Central Perk

marți, 28 decembrie 2010

Seth's Blog : Folk wisdom and proofiness

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Folk wisdom and proofiness

"Is it feed a cold, starve a fever, or the other way around, I can never remember?"

Does it matter if you get the rhyme wrong? A folk remedy that doesn't work doesn't work whether or not you say it right.

Zig Ziglar used to tell a story about a baseball team on a losing streak. On the road for a doubleheader, the team visited a town that was home to a famous faith healer. While the guys were warming up, the manager disappeared. He came back an hour later with a big handful of bats. "Guys, these bats were blessed and healed by the guru. Our problems are over."

According to the story, the team snapped out of their streak and won a bunch of games. Some people wonder, "did the faith healer really touch the bats, or was the manager making it up?" Huh? Does it matter?

Mass marketers have traditionally abhorred measurement, preferring rules of thumb, casting calls and alchohol instead. Yet, there's no real correlation between how the ad was made and how well it works.

As the number of apparently significant digits in the data available to us goes up (traffic was up .1% yesterday!) we continually seek causation, even if we're looking in the wrong places. As the amount of data we get continues to increase, we need people who can help us turn that data into information.

It's important, I think, to understand when a placebo is helpful and when it's not. We shouldn't look to politicians to tell us whether or not the world is getting warmer (and what's causing it). They're not qualified or motivated to turn the data into information. We also shouldn't look to a fortune teller on the corner to read our x-rays or our blood tests.

Proofiness is a tricky thing. Data is not information, and confusing numbers with truth can help you make some bad decisions.

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luni, 27 decembrie 2010

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Indiana Bill Would Allow Cities to Declare Bankruptcy; Gary, Lake Station, Georgetown Likely Candidates; Hands Tied in Rhode Island
Unemployment Situation in Pictures; Manufacturing, State and Local, Temporary-Help
Food, Fuel Inflation Hits India; Primary Price Index Up 15%, Credit Expansion Up 23%
China Hikes Rates, Ponders Capital Controls to Halt Currency Inflows; Eight Reasons China Faces Hard Landing

Indiana Bill Would Allow Cities to Declare Bankruptcy; Gary, Lake Station, Georgetown Likely Candidates; Hands Tied in Rhode Island

Posted: 27 Dec 2010 09:01 PM PST

A bill in the Indiana legislature would allow local governments to declare bankruptcy. Given Governor Mitch Daniels is backing this plan, I expect it to pass. Best of all, the bill gives an emergency manager the ability to renegotiate labor contracts, and approve or veto contracts, expenses, loans and hiring.

Please consider Bill would allow Indiana cities to declare bankruptcy

A plan backed by Gov. Mitch Daniels would allow local governments in Indiana to ask for a state takeover and declare bankruptcy if necessary. Daniels says he hopes there won't be many local governments that seek bankruptcy, but says the state needs to have the law clarified and on standby in case it happens.

Republican state Sen. Ed Charbonneau of Valparaiso is sponsoring a bill to outline the procedure. His bill would allow a local government in financial trouble to ask the Indiana Distressed Unit Appeals Board to appoint an "emergency manager" to run the government.

The emergency manager would have the power to cut the budget, renegotiate labor contracts, and approve or veto contracts, expenses, loans and hiring.

The bill states that if the emergency manager can't turn around the local government's finances, the unit would be allowed to seek federal bankruptcy protection.

The State Board of Accounts in recent audits has questioned the abilities of the city governments in Gary and Lake Station to "continue as a going concern" because of continued high city spending despite significantly reduced city revenues because of statewide property tax caps.

I salute this bill and look forward to the bankruptcy of a handful of Indiana cities. Gary has a population of around 100,000 and is Indiana's fifth largest city. Lake Station has a population of about 14,000.

Georgetown, Indiana Headed for Bankruptcy

The Indiana Law Blog reports Southern Indiana town may file for bankruptcy protection

Monday, July 27, 2009
Facing a debt of $1.45 million over a long-delayed sewage plant project, the Floyd County town of Georgetown has taken the first step toward what would be an unprecedented move for an Indiana municipality — filing for bankruptcy protection.

Whether Georgetown could do that, however, is in dispute. State officials say Indiana law doesn't authorize a town to declare bankruptcy.

Georgetown's leaders "have no authority" to declare the town bankrupt, said Brian Bailey, general counsel for the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance.

Bailey cited a 1994 update to the federal bankruptcy code that says a municipality "must be specifically authorized" by state law to be a debtor, and no Indiana law does that. (Kentucky law authorizes its local governments to file for bankruptcy, but none have ever done so.)

Georgetown Town Council President Billy Stewart said there may be no other option.

"There's no way for Georgetown to pay" its debts, he said. "We don't have it."

Look for Georgetown, Indiana population approximately 3,000 to see bankruptcy protection if allowed.

Details of the Bankruptcy Bill

Inquiring minds are reading Law would let cities declare bankruptcy for details about the bill.

State Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, is sponsoring Senate Bill 105, which would repurpose the Indiana Distressed Unit Appeals Board from providing property tax cap relief to supervising direct management of a local government.

Gary twice has won DUAB permission to charge the highest property tax rates in the state to bring its city budget into balance.

Under Charbonneau's bill to restructure DUAB, the council and executive of a local government could jointly seek to be designated a "distressed unit" if it meets one of eight financial criteria. Or, a coalition of a government's creditors owed more than 30 percent of the unit's anticipated annual revenue could ask DUAB to declare a local government distressed.

If DUAB agreed the local government were distressed, DUAB would appoint an "emergency manager" with the powers of both the council and executive, who could slash the budget; renegotiate labor contracts; review salaries; approve or veto contracts, expenses, loans and hiring; and audit the books -- all independently of the government's elected officials.

The emergency manager would not be allowed to raise taxes and would be required to work with elected officials to develop a financial plan for the future, according to the legislation.

Hallelujah! Raising taxes to meet untenable union wages and pension benefits has to stop.

Criteria for "distressed" designation (one of eight needed):

1) Default in payment of principal or interest on bonds or notes
2) More than 30 days late on payroll or two consecutive payrolls missed
3) Failed to pay judgment creditors more than 30 days after judgment
4) More than 30 days late any of the following: sending taxes withheld from employees, sending employer or employee contributions to Social Security or Medicare, depositing minimum obligation payment to a pension fund
5) Accumulated a deficit in total government funds of more than 5 percent of current year revenues
6) Seeks renegotiation of payments owed that are more than 30 percent of annual revenues and more than 90 days overdue
7) The state is intercepting local government funds to make required payments
8) Uses interfund loans to support the same fund for two years in a row

Tax Free Does Not Mean Worry Free

The Financial Sense article Muni Bonds: Tax Free Doesn't Mean Worry Free has a list of 26 states (up from 21 in 2007) that currently do not allow bankruptcy.

Alaska	New Hampshire
Delaware	New Mexico
Georgia	North Dakota
Hawaii	Oregon
Illinois	Rhode Island
Indiana	South Dakota
Iowa	Tennessee
Kansas	Utah
Maine	Vermont
Maryland	Virginia
Massachusetts	West Virginia
Mississippi	Wisconsin
Nevada	Wyoming

The most recent addition to the above list is Rhode Island which just passed a law outlawing bankruptcy after the City of Central Falls disclosed it would seek bankruptcy.

Do the governors that signed such legislation really think problem will go away if the one possible solution is removed? Sheeesh?

Look for Indiana and Michigan to come off the list. In addition, Wisconsin governor-elect has proposed decertification of public unions, so I believe he would be agreeable to local bankruptcies if such a bill was presented to him.

Please see Hardball in Wisconsin; Massive Defeat for Unions in Lame-Duck Session for more about Wisconsin, governor-elect Scott Walker's showdown with state union employees.

Central Falls Prohibited From Bankruptcy

The only thing that makes any sense for Central Fall is bankruptcy, but that option is currently missing. Please consider Receiver to city: Financial ruin near

CENTRAL FALLS — The city's financial problems are so profound that the only way to solve them is through a merger with Pawtucket or a regionalization of city services, the state-appointed receiver said in a report Thursday to the Carcieri administration.

"Central Falls, in my judgment, cannot remain a stand-alone community as it presently is, unless the state wants to subsidize this into the future," said retired Superior Court judge Mark A. Pfeiffer, the man appointed by the state Department of Administration in July to run the city, with elected government officials in advisory roles, after those officials had earlier declared the city insolvent.

The underlying, built-in problems in the city's finances — with sizable operating budget deficits projected well into the future — require significantly changing how municipal employee contracts and retirement benefits are handled under state law, he said.

Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed said underfunded municipal pensions have been the subject of a special Senate study commission, and Central Falls — with a $48-million unfunded pension liability, according to Pfeiffer — would put even more focus on that work.

"This will be a priority for the Senate in the upcoming legislative session," she said. "TheSenate agrees that there is a need for swift but prudent action by the state."

The state is already heavily involved in the city. It took over financing the local school system in the last big state fiscal intervention in 1991 and has spent $604 million on the city's schools since then. Despite that effort, improvement has been difficult: this year, the city's high school was rated one of the six worst-performing ones in the state.

In the short term, Pfeiffer said the city will need about $2.1 million in some form of state support authorized by the General Assembly, a grant or some kind of bond guarantee, to close a deficit in the current budget. Beyond that, he said more substantial changes were needed.

The major problem is the city, with an annual operating budget of about $16 million, is facing about $32 million in promised after-retirement health-insurance costs in addition to the $48 million in pension obligations.

"That's $80 million for a city that has 19,000 citizens, approximately," he said. "That's a huge problem."

No city would merge with Central Falls in a foolish attempt to save it. It would mean their own financial ruin. Furthermore, why should Rhode Island taxpayers in general have to fund Central Fall's pension obligation?

Massive Teacher Absenteeism at Central Falls High School

Check out the morally corrupt Central Falls Teachers union: Central Falls teacher absences still on the rise

Since the school year started Sept. 1, there has not been a single day when all of the 88 teachers at Central Falls High School have shown up for work.

On that first day, two teachers called in sick and a third took a personal day.

And there have been only five days — all in September — when administrators were able to replace all the missing teachers with substitutes.

Last week alone, there were at least 19 teachers out every day, 10 to 13 of whom called in sick each day.

The severity of the problem came to light last week when The Journal reported that more than half of the high school's 840 students didn't receive a grade in one or more classes for the first quarter.

The school's leaders, Deputy Supt. Victor Capellan and co-principals Evelyn Cosme-Jones and Sonn Sam, said 453 students did not receive solid instruction in several classes, and therefore no grade could be given.

Since Nov. 12, there have been at least 20 teachers missing or absent at the high school each Friday. Starting Oct. 21, there were 14 to 19 teachers absent daily for seven straight days. And 453 of the 840 students at Central Falls High School didn't receive enough instruction this fall to earn a grade in at least one class.

Like Detroit, Central Falls is fiscally, morally, and educationally bankrupt. The one and only thing that makes any sense for Central Falls is to declare bankruptcy.

Please see Detroit Mayor Plans to Halt Garbage Pickup, Police Patrols in 20% of City; Expect Bankruptcy, Massive Municipal Bond Turmoil in 2011 for the problems Detroit faces.

I expect Governor Snyder to do the right thing and allow Detroit to file. If it takes legislation, he will get it if he asks. The pending legislation in Indiana appears to be a good model for both Michigan and Rhode Island.

Let's hope Rhode Island governor-elect Lincoln D. Chaffee, an independent, has his head screwed on straight and asks the legislature to allow municipal bankruptcies. It is the only hope for Central Falls.

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

Unemployment Situation in Pictures; Manufacturing, State and Local, Temporary-Help

Posted: 27 Dec 2010 12:25 PM PST

Inquiring minds are looking at charts of state and local employment, manufacturing, temporary help, and other items in the BLS Current Statistics report.

Please click on any chart to see a sharper image.

Note how local governments were still expanding mid-recession, all the way up till July of 2008. A year later, starting June of 2009, local governments finally got religion and started cutting jobs. Look for this trend to continue into 2011.

In spite of all the whining by states, they have not yet made any significant cuts in employment.

For all the brouhaha about the manufacturing recovery, employment in the manufacturing sector has dropped four consecutive months.

Total nonfarm employment shows the nature of the jobless recovery. Jobs are expanding barely enough to hold the unemployment rate constant, and it has taken a declining participation rate to do that.

Total nonfarm employment picked up nicely early-to-mid 2010 but most of that was part-time work for census data gathering. The net effect is employment growth was overstated through May, then understated the next few months as those workers were let go.

Total private employment has been growing at a reasonable clip, but not in comparison to previous recoveries that averaged 200,000 jobs a month.

26% of Jobs growth in 2010 has been from temporary help services.

Net Private Nonfarm Jobs vs. Temporary Jobs
Month	Private	Temporary	Net
Total	+1,171,000	+307,000	+864,000
Average	+106,500	+27,900	+78,500
November	+50,000	+39,500	+10,500
October	+160,000	+34,700	+125,300
September	+112,000	+27,300	+84,700
August	+143,000	+22,500	+120,500
July	+117,000	-6,700	+123,700
June	+61,000	+18,600	+42,400
May	+51,000	+30,400	+20,600
April	+241,000	+23,300	+217,700
March	+158,000	+32,300	+125,700
February	+62,000	+35,900	+26,100
January	+16,000	+49,200	-33,200

The total number of private jobs added in 2010 is 1.17 million. 307,000 of them are from temporary help services. Even including those temporary jobs, the average number of private sector jobs has only been 106,500 a month, not enough to reduce the unemployment rate.

The Federal government continues to expand jobs even as local cutbacks pick up. Overall, government jobs are in contraction as local cutbacks exceed federal hiring.

The above graph is from the October report. Previous graphs from the November report. I still see no driver for jobs. Retail spending for clothes is not a sustainable driver. State and local cutbacks are coming, but that is a very good thing long-term.

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

Food, Fuel Inflation Hits India; Primary Price Index Up 15%, Credit Expansion Up 23%

Posted: 27 Dec 2010 10:15 AM PST

China is not the only Asian economy that is overheating. Inflation in India is running at a double digit pace as is credit expansion. Please consider Food, fuel prices drive inflation worries

Rising prices in India of fuel and food are reviving worries about inflation and sent swap rates to 26-month highs as expectations grew for more rate increases in Asia's third-largest economy.

India's embattled government is expected to decide next week whether to increase state-set fuel prices as international crude oil hovered near two-year highs, a move that would have a broader inflationary impact than a decision earlier this month by state-run fuel retailers to lift the price of petrol.

In the year to Dec. 11, India's food price index rose 12.13 percent, with the price of onions -- the country's most widely-eaten vegetable -- of especial concern, while the fuel price index climbed 10.74 percent. This compared with 9.46 percent and 10.67 percent respectively in the previous week.

"Inflation is becoming a problem now. We expect the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) to hike rates sooner rather than later. Now we expect 50-75 basis points of rate hike in the next year, most of which should happen in the first half," said Manish Wadhawan, director and head of rates trading at HSBC in Mumbai.

Inflation worries are spreading in Asia, with Singapore on Thursday posting November inflation near a two-year high and Chinese consumer inflation for November at a 28-month high.

"We will certainly do whatever is required to bring down prices of onions," Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar said.

India's primary articles price index was up 15.35 percent in the latest week compared with an annual rise of 13.25 percent a week earlier, data on Thursday showed.

Last week, retailers raised petrol prices -- which were deregulated in June -- by nearly 6 percent.

Any rise above 2 rupees (4.4 cents) a litre in diesel must be approved by a ministerial panel, India's oil secretary told CNBC TV on Thursday.

Whatever It Takes

I have to laugh at statements like this: "We will certainly do whatever is required to bring down prices of onions."

What it takes is a slowing economy including a slowing of credit expansion.

Two or three quarter-point rate hikes will not do it. Nor will price controls. Yet, India's President Pratibha Patil is confident the economy will grow at about 9 percent in the current fiscal year ending March 2011 and would be on a sustained growth path of about 9 to 10 percent in FY12.

India Credit Expansion Up 23%

Please consider Credit-deposit growth gap behind liquidity crunch

The faster growth in bank credit than deposits is behind the present cash crunch, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said. Year-on-year credit growth was 23 per cent till December 3, while deposit growth was only 15 per cent, as compared to RBI's projection of 20 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively, for 2010-11.

The liquidity deficit, indicated by banks' borrowing from the repo tender of RBI, has been over Rs 1 lakh crore on an average since November.

Low government spending, coupled with slack deposit growth and advance tax outflows, has resulted in the crunch.

On Wednesday, banks borrowed a record Rs 1.7 lakh crore from RBI.

Indian Bank targets up to 28% credit growth

Inquiring minds are reading Indian Bank targets up to 28% credit growth

According to a top official working with the Indian Bank, the bank has the plans to target the credit growth to around 28 per cent during the current fiscal year as the demand for the credit this year seems to have risen quite a bit.

"We expect a credit growth of 27-28 per cent this year," the Chennai-based bank's Chairman and Managing Director, T M Bhasin, said.

"RBI has always been judicious and its decision to decrease the statutory liquidity ratio by 1 per cent will definitely infuse more liquidity in the system," he said.

The sustained growth assumptions of India and China at about 10% each are simply not going to happen. Both countries are overheating and there is a not so little constraint called peak oil that will get in the way. Should India maintain its rate of growth, do not expect to see any containment in price inflation. The same holds true for China.

For more on China, please see China Hikes Rates, Ponders Capital Controls to Halt Currency Inflows; Eight Reasons China Faces Hard Landing

India and China are going to overheat and crash, or their economic growth is going to slow dramatically, quite possibly both.

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

China Hikes Rates, Ponders Capital Controls to Halt Currency Inflows; Eight Reasons China Faces Hard Landing

Posted: 26 Dec 2010 11:32 PM PST

Inflation is running at a reported 5.1% in China, a figure most believe is on the low side. Nonetheless, China has been loath to hike rates out of fear of more "hot money" flowing in. Something had to give, and it did. The markets forced China's hand.

Please consider China Increases Rates to Counter Highest Inflation in Two Years

China raised interest rates for the second time since mid-October to counter the fastest inflation in more than two years and more moves may follow.

The benchmark one-year lending rate will rise by 25 basis points to 5.81 percent and the one-year deposit rate will climb by the same amount to 2.75 percent, effective today, the People's Bank of China said in a one-sentence statement on its website late yesterday.

Premier Wen Jiabao is seeking to slow gains in property values and consumer prices that are making it harder for families to buy homes and pay for food. Bank lending and a wider-than-forecast November trade surplus have pumped more cash into an economy already awash with money.

China is tightening after a record expansion of credit to counter the effects of the world financial crisis. The broadest measure of money supply, M2, has surged by 55 percent over the past two years and outstanding yuan-denominated loans have climbed 60 percent to 47.4 trillion.

Residence-related costs, including charges for water, electricity and rent, jumped 5.8 percent last month from a year earlier, the most in more than two years, and consumer goods prices rose 5.9 percent, the biggest gain since August 2008, according to statistics bureau data.

Policy makers are concerned that raising interest rates could "encourage hot money inflows," Paul Cavey, a Hong Kong- based economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. said. "Raising interest rates has far more implications" than ordering lenders to set aside more of their deposits as reserves, as it may affect the ability of local governments and companies to pay their debts.

State Council researcher Ba Shusong told state television yesterday that the government will step up regulation of capital inflows, without specifying measures that will be taken.

The Ministry of Commerce is stepping up supervision of foreign investment in real estate to crack down on speculation after a 48 percent jump in overseas fund inflows to the industry in the first 11 months of the year, spokesman Yao Jian said on Dec. 15. Policy makers may also allow faster gains in the yuan to help curb inflation from higher prices of imported commodities, according to analysts' forecasts.

China Overheating

China was number 5 on my list of Ten Economic and Investment Themes for 2011

5. China Overheats, Multiple Rate Hikes Coming

China, everyone's favorite promised land, has a hard landing. China will grow at perhaps 5-6% but that is nowhere near as much as China wants, or the world expects. Tightening in China will crack its property bubble and more importantly pressure commodities. The longer China holds off in tightening, the harder the landing.

Capital Controls Coming

Initially, rate hikes will encourage more "hot money" inflows into China. In hopes of preventing those inflows, China has announced more capital controls. It will be interesting to see precisely what those controls will look like.

Currency Sterilization Needed

One thing China should do is sterilize speculative hot money and balance of trade inflows via domestic government bond issuance, hoping to curb money supply growth.

However, it is not as simple as that, because in a fractional-reserve credit system, a net increase in lending itself increases money supply.

Clearly the Chinese central bank is behind the curve. Will China simply restrict lending? Would it even work?

I do not know about the former, but the latter would eventually force a hard landing if China gets serious enough. Actually, there are so many problems that I think a hard landing is coming regardless, and the longer China dallies, the harder it will be.

In the meantime, these paltry rate hikes by China of .25 points each pale in comparison to increases in reported consumer price increases.

Enormous Property Bubbles Including Vacant Cities

It is not "consumer price inflation" that is the big problem. Asset inflation, especially property speculation is rampant.

In case you missed it please consider The ghost towns of China: Amazing satellite images show cities meant to be home to millions lying deserted

Speculation will continue until China gets serious or until the pool of greater fools buying property at absurd prices dries up.

China's Army of Graduates Struggles for Jobs

Exacerbating China's myriad of problems, an Army of Graduates Struggles for Jobs

In 1998, when Jiang Zemin, then the president, announced plans to bolster higher education, Chinese universities and colleges produced 830,000 graduates a year. Last May, that number was more than six million and rising.

It is a remarkable achievement, yet for a government fixated on stability such figures are also a cause for concern. The economy, despite its robust growth, does not generate enough good professional jobs to absorb the influx of highly educated young adults. And many of them bear the inflated expectations of their parents, who emptied their bank accounts to buy them the good life that a higher education is presumed to guarantee.

"College essentially provided them with nothing," said Zhang Ming, a political scientist and vocal critic of China's education system. "For many young graduates, it's all about survival. If there was ever an economic crisis, they could be a source of instability."

In a kind of cruel reversal, China's old migrant class — uneducated villagers who flocked to factory towns to make goods for export — are now in high demand, with spot labor shortages and tighter government oversight driving up blue-collar wages.

But the supply of those trained in accounting, finance and computer programming now seems limitless, and their value has plunged. Between 2003 and 2009, the average starting salary for migrant laborers grew by nearly 80 percent; during the same period, starting pay for college graduates stayed the same, although their wages actually decreased if inflation is taken into account.

Chinese sociologists have come up with a new term for educated young people who move in search of work like Ms. Liu: the ant tribe. It is a reference to their immense numbers — at least 100,000 in Beijing alone — and to the fact that they often settle into crowded neighborhoods, toiling for wages that would give even low-paid factory workers pause.

"Like ants, they gather in colonies, sometimes underground in basements, and work long and hard," said Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at Renmin University in Beijing.

Odds for social unrest will mount if China's growth slows. Yet, because of short-term overheating concerns on top of long-term peak oil issues there is no way China can keep growing at the current pace.

Eight Problems Facing China

Hot money inflows
Huge property bubble
Massive increases in money supply, much of it property speculation and building of unneeded capacity
Currency manipulation charges from the US and potential trade wars
Unsterilized trade imbalances fuel inflation
Slowing Europe
Dearth of Jobs for new graduates
Potential social unrest

Case For Hard Landing

Risks are enormously skewed to the downside, so much so that the odds China avoids a hard landing are not good. China is far more exposed to a slowdown in Europe than the US and the popping of China's property bubble will extract a huge toll.

Those plowing into commodities, foreign currencies, and equities (especially foreign equities), fail to consider those risks.

Moreover, given that much of China's growth is overheating and malinvestment, it is not even clear the Renminbi is undervalued.

For a look at India, please consider Food, Fuel Inflation Hits India; Primary Price Index Up 15%, Credit Expansion Up 23%

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

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Need More SEO Tools? Google Has Some!

Posted: 26 Dec 2010 12:59 PM PST

Posted by Paddy_Moogan

Howdy SEOmozzers! Hope you are all enjoying the Christmas break. For those of you still looking for SEO goodness to read around the holidays, I've put together this post on tools that Google provides that you can use for SEO tasks.

We all love SEO tools because they can make our lives so much easier. Members of SEOmoz know this better than most with the array of tools that SEOmoz has. However we always want more as there are always some tasks that can be automated or made quick by using a tool instead. Google actually provides tools that can assist with SEO tasks; some of them you may know about, others may be new to you. Either way, I wanted to give you a run down of ways you can use Google to help with SEO tasks.

Just as a quick sidenote, Google actually has an SEO guide (PDF link) which is pretty good as both an introduction and a reminder of the basic principles of SEO and how Google works. It amazes me how many SEOs don't read into the technical side of Google and how everything works behind the scenes. This guide helps to cover some of this.

So what tools does Google give you...

1. Follow Finder

This tool helps you to find people on Twitter who are similar or related to the person you search for. You just enter the profile name of someone and the tool will return a list of people also on Twitter.

Practical Use - Very handy if you are just getting into a new market and want to find out who the key influencers are as well as who is active in that community on Twitter. This can lead to the potential of outreach and building relationships with these people. The tool does seem quite accurate given the results that it returned for a search on Rand's profile:

2. Google Sets

I've been using this for quite a while now and even though it is very simple, it is quite useful. You input a keyword and the tool will return a list of keywords which are similar to the one you started with. Here is an example of what results I was given on a search for "BMW":

Practical Use - I use this a lot when I am just starting a project and need to get a feel for all the different related keywords that could be related to the client. It's almost like a brainstorming tool and can certainly help if you are stuck or have brain freeze!

3. Google Alerts + Google Reader + iGoogle = Win!

So this one is a combination of tools. You can use this combination for a number of purposes, but the idea is that you can get these tools to work together then feed the output into an easy to consume format.

Practical Use - I have two main uses of these tools. The first is like an improvised reputation management dashboard. I do this via the following steps -

Setup a Google Alert for my keywords, eg "Paddy Moogan" OR "Patrick Moogan"
Add this Google Alert to Google Reader - you could stop at this point but it can look much better!
Take the RSS feed from Google Reader and add it to your iGoogle interface

So when I login to iGoogle, I have a small widget which will contain any mentioned of the variations of my name. You can then mark them as read and only see new results in your feed which makes things much more efficient. Fortunately today there are no mentions of me. :P

4. Latest Results

Not many people think of this as an SEO tool but it can be used in a few different ways. The way it works is very simple, just input your keyword and click on Latest from the left hand menu:

Practical Use - I sometimes use this combined with a site: search to see how a website is being cached by Google. If you enter a very large website with lots of link juice, then you can pretty much see live re-caching of the pages on that website, just like this example using the BBC website:

Another use is to use a similar approach to my previous task of monitoring Google Alerts for mentions of your brand. You could run a search for your brand, then leave the latest results running in a different tab / browser whilst you do other work. Then just come back every so often and see if there are any relevant results to you.

5. Google Suggest

Again, this isn't really thought of as an SEO tool but it should be! I actually blogged about this quite a while ago and gave a few instances where this may be useful. In partiuclar when you have to do some very quick keyword analysis and give an answer to a client. There is some debate as to where these results come from, but to me it seems to be a combination of search volume and on-site factors as well as social mentions. So it's still a valid source to look at when trying to come up with additional keywords - in particular long tail keywords.

Practical Use - Fortunately there are tools out there which make using Google Suggest as a tool a lot easier, one of which is this tool from Rob Millard which makes use of the Google Suggest API.

6. Google Insights

I don't use this as much as I should really. I don't think the data is 100% perfect but when doing comparisons, it can often come in handy.

Practical Use - Make comparisons between similar search terms to see which one you could be targeting and see which ones have become more popular in recent times. I also use it to try and see what search terms are rising pretty fast. If you are lucky enough to see one that is related to your industry, you can sometimes ride the wave by publishing a news article or piece of content around that term. This works especially well if you are included in Google News too. Here is an example of what I've found at the time of writing:

7. Google Webmaster Tools

This one kind of goes without saying! There is a wealth of information inside Webmaster Tools and Google are releasing more features all the time.

Practical Use - I love using Webmaster Tools when doing technical site audits. Google gives you information on crawl errors and what they have found in terms of on-site issues which you can then try and fix to improve your site.

8. Google Trends

Trends is a little different to Insights which I mentioned above. One of the extra features that Trends gives you is the ability to see the "Also Visited" and "Also Searched For" information. We can see the following results when I searched for www.seomoz.org which seem fairly accurate:

Practical Use - This is a very useful one for doing research around a market that you don't know too well, for example at the start of an SEO project. It can also give you some ideas for sites to get links from, because these are very relevant sites. You can also use these sites to do backlink checks for finding more links that you may not have previously seen.

9. Wonder Wheel

Another useful tool from Google is the Wonder Wheel which was introduced quite a while ago. It's very good for finding related keywords, almost like Google Sets or Google Suggest which were outlined above.

Practical Use - Where the Wonder Wheel really helps is when it comes to showing clients and non SEO people a way to visualise keywords that are related to each other. It works very quickly and you can easily get into the long tail of search terms. Here is an example if you were working in an industry that sold garden sheds, after just three clicks I've got some long tail keyword ideas and can see what the competition is like for each one by looking at the search results to the right:

10. Image Swirl

I've cheated with this one a little bit - it hasn't really got any SEO use from what I've seen so far. But it is so cool to use! It shows you images that are very similar to each other and the interface is very slick and smooth. Its almost like the Wonder Wheel but for images:

A screenshot here can't really do it justice so just go and have a play :)

11. Google Zeitgeist

Thanks to Justin for pointing this one out to me. This is almost like a combination between Trends and Insights but looks so much better! The link above is to a summary of 2010 and the billions of searches on Google during the year. You can click on various world events and see a visual representation of which were most popular and in what parts of the world. Just check this out:

As I said this one is quite new to me so I'm yet to find an SEO use, but it sure looks great and has tons of data for you to look at.

Well there you have it, eleven tools given to us by Google. Go have a play and let me know in the comments if you have any others or different uses for the tools above.

Enjoy the rest of the festive season and I wish you all the best for 2011!

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