget .The books served as a nice contrast to one another. Is there some truth to the argument that the internet is rewiring our brains?I’ll have to concede yes, but I disagree that it destroys our ability to concentrate long term unless we let it. Speaking from personal experience, I’m reading now more than ever thanks to my iPad. And I’m reading lots of different types of books–see my kindle page as proof.

If you are a reader who likes in-depth prose that has lots of examples and backup information, you’ll love this book. If you are someone who prefers reading books that are direct and to the point, skip this book because you’ll probably hate it.
photo credit: Jon Olav

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

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