joi, 17 noiembrie 2011

Duplicate Content in a Post-Panda World

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 11:01 AM PST

“No one saw the panda uprising coming. One day, they were frolicking in our zoos. The next, they were frolicking in our entrails. They came for the identical twins first, then the gingers, and then the rest of us. I finally trapped one and asked him the question burning in all of our souls – 'Why?!' He just smiled and said ‘You humans all look alike to me.’”

- Sgt. Jericho “Bamboo” Jackson

Pandas Take No Prisoners Ok, maybe we’re starting to get a bit melodramatic about this whole Panda thing. While it’s true that Panda didn’t change everything about SEO, I think it has been a wake-up call about SEO issues we’ve been ignoring for too long.

One of those issues is duplicate content. While duplicate content as an SEO problem has been around for years, the way Google handles it has evolved dramatically and seems to only get more complicated with every update. Panda has upped the ante even more.

So, I thought it was a good time to cover the topic of duplicate content, as it stands in 2011, in depth. This is designed to be a comprehensive resource – a complete discussion of what duplicate content is, how it happens, how to diagnose it, and how to fix it. Maybe we’ll even round up a few rogue pandas along the way.

I. What Is Duplicate Content?

Let’s start with the basics. Duplicate content exists when any two (or more) pages share the same content. If you’re a visual learner, here’s an illustration for you:

Illustration of duplicates

Easy enough, right? So, why does such a simple concept cause so much difficulty? One problem is that people often make the mistake of thinking that a “page” is a file or document sitting on their web server. To a crawler (like Googlebot), a page is any unique URL it happens to find, usually through internal or external links. Especially on large, dynamic sites, creating two URLs that land on the same content is surprisingly easy (and often unintentional).

II. Why Do Duplicates Matter?

Duplicate content as an SEO issue was around long before the Panda update, and has taken many forms as the algorithm has changed. Here’s a brief look at some major issues with duplicate content over the years…

The Supplemental Index

In the early days of Google, just indexing the web was a massive computational challenge. To deal with this challenge, some pages that were seen as duplicates or just very low quality were stored in a secondary index called the “supplemental” index. These pages automatically became 2nd-class citizens, from an SEO perspective, and lost any competitive ranking ability.

Around late 2006, Google integrated supplemental results back into the main index, but those results were still often filtered out. You know you’ve hit filtered results anytime you see this warning at the bottom of a Google SERP:

Omitted results in Google

Even though the index was unified, results were still “omitted”, with obvious consequences for SEO. Of course, in many cases, these pages really were duplicates or had very little search value, and the practical SEO impact was negligible, but not always.

The Crawl “Budget”

It’s always tough to talk limits when it comes to Google, because people want to hear an absolute number. There is no absolute crawl budget or fixed number of pages that Google will crawl on a site. There is, however, a point at which Google may give up crawling your site for a while, especially if you keep sending spiders down winding paths.

Although the “budget” isn’t absolute, even for a given site, you can get a sense of Google’s crawl allocation for your site in Google Webmaster Tools (under “Diagnostics” > “Crawl Stats”):

GWT crawl graph

So, what happens when Google hits so many duplicate paths and pages that it gives up for the day? Practically, the pages you want indexed may not get crawled. At best, they probably won’t be crawled as often.

The Indexation “Cap”

Similarly, there’s no set “cap” to how many pages of a site Google will index. There does seem to be a dynamic limit, though, and that limit is relative to the authority of the site. If you fill up your index with useless, duplicate pages, you may push out more important, deeper pages. For example, if you load up on 1000s of internal search results, Google may not index all of your product pages. Many people make the mistake of thinking that more indexed pages is better. I’ve seen too many situations where the opposite was true. All else being equal, bloated indexes dilute your ranking ability.

The Penalty Debate

Long before Panda, a debate would erupt every few months over whether or not there was a duplicate content penalty. While these debates raised valid points, they often focused on semantics – whether or not duplicate content caused a Capital-P Penalty. While I think the conceptual difference between penalties and filters is important, the upshot for a site owner is often the same. If a page isn’t ranking (or even indexed) because of duplicate content, then you’ve got a problem, no matter what you call it.

The Panda Update

Since Panda (starting in February 2011), the impact of duplicate content has become much more severe in some cases. It used to be that duplicate content could only harm that content itself. If you had a duplicate, it might go supplemental or get filtered out. Usually, that was ok. In extreme cases, a large number of duplicates could bloat your index or cause crawl problems and start impacting other pages.

Panda made duplicate content part of a broader quality equation – now, a duplicate content problem can impact your entire site. If you’re hit by Panda, non-duplicate pages may lose ranking power, stop ranking altogether, or even fall out of the index. Duplicate content is no longer an isolated problem.

III. Three Kinds of Duplicates

Before we dive into examples of duplicate content and the tools for dealing with them, I’d like to cover 3 broad categories of duplicates. They are: (1) True Duplicates, (2) Near Duplicates, and (3) Cross-domain Duplicates. I’ll be referencing these 3 main types in the examples later in the post.

(1) True Duplicates

A true duplicate is any page that is 100% identical (in content) to another page. These pages only differ by the URL:

True duplicates

(2) Near Duplicates

A near duplicate differs from another page (or pages) by a very small amount – it could be a block of text, an image, or even the order of the content:

Near duplicates

An exact definition of “near” is tough to pin down, but I’ll discuss some examples in detail later.

(3) Cross-domain Duplicates

A cross-domain duplicate occurs when two websites share the same piece of content:

Cross-domain duplicates

These duplicates could be either “true” or “near” duplicates. Contrary to what some people believe, cross-domain duplicates can be a problem even for legitimate, syndicated content.

IV. Tools for Fixing Duplicates

This may seem out of order, but I want to discuss the tools for dealing with duplicates before I dive into specific examples. That way, I can recommend the appropriate tools to fix each example without confusing anyone.

(1) 404 (Not Found)

Of course, the simplest way to deal with duplicate content is to just remove it and return a 404 error. If the content really has no value to visitors or search, and if it has no significant inbound links or traffic, then total removal is a perfectly valid option.

(2) 301 Redirect

Another way to remove a page is via a 301-redirect. Unlike a 404, the 301 tells visitors (humans and bots) that the page has permanently moved to another location. Human visitors seamlessly arrive at the new page. From an SEO perspective, most of the inbound link authority is also passed to the new page. If your duplicate content has a clear canonical URL, and the duplicate has traffic or inbound links, then a 301-redirect may be a good option.

(3) Robots.txt

Another option is to leave the duplicate content available for human visitors, but block it for search crawlers. The oldest and probably still easiest way to do this is with a robots.txt file (generally located in your root directory). It looks something like this:

Robots.txt sample code

One advantage of robots.txt is that it’s relatively easy to block entire folders or even URL parameters. The disadvantage is that it’s an extreme and sometimes unreliable solution. While robots.txt is effective for blocking uncrawled content, it’s not great for removing content already in the index. The major search engines also seem to frown on its overuse, and don’t generally recommend robots.txt for duplicate content.

(4) Meta Robots

You can also control the behavior of search bots at the page level, with a header-level directive known as the “Meta Robots” tag (or sometimes “Meta Noindex”). In its simplest form, the tag looks something like this:

Meta Noindex sample code

This directive tells search bots not to index this particular page or follow links on it. Anecdotally, I find it a bit more SEO-friendly than Robots.txt, and because the tag can be created dynamically with code, it can often be more flexible.

The other common variant for Meta Robots is the content value “NOINDEX, FOLLOW”, which allows bots to crawl the paths on the page without adding the page to the search index. This can be useful for pages like internal search results, where you may want to block certain variations (I’ll discuss this more later) but still follow the paths to product pages.

One quick note: there is no need to ever add a Meta Robots tag with “INDEX, FOLLOW” to a page. All pages are indexed and followed by default (unless blocked by other means).

(5) Rel=Canonical

In 2009, the search engines banded together to create the Rel=Canonical directive, sometimes called just “Rel-canonical” or the “Canonical Tag”. This allows webmasters to specify a canonical version for any page. The tag goes in the page header (like Meta Robots), and a simple example looks like this:

Rel=canonical sample code

When search engines arrive on a page with a canonical tag, they attribute the page to the canonical URL, regardless of the URL they used to reach the page. So, for example, if a bot reached the above page using the URL “www.example.com/index.html”, the search engine would not index the additional, non-canonical URL. Typically, it seems that inbound link-juice is also passed through the canonical tag.

It’s important to note that you need to clearly understand what the proper canonical page is for any given website template. Canonicalizing your entire site to just one page or the wrong pages can be catastrophic.

(6) Google URL Removal

In Google Webmaster Tools (GWT), you can request that an individual page (or directory) be manually removed from the index. Click on “Site configuration” > “Crawler access”, and you’ll see a series of 3 tabs. Click on the 3rd tab, “Remove URL”, to get this:

GWT parameter blocking #2

Since this tool only removes one URL or path at a time and is completely at Google’s discretion, it’s usually a last-ditch approach to duplicate content. I just want to be thorough, though, and cover all of your options. An important technical note: you need to 404, Robots.txt block or Meta Noindex the page before requesting removal. Removal via GWT is primarily a last defense when Google is being stubborn.

(7) Google Parameter Blocking

You can also use GWT to specify URL parameters that you want Google to ignore (which essentially blocks indexation of pages with those parameters). If you click on “Site Configuration” > “URL parameters”, you’ll get a list something like this:

GWT URL removal screen

This list shows URL parameters that Google has detected, as well as the settings for how those parameters should be crawled. Keep in mind that the “Let Googlebot decide” setting doesn’t reflect other blocking tactics, like Robots.txt or Meta Robots. If you click on “Edit”, you’ll get the following options:

GWT Parameter blocking screen

Google changed these recently, and I find the new version a bit confusing, but essentially “Yes” means the parameter is important and should be indexed, while “No” means the parameter indicates a duplicate. The GWT tool seems to be effective (and can be fast), but I don’t usually recommend it as a first line of defense. It won’t impact other search engines, and it can’t be read by SEO tools and monitoring software. It could also be modified by Google at any time.

(8) Bing URL Removal

Bing Webmaster Center (BWC) has tools very similar to GWT’s options above. Actually, I think the Bing parameter blocking tool came before Google’s version. To request a URL removal in Bing, click on the “Index” tab and then “Block URLs” > “Block URL and Cache”. You’ll get a pop-up like this:

Bing URL removal screen

BWC actually gives you a wider range of options, including blocking a directory and your entire site. Obviously, that last one usually isn’t a good idea.

(9) Bing Parameter Blocking

In the same section of BWC (“Index”), there’s an option called “URL Normalization”. The name implies Bing treats this more like canonicalization, but there’s only one option – “ignore”. Like Google, you get a list of auto-detected parameters and can add or modify them:

Bing parameter blocking screen

As with the GWT tools, I’d consider the Bing versions to be a last resort. Generally, I’d only use these tools if other methods have failed, and one search engine is just giving you grief.

(10) Rel=Prev & Rel=Next

Just this year (September 2011), Google gave us a new tool for fighting a particular form of near-duplicate content – paginated search results. I’ll describe the problem in more detail in the next section, but essentially paginated results are any searches where the results are broken up into chunks, with each chunk (say, 10 results) having its own page/URL.

You can now tell Google how paginated content connects by using a pair of tags much like Rel-Canonical. They’re called Rel-Prev and Rel-Next. Implementation is a bit tricky, but here’s a simple example:

Rel=Prev sample code

In this example, the search bot has landed on page 3 of search results, so you need two tags: (1) a Rel-Prev pointing to page 2, and (2) a Rel-Next pointing to page 4. Where it gets tricky is that you’re almost always going to have to generate these tags dynamically, as your search results are probably driven by one template.

While initial results suggest these tags do work, they’re not currently honored by Bing, and we really don’t have much data on their effectiveness. I’ll briefly discuss other methods for dealing with paginated content in the next section.

(11) Syndication-Source

In November of 2010, Google introduced a set of tags for publishers of syndicated content. The Meta Syndication-Source directive can be used to indicate the original source of a republished article, as follows:

Syndication-source sample code

Even Google’s own advice on when to use this tag and when to use a cross-domain canonical tag are a little bit unclear. Google launched this tag as “experimental”, and I’m not sure they’ve publicly announced a status change. It’s something to watch, but don’t rely on it.

(12) Internal Linking

It’s important to remember that your best tool for dealing with duplicate content is to not create it in the first place. Granted, that’s not always possible, but if you find yourself having to patch dozens of problems, you may need to re-examine your internal linking structure and site architecture.

When you do correct a duplication problem, such as with a 301-redirect or the canonical tag, it’s also important to make your other site cues reflect that change. It’s amazing how often I see someone set a 301 or canonical to one version of a page, and then continue to link internally to the non-canonical version and fill their XML sitemap with non-canonical URLs. Internal links are strong signals, and sending mixed signals will only cause you problems.

(13) Don’t Do Anything

Finally, you can let the search engines sort it out. This is what Google recommended you do for years, actually. Unfortunately, in my experience, especially for large sites, this is almost always a bad idea. It’s important to note, though, that not all duplicate content is a disaster, and Google certainly can filter some of it out without huge consequences. If you only have a few isolated duplicates floating around, leaving them alone is a perfectly valid option.

V. Examples of Duplicate Content

So, now that we’ve worked backwards and sorted out the tools for fixing duplicate content, what does it actually look like in the wild? I’m going to cover a wide range of examples that represent the issues you can expect on a real website. Throughout this section, I’ll reference the solutions listed in Section IV – for example, a reference to a 301-redirect will cite (IV-2).

(1) “www” vs. Non-www

For sitewide duplicate content, this is probably the biggest culprit. Whether you’ve got bad internal paths or have attracted links and social mentions to the wrong URL, you’ve got both the”www” version and non-www (root domain) version of your URLs indexed:

www versus non-www example

Most of the time, a 301-redirect (IV-2) is your best choice here. This is a common problem, and Google is good about honoring redirects for cases like these.

You may also want to set your preferred address in Google Webmaster Tools. Under “Site Configuration” > “Settings”, you should see a section called “Preferred domain”:

GWT Preferred domain screen

There’s a quirk in GWT where, to set a preferred domain, you may have to create GWT profiles for both your “www” and non-www versions of the site. While this is annoying, it won’t cause any harm. If you’re having major canonicalization issues, I’d recommend it. If you’re not, then you can leave well enough alone and let Google determine the preferred domain.

(2) Staging Servers

While much less common than (1), this problem is often also caused by subdomains. In a typical scenario, you’re working on a new site design for a relaunch, your dev team sets up a subdomain with the new site, and they accidentally leave it open to crawlers. What you end up with is two sets of indexed URLS that look something like this:

Staging URL example

Your best bet is to prevent this problem before it happens, by blocking the staging site with Robots.txt (IV-3). If you find your staging site indexed, though, you’ll probably need to 301-redirect (IV-2) those pages or Meta Noindex them (IV-4).

(3) Trailing Slashes ("/")

This is a problem people often have questions about, although it's less of an SEO issue than it once was. Technically, in the original HTTP protocol, a URL with a trailing slash and one without it were different URLs. Here's a simple example:

Trailing slash example

These days, almost all browsers automatically add the trailing slash behind the scenes and resolve both versions the same way. Matt Cutts did a recent video suggesting that Google automatically canonicalizes these URLs in "the vast majority of cases".

(4) Secure (https) Pages

If your site has secure pages (designated by the “https:” protocol), you may find that both secure and non-secure versions are getting indexed. This most frequently happens when navigation links from secure pages – like shopping cart pages – also end up secured, usually due to relative paths, creating variants like this:

Secure URL example

Ideally, these problems are solved by the site-architecture itself. In many cases, it’s best to Noindex (IV-4) secure pages – shopping cart and check-out pages have no place in the search index. After the fact, though, your best option is a 301-redirect (IV-2). Be cautious with any sitewide solutions – if you 301-redirect all “https:” pages to their “http:” versions, you could end up removing security entirely. This is a tricky problem to solve and should be handled carefully.

(5) Home-page Duplicates

While problems (1)-(3) can all create home-page duplicates, the home-page has a couple unique problems of its own. The most typical problem is that both the root domain and the actual home-page document name get indexed. For example:

Home-page duplicate example

Although this problem can be solved with a 301-redirect (IV-2), it’s often a good idea to put a canonical tag on your home-page (IV-5). Home pages are uniquely afflicted by duplicates, and a proactive canonical tag can prevent a lot of problems.

Of course, it’s important to also be consistent with your internal paths (IV-12). If you want the root version of the URL to be canonical, but then link to “/index.htm” in your navigation, you’re sending mixed signals to Google every time the crawlers visit.

(6) Session IDs

Some websites (especially e-commerce platforms) tag each new visitor with a tracking parameter. On occasion, that parameter ends up in the URL and gets indexed, creating something like this:

Session ID URL example

That image really doesn’t do the problem justice, because in reality you can end up with a duplicate for every single session ID and page combination that gets indexed. Session IDs in the URL can easily add 1000s of duplicate pages to your index.

The best option, if possible on your site/platform, is to remove the session ID from the URL altogether and store it in a cookie. There are very few good reasons to create these URLs, and no reason to let bots crawl them. If that’s not feasible, implementing the canonical tag (IV-5) sitewide is a good bet. If you really get stuck, you can block the parameter in Google Webmaster Tools (IV-7) and Bing Webmaster Central (IV-9).

(7) Affiliate Tracking

This problem looks a lot like (6) and happens when sites provide a tracking variable to their affiliates. This variable is typically appended to landing page URLs, like so:

Affiliate URL example

The damage is usually a bit less extreme than (5), but it can still cause large-scale duplication. The solutions are similar to session IDs. Ideally, you can capture the affiliate ID in a cookie and 301-redirect (IV-3) to the canonical version of the page. Otherwise, you’ll probably either need to use canonical tags (IV-5) or block the affiliate URL parameter.

(8) Duplicate Paths

Having duplicate paths to a page is perfectly fine, but when duplicate paths generate duplicate URLs, then you’ve got a problem. Let’s say a product page can be reached one of 3 ways:

Duplicate path examples

Here, the iPad2 product page can be reached by 2 categories and a user-generated tag. User-generated tags are especially problematic, because they can theoretically spawn unlimited versions of a page.

Ideally, these path-based URLs shouldn’t be created at all. However a page is navigated to, it should only have one URL for SEO purposes. Some will argue that including navigation paths in the URL is a positive cue for site visitors, but even as someone with a usability background, I think the cons almost always outweigh the pros here.

If you already have variations indexed, then a 301-redirect (IV-2) or canonical tag (IV-5) are probably your best options. In many cases, implementing the canonical tag will be easier, since there may be too many variations to easily redirect. Long-term, though, you’ll need to re-evaluate your site architecture.

(9) Functional Parameters

Functional parameters are URL parameters that change a page slightly but have no value for search and are essentially duplicates. For example, let’s say that all of your product pages have a printable version, and that version has its own URL:

Print parameter URL example

Here, the “print=1” URL variable indicates a printable version, which normally would have the same content but a modified template. Your best bet is to not index these at all, with something like a Meta Noindex (IV-4), but you could also use a canonical tag (IV-5) to consolidate these pages.

(10) International Duplicates

These duplicates occur when you have content for different countries which share the same language, all hosted on the same root domain (it could be subfolders or subdomains). For example, you may have an English version of your product pages for the US, UK, and Australia:

International sub-folder example

Unfortunately, this one’s a bit tough – in some cases, Google will handle it perfectly well and rank the appropriate content in the appropriate countries. In other cases, even with proper geo-targeting, they won’t. It’s often better to target the language itself than the country, but there are legitimate reasons to split off country-specific content, such as pricing.

If your international content does get treated as duplicate content, there’s no easy answer. If you 301-redirect, you lose the page for visitors. If you use the canonical tag, then Google will only rank one version of the page. The “right” solution can be highly situational and really depends on the risk-reward tradeoff (and the scope of the filter/penalty).

(11) Search Sorts

So far, all of the examples I’ve given have been true duplicates. I’d like to dive into a few examples of “near” duplicates, since that concept is a bit fuzzy. A few common examples pop up with internal search engines, which tend to spin off many variants – sortable results, filters, and paginated results being the most frequent problems.

Search sort duplicates pop up whenever a sort (ascending/descending) creates a separate URL. While the two sorted results are technically different pages, they add no additional value to the search index and contain the same content, just in a different order. URLs might look like:

Search sort URL example

In most cases, it’s best just to block the sortable versions completely, usually by adding a Meta Noindex (IV-4) selectively to pages called with that parameter. In a pinch, you could block the sort parameter in Google Webmaster Tools (IV-7) and Bing Webmaster Central (IV-9).

(12) Search Filters

Search filters are used to narrow an internal search – it could be price, color, features, etc. Filters are very common on e-commerce sites that sell a wide variety of products. Search filter URLs look a lot like search sorts, in many cases:

Search filter URL example

The solution here is similar to (11) – don’t index the filters. As long as Google has a clear path to products, indexing every variant usually causes more harm than good.

(13) Search Pagination

Pagination is an easy problem to describe and an incredibly difficult one to solve. Any time you split internal search results into separate pages, you have paginated content. The URLs are easy enough to visualize:

Search pagination URL example

Of course, over 100s of results, one search can easily spin out dozens of near duplicates. While the results themselves differ, many important features of the pages (Titles, Meta Descriptions, Headers, copy, template, etc.) are identical. Add to that the problem that Google isn’t a big fan of “search within search” (having their search pages land on yours).

In the past, Google has said to let them sort pagination out – problem is, they haven’t done it very well. Recently, Google introduced Rel=Prev and Rel=Next (IV-10). Initial data suggests these tags work, but we don’t have much data, they’re difficult to implement, and Bing doesn’t currently support them.

You have 3 other, viable options (in my opinion), although how and when they’re viable depends a lot on the situation:

You can Meta Noindex,Follow pages 2+ of search results. Let Google crawl the paginated content but don’t let them index it.
You can create a “View All” page that links to all search results at one URL, and let Google auto-detect it. This seems to be Google’s other preferred option.
You can create a “View All” page and set the canonical tag of paginated results back to that page. This is unofficially endorsed, but the pages aren’t really duplicates in the traditional sense, so some claim it violates the intent of Rel-canonical.

Adam Audette has a recent, in-depth discussion of search pagination that I highly recommend. Pagination for SEO is a very difficult topic and well beyond the scope of this post.

(14) Product Variations

Product variant pages are pages that branch off from the main product page and only differ by one feature or option. For example, you might have a page for each color a product comes in:

Product color URL examples

It can be tempting to want to index every color variation, hoping it pops up in search results, but in most cases I think the cons outweigh the pros. If you have a handful of product variations and are talking about dozens of pages, fine. If product variations spin out into 100s or 1000s, though, it’s best to consolidate. Although these pages aren’t technically true duplicates, I think it’s ok to Rel-canonical (IV-5) the options back up to the main product page.

One site note: I purposely used “static” URLs in this example to demonstrate a point. Just because a URL doesn’t have parameters, that doesn’t make it immune to duplication. Static URLs (parameter-free) may look prettier, but they can be duplicates just as easily as dynamic URLs.

(15) Geo-keyword Variations

Once upon a time, “local SEO” meant just copying all of your pages 100s of times, adding a city name to the URL, and swapping out that city in the page copy. It created URLs like these:

Geo-keyword URL examples

In 2011, not only is local SEO a lot more sophisticated, but these pages are almost always going to look like near-duplicates. If you have any chance of ranking, you’re going to need to invest in legitimate, unique content for every geographic region you spin out. If you aren’t willing to make that investment, then don’t create the pages. They’ll probably backfire.

(16) Other “Thin” Content

This isn’t really an example, but I wanted to stop and explain a word we throw around a lot when it comes to content: “thin”. While thin content can mean a variety of things, I think many examples of thin content are near-duplicates like (14) above. Whenever you have pages that vary by only a tiny percentage of content, you risk those pages looking low-value to Google. If those pages are heavy on ads (with more ads than unique content), you’re at even more risk. When too much of your site is thin, it’s time to revisit your content strategy.

(17) Syndicated Content

These last 3 examples all relate to cross-domain content. Here, the URLs don’t really matter – they could be wildly different. Examples (17) and (18) only differ by intent. Syndicated content is any content you use with permission from another site. However you retrieve and integrate it, that content is available on another site (and, often, many sites).

While syndication is legitimate, it’s still likely that one or more copies will get filtered out of search results. You could roll the dice and see what happens (IV-13), but conventional SEO wisdom says that you should link back to the source and probably set up a cross-domain canonical tag (IV-5). A cross-domain canonical looks just like a regular canonical, but with a reference to someone else’s domain.

Of course, a cross-domain canonical tag means that, assuming Google honors the tag, your page won’t get indexed or rank. In some cases, that’s fine – you’re using the content for its value to visitors. Practically, I think it depends on the scope. If you occasionally syndicate content to beef up your own offerings but also have plenty of unique material, then link back and leave it alone. If a larger part of your site is syndicated content, then you could find yourself running into trouble. Unfortunately, using the canonical tag (IV-5) means you'll lose the ranking ability of that content, but it could keep you from getting penalized or having Panda-related problems.

(18) Scraped Content

Scraped content is just like syndicated content, except that you didn’t ask permission (and might even be breaking the law). The best solution: QUIT BREAKING THE LAW!

Seriously, no de-duping solution is going to satisfy the scrapers among you, because most solutions will knock your content out of ranking contention. The best you can do is pad the scraped content with as much of your own, unique content as possible.

(19) Cross-ccTLD Duplicates

Finally, it’s possible to run into trouble when you copy same-language content across countries – see example (9) above – even with separate Top-Level Domains (TLDs). Fortunately, this problem is fairly rare, but we see it with English-language content and even with some European languages. For example, I frequently see questions about Dutch content on Dutch and Belgian domains ranking improperly.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer here, and most of the solutions aren’t traditional duplicate-content approaches. In most cases, you need to work on your targeting factors and clearly show Google that the domain is tied to the country in question.

VI. Which URL Is Canonical?

I’d like to take a quick detour to discuss an important question – whether you use a 301-redirect or a canonical tag, how do you know which URL is actually canonical? I often see people making a mistake like this:

Bad canonical tag example

The problem is that “product.php” is just a template – you’ve now collapsed all of your products down to a single page (that probably doesn’t even display a product). In this case, the canonical version probably includes a parameter, like “id=1234”.

The canonical page isn’t always the simplest version of the URL – it’s the simplest version of the URL that generates UNIQUE content. Let’s say you have these 3 URLs that all generate the same product page:

Canonical URL examples

Two of these versions are essentially duplicates, and the “print” and “session” parameters represent variations on the main product page that should be de-duped. The “id” parameter is essential to the content, though – it determines which product is actually being displayed.

So, consider yourself warned. As much trouble as rampant duplicates can be, bad canonicalization can cause even more damage in some cases. Plan carefully, and make absolutely sure you select the correct canonical versions of your pages before consolidating them.

VII. Tools for Diagnosing Duplicates

So, now that you recognize what duplicate content looks like, how do you go about finding it on your own site? Here are a few tools to get you started – I won’t claim it’s a complete list, but it covers the bases:

(1) Google Webmaster Tools

In Google Webmaster Tools, you can pull up a list of duplicate TITLE tags and Meta Descriptions Google has crawled. While these don’t tell the whole story, they’re a good starting point. Many URL-based duplicates will naturally generate identical Meta data. In your GWT account, go to “Diagnostics” > “HTML Suggestions”, and you’ll see a table like this:

GWT duplicate detection screen

You can click on “Duplicate meta descriptions” and “Duplicate title tags” to pull up a list of the duplicates. This is a great first stop for finding your trouble-spots.

(2) Google’s Site: Command

When you already have a sense of where you might be running into trouble and need to take a deeper dive, Google’s “site:” command is a very powerful and flexible tool. What really makes “site:” powerful is that you can use it in conjunction with other search operators.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re worried about home-page duplicates. To find out if Google has indexed any copies of your home-page, you could use the “site:” command with the “intitle:” operator, like this:

site: plus intitle: example

Put the title in quotes to capture the full phrase, and always use the root domain (leave off “www”) when making a wide sweep for duplicate content. This will detect both “www” and non-www versions.

Another powerful combination is “site:” plus the “inurl:” operator. You could use this to detect parameters, such as the search-sort problem mentioned above:

site: plus inurl: example

The “inurl:” operator can also detect the protocol used, which is handy for finding out whether any secure (https:) copies of your pages have been indexed:

site: plus inurl: example #2

You can also combine the “site:” operator with regular search text, to find near-duplicates (such as blocks of repeated content). To search for a block of content across your site, just include it in quotes:

site: plus text block example

I should also mention that searching for a unique block of content in quotes is a cheap and easy way to find out if people have been scraping your site. Just leave off the “site:” operator and search for a long or unique block entirely in quotes.

Of course, these are just a few examples, but if you really need to dig deep, these simple tools can be used in powerful ways. Ultimately, the best way to tell if you have a duplicate content problem is to see what Google sees.

(3) SEOmoz Campaign Manager

If you’re an SEOmoz PRO member, you have access to some additional tools for spotting duplicates in your Campaigns. In addition to duplicate page titles, the Campaign manager will detect duplicate content on the pages themselves. You can see duplicate pages we’ve detected from the Campaign Overview screen:

SEOmoz Campaign screen

Click on the “Duplicate Page Content” link and you’ll not only see a list of potential duplicates, but you’ll get a graph of how your duplicate count has changed over time:

SEOmoz duplicate content graph

The historical graph can be very useful for determining if any recent changes you’ve made have created (or resolved) duplicate content issues.

Just a technical note, since it comes up a lot in Q&A – Our system currently uses a threshold of 95% to determine whether content is duplicated. This is based on the source code (not the text copy), so the amount of actual duplicate content may vary depending on the code/content ratio.

(4) Your Own Brain

Finally, it’s important to remember to use your own brain. Finding duplicate content often requires some detective work, and over-relying on tools can leave some gaps in what you find. One critical step is to systematically navigate your site to find where duplicates are being created. For example, does your internal search have sorts and filters? Do those sorts and filters get translated into URL variables, and are they crawlable? If they are, you can use the “site:” command to dig deeper. Even finding a handful of trouble spots using your own sleuthing skills can end up revealing 1000s of duplicate pages, in my experience.

I Hope That Covers It

If you’ve made it this far: congratulations – you’re probably as exhausted as I am. I hope that covers everything you’d want to know about the state of duplicate content in 2011, but if not, I’d be happy to answer questions in the comments. Dissenting opinions are welcome, too. Some of these topics, like pagination, are extremely tricky in practice, and there’s often not one “right” answer. Finally, if you liked my panda mini-poster, here’s a link to a larger version of Pandas Take No Prisoners.

Do you like this post? Yes No

The Great American Smokeout

Your Daily Snapshot for
Thursday Nov.17, 2011

The Great American Smokeout

Today, Americans from across the country are making plans to quit smoking as part of the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout. President Obama and his Administration are committed to doing everything possible to stop kids from smoking and reduce the number of Americans who smoke.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius will host a live chat about tobacco cessation and prevention today at 12:45 PM EST on HHS.gov/Live.

Watch President Obama's message to everyone taking part in the Great American Smokeout:

Seth's Blog : Self truth (and the best violinist in the world)

Self truth (and the best violinist in the world)

The other day, after a talk to some graduate students at the Julliard School, one asked, "In The Dip, you talk about the advantage of mastery vs. being a mediocre jack of all trades. So does it make sense for me to continue focusing on mastering the violin?"

Without fear of error, I think it's easy to say that this woman will never become the best violinist in the world. That's because it's essentially impossible to be the one and only best violinist in the world. There might be 5,000 or 10,000 people who are so technically good at it as to be indistinguishable to all but a handful of orchestra listeners. This is true for many competitive fields--we might want to fool ourselves into thinking that we have become the one and only best at a technical skill, but it's extremely unlikely.

The quest for technical best is a form of hiding. You can hide from the marketplace because you're still practicing your technique. And you can hide from the hard work of real art and real connection because you decide that success lies in being the best technically, at getting a 99 instead of a 98 on an exam.

What we can become the best at is being an idiosyncratic exception to the standard. Joshua Bell is often mentioned (when violinists are mentioned at all) not because he is technically better than every other violinst, but because of his charisma and willingness to cross categories. He's the best in the world at being Josh Bell, not the best in the world at playing the violin.

The same trap happens to people who are coding in Java, designing furniture or training to be a corporate coach. It's a seductive form of self motivation, the notion that we can push and push and stay inside the lines and through sheer will, become technically perfect and thus in demand. Alas, it's not going to happen for most of us.

[The flipside of this are the practioners who bolster themselves up by claiming that they are, in fact, the most technically adept in the world. In my experience, they're fibbing to themselves when they'd be better off taking the time and effort to practice their craft. Just saying it doesn't make it so.]

Until we're honest withourselves about what we're going to master, there's no chance we'll accomplish it.

• Email to a friend •

miercuri, 16 noiembrie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Detroit May Run Out of Cash Next Month, Unable to Meet Payroll, Situation Worse than Reported
Obama Accuses Eurozone of "Problem of Political Will"; Bank of England Explains True Meaning of "Lender of Last Resort"
Bond Market Gives Overwhelming Vote of "No Confidence" in New Greek Technocrat Prime Minister
JPMorgan, Goldman Keep Investors in Dark on European Debt Risk ; Net Position Disclosure Hides True Risk
European Government Bond Market "Frozen" says Bank of Italy Managing Director; ECB Steps in But Rally Fails to Hold
Ron Paul Moves Into 4-Way Tie in Iowa Caucus Polls Despite Lack of Media Attention; Fox News Gives Ron Paul 5 Seconds; The Ron Paul "Distraction"
Selloff in European Debt Continues; Spanish Five-Year Government Note Yield Increases to Euro-Era Record 5.82%

Detroit May Run Out of Cash Next Month, Unable to Meet Payroll, Situation Worse than Reported

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 07:53 PM PST

Michigan Live reports Detroit could run out of cash in December, plan must include layoffs

Bing is expected to discuss a confidential Ernst & Young report obtained by the Detroit Free Press that suggests Detroit could run out of cash by April without steep cuts to staff and public services.

That's a grim prognosis, but according to Brown, the city actually could be unable to make payroll "as early as December."

"I know the report says April, but there are certain risk assumptions that when you take those into consideration, worst case scenario you could run out (of cash) in December," Brown said this morning on WJR-AM 760.

In his speech tonight, Bing is expected to propose privatizing the city's public bus system and lighting departments, both of which have been failing residents but reportedly cost them $100 million a year in subsidies.

Expect to see more stories like these, just as I have said for years. Many major cities are walking dead including Oakland, Miami, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark, and quite frankly too many to list. Public unions, untenable union wages and benefits, and prevailing wage laws coupled with politicians buying votes of public union members are to blame for most of this mess.

Bankruptcy, huge clawbacks on public union benefits, scrapping of all prevailing wages laws, and the end of all collective bargaining of public unions are the solutions.

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

Obama Accuses Eurozone of "Problem of Political Will"; Bank of England Explains True Meaning of "Lender of Last Resort"

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 05:18 PM PST

President Obama believes saving the Euro is a matter of "political will". Apparently 17 nation treaties are meant to be broken, ignored, or easily adjusted. That's what French president Nicolas Sarkozy thinks as well.

Meanwhile in a rare statement from a central banker that I agree with, Mervyn King explains the Harsh Truth about the Meaning of "Lender of Last Resort"

The European Central Bank is under pressure to bail out indebted countries by printing more euros. But it really isn't as straightforward as that.

It is a statement of why there is no easy solution to the crisis that involves the ECB simply cranking up its printing presses and lending to Italy, Spain and whoever else needs a helping hand. The ECB, under its mandate, is simply not allowed to lend to eurozone governments who are struggling to access funds at reasonable rates – and there are good reasons for that arrangement.

Here are the relevant remarks by the governor of the Bank of England at this morning's press conference.
This phrase 'lender of last resort' has been bandied around by people who, it seems to me, have no idea what lender of last resort actually means, to be perfectly honest. It is very clear from its origin that lender of last resort by a central bank is intended to be lending to individual banking institutions and to institutions that are clearly regarded as solvent. And it is done against good collateral, and at a penalty rate. That's what lender of last resort means.

That is a million miles away from the ECB buying sovereign debt of national countries, which is used and seen as a mechanism for financing the current-account deficit of those countries, which inevitably, if things go wrong, will create liabilities for the surplus countries. In other words, it would be a mechanism of transfers from the surplus to the deficit countries.

The whole issue is, do they wish to make transfers within the euro area or not? That is not something that a central bank can decide for itself. It is something that only the governments of the euro area can come to a conclusion on.

Obama Accuses Eurozone of "Problem of Political Will"

Inquiring minds are reading Eurozone bond markets in turmoil as France and Germany dig in over ECB

The row between France and Germany over whether to use the European Central Bank to rescue the eurozone has intensified, further shattering international confidence that a solution can be found to the escalating debt crisis.

On a day when the US president, Barack Obama, accused the eurozone of suffering from a "problem of political will", Paris and Berlin clashed over whether the ECB should be called on to do more to bail out countries that are struggling to borrow.

Obama, on a visit to Australia, warned that Europe's leaders must do more to save the single currency.

"Until we put in place a concrete plan and structure that sends a clear signal to the markets that Europe is standing behind the euro and will do what it takes, we are going to continue to see the kinds of market turmoil we saw," he said.

In contrast to the unusually clear thinking by the Bank of England, Obama offers meaningless platitudes about what should be done, ignoring what can be done.

More importantly Obama did not address the question as to why the Euro should be saved in the first place. The concept is fundamentally flawed and was doomed from the start, just as Euro skeptics said over a decade ago.

Rather than face that simple truth, European leaders and now president Obama want to save the unsavable.

Tensions Heat Up

The Guardian article continues ...

Tension between France and Germany was behind much of the market turbulence, traders said.

In France there was a plea for the ECB to take a bigger role in the rescue of the currency union. "The ECB's role is to ensure the stability of the euro, but also the financial stability of Europe. We trust that the ECB will take the necessary measures to ensure financial stability in Europe," said government spokeswoman Valérie Pécresse.

Germany stuck to its insistence that the central bank did not and should not have a mandate to do more.

"The way we see the treaties, the ECB doesn't have the possibility of solving these problems," said Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, after talks with Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, who is visting Germany.

Her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said using the ECB was the "wrong solution" and that Europe would "pay a high price in the long run" if it gave in to pressure from some governments and markets on the central bank's role.

Wolfgang Schäuble is a wishy-washy figure who at times makes sense. This is one of those times. However, he cannot be trusted as noted by these Schäuble Flip-Flops courtesy of Google Translate.

21st December 2009
"We Germans cannot pay for Greece's problems."

16th March 2010
"Greece has not asked for help, this is why there is no decision, and there is no decision had been taken."

11th April 2010
Four weeks later, on 11 April, he decided to finance the first Euro-Greece-aid package of € 30 billion.

16th April 2010
"We still believe that the Greeks are on the right track and that they may end up not even have to take the help."

22nd April 2010
"The country has had no problems in financing themselves this week in the markets. The agreement on the assistance in an emergency has been a purely preventive measure."

Greece officially asked for help April 23. In early May a rescue package of 110 billion € was in the works.

27th April 2010
"Rescheduling not an issue"

May 2010
The 110 billion euros in the first aid package "ceiling" is a one-time emergency assistance.

21st March 2011
The EU finance ministers decide on a rescue fund with legendary 750 billion euros (ESM) - with the voice Schäuble.

6th June 2011
Greece will receive a new package with more than 100 billion €. Schäuble said: Otherwise, "we face the real risk of the first disordered state of insolvency within the euro zone."

AND WHAT'S NEXT?
Previously, the Finance Minister is on his no to common bonds of all euro countries, the so-called Euro-bonds remained. But perhaps he thinks it is so different again next week .

Nonetheless, as long as Schäuble makes sense I will be happy to point it out. When he caves in to political pressure, I will point that out as well.

Bond auctions are coming up tomorrow (Thursday) for Spain and France. All hell might break loose. If it doesn't on Thursday, it will soon. This crisis is rapidly coming to a head but no solution is being discussed.

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

Bond Market Gives Overwhelming Vote of "No Confidence" in New Greek Technocrat Prime Minister

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 02:33 PM PST

The Guardian Business Blog reports

5.18pm: The results are in from Greece, and the new unity government has received an overwhelming vote of confidence.

Of the 293 deputies who cast ballots, 255 MPs endorsed the motion while 38 rejected it.

5.55pm: Lucas Papademos's victory in the vote of confidence in the Greek parliament rounds off a decent day for Europe's new technocratic governments (with Mario Monti sworn in as Italy's new PM this afternoon).

Quite frankly that is not the vote of confidence that matters. This is the vote of confidence that matters.

Greek 1-Year Bond Yields

The Bloomberg link to Greek 1-year bonds shows the pertinent information even if their chart does not. A 1-year bond yield approaching 300% is decidedly not a vote of confidence.

Yield: +20.74 Basis Points
Yield: 271.50 Percent

As an aside, I need to find a new source for European sovereign debt charts.

Bloomberg replaced their previously nice looking chart system with a new interactive map that does not look nice and is still out of date.

The Bloomberg charts are better than nothing, and they are free, but they are also sloppy and nowhere near as good as the previous chart format that accurately showed the day's action in a visually pleasing manner, even though the corresponding chart was incorrect.

The interactive map is a nice option, but does nothing for a point in time clip, especially if the chart is not even accurate.

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

JPMorgan, Goldman Keep Investors in Dark on European Debt Risk ; Net Position Disclosure Hides True Risk

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 11:25 AM PST

Banks keep investors in the dark on trillions of dollars of derivatives risk by only reporting net exposure.

Here is a net exposure example to show what I mean. Suppose I owe my sister Sue $250,000 and Uncle Ernie owes me $250,000. My net position would appear to be zero.

But what if uncle Ernie is bankrupt or simply will never pay the loan back for any reason. I cannot tell Sister Sue, "I am not paying you back, collect from Uncle Ernie".

Net position reporting only works if counterparty risk is zero. In my example counterparty risk from uncle Ernie is 100%. So what is the counterparty risk at JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs on tens of trillions of derivatives contracts?

The answer is no one can possibly figure it out, on purpose, because banks are only required to disclose "net" exposure.

JPMorgan, Goldman Keep Risk in Dark

With that backdrop, please consider JPMorgan, Goldman Keep Italy Risk in Dark

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), among the world's biggest traders of credit derivatives, disclosed to shareholders that they have sold protection on more than $5 trillion of debt globally.

Just don't ask them how much of that was issued by Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, known as the GIIPS.

As concerns mount that those countries may not be creditworthy, investors are being kept in the dark about how much risk U.S. banks face from a default. Firms including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan don't provide a full picture of potential losses and gains in such a scenario, giving only net numbers or excluding some derivatives altogether.

'Funded' Exposure

Goldman Sachs discloses only what it calls "funded" exposure to GIIPS debt -- $4.16 billion before hedges and $2.46 billion after, as of Sept. 30. Those amounts exclude commitments or contingent payments, such as credit-default swaps, said Lucas van Praag, a spokesman for the bank.

JPMorgan said in its third-quarter SEC filing that more than 98 percent of the credit-default swaps the New York-based bank has written on GIIPS debt is balanced by CDS contracts purchased on the same bonds. The bank said its net exposure was no more than $1.5 billion, with a portion coming from debt and equity securities. The company didn't disclose gross numbers or how much of the $1.5 billion came from swaps, leaving investors wondering whether the notional value of CDS sold could be as high as $150 billion or as low as zero.

Counterparty Clarity

"Their position is you don't need to know the risks, which is why they're giving you net numbers," said Nomi Prins, a managing director at New York-based Goldman Sachs until she left in 2002 to become a writer. "Net is only as good as the counterparties on each side of the net -- that's why it's misleading in a fluid, dynamic market."

Investors should want to know how much defaulted debt the banks could be forced to repay because of credit derivatives and how much they'd be in line to receive from other counterparties, Prins said. In addition, they should seek to find out who those counterparties are, she said.

The "Investment-Grade" Non-Guarantee

By the way, investors are kept in the dark on derivatives risk in general, not just on exposure to Europe.

By now, everyone should know how useless an AAA-rated guarantee is, let alone "investment-grade" that may be one step above junk. How long did GM bonds sit as "investment-grade"?

Nonetheless the article reports JPMorgan buys protection only from firms outside the five countries that are "either investment-grade or well-supported by collateral arrangements" as if that was supposed to alleviate concerns.

"Well-supported by collateral" is one thing; relying on "investment-grade" is another.

Uncle Ernie was investment-grade when I made the loan. He is bankrupt now. Greece was "investment grade" and Greece is bankrupt now.

"Investment-grade" is a useless measure of risk that "nets" to zero disclosure of the true-risk taken by derivatives-king JP Morgan, Godlman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and any other bank attempting to pull the wool over investor's eyes with meaningless phrases instead of full disclosure.

By the way, what are these organizations doing with tens-of-trillions of derivatives in the first place?

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

European Government Bond Market "Frozen" says Bank of Italy Managing Director; ECB Steps in But Rally Fails to Hold

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 08:31 AM PST

An official for the Bank of Italy says Bonds Bids, Offers Show Government Bond Market "Frozen".

Spreads between bid and ask government bond prices indicate markets are "frozen," said Franco Passacantando, Bank of Italy's Managing Director for Central Banking, Markets and Payment System in Milan today.

The European Central Bank is "almost exclusively buying Spanish and Italian bonds," he added.

ECB Steps in But Rally Fails to Hold

Yield on 10-Year Italian bonds opened above 7% for the second consecutive day but the ECB acting as buyer of only result stepped in to push the yield down to 6.75%. The rally failed to hold, and the 10-year Italian bond yield now sits at 6.95%.

Bloomberg reports Italian Yields at 7 Percent for Second Day as ECB Rally Fails to Hold

Italian five- and 10-year bonds yielded more than 7 percent for a second day as the securities failed to hold an earlier advance after the European Central Bank was said to step up purchases of the nation's debt.

Spanish 10-year bonds fell for a third day amid speculation yields will surge at tomorrow's auction of up to 4 billion euros ($5.4 billion) of securities due in January 2022. German bonds declined after the nation got fewer bids than the maximum sales target in an auction of two-year notes, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said the country is ready to cede some sovereignty to strengthen the euro area.

"There's still no credible backstop for Italy and Spain and the ECB buying on the current scale is just far too small to have any impact," said Jamie Searle, a fixed-income strategist at Citigroup Inc. in London. "There's a Spanish auction tomorrow, which will be a pretty clear test of appetite. The yield level is likely to be pretty punitive."

The ECB was said by two people with knowledge of the trades to have bought larger-than-usual sizes and quantities of Italian debt under its Securities Market Program today. It also bought Spanish bonds, the people said. A spokesman for the ECB in Frankfurt declined to comment.

'Binary' Market

"The European bond market is becoming very binary, and ECB-dependent," said Mohit Kumar, head of European interest- rate strategy at Deutsche Bank AG in London. "Whenever the ECB steps in, the market likes it, when it steps back, you see pressure. There are no real buyers."

"Risk-Free" Market is Frozen

A quick check shows Spanish 10-Year bonds at 6.40%, the high yield of the day, up about 6 basis points.

Spanish 2-year government bonds yield 5.40%, up 10 basis points and also at the high of the day.

Bond Market Spits in ECB's Face

Spanish 5-year bonds opened at 5.82%, a euro-era tie for record high, improved to 5.62% but now sit at 5.77% back close to the high. The bond market is effectively spitting in the ECBs face.

Please recall that European banks are leveraged to the hilt on these bonds, because they are considered "risk free", with zero chance of default.

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

Ron Paul Moves Into 4-Way Tie in Iowa Caucus Polls Despite Lack of Media Attention; Fox News Gives Ron Paul 5 Seconds; The Ron Paul "Distraction"

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 12:50 AM PST

It's now a four-way virtual dead heat in the Iowa caucuses with Ron Paul clustered in the group at the top. This is in spite of lack of media attention by the press, especially Fox News which gave Ron Paul a 5-second mention regarding recent polls.

Ron Paul Moves Into 4-Way Tie

CBS News reports New poll shows 4-way tie in Iowa as Ron Paul moves to top tier

A new Bloomberg poll of likely caucus participants shows a four-way tie in Iowa, with Rep. Ron Paul joining Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain in the top tier of candidates. Underscoring the uncertainty in the race, 60 percent of respondents said they could be persuaded to back someone other than their first choice for the nomination.

The poll, conducted November 10 - 12 by the West Des Moines-based firm Selzer & Co, shows Cain in the lead with 20 percent, while Paul comes in at 19 percent. Romney wins 18 percent support, and Gingrich earns 17 percent. The margin of error is 4.4 percent.

The focus on economic issues has likely advantaged Paul, who is known for his strong libertarian views. The Texas congressman wins the most support, 32 percent, from likely caucus-goers who say they've made up their minds. Romney wins 25 percent of those who are decided, followed by Gingrich at 17 percent. On top of that, 69 percent of Iowa voters who supported Paul in 2008 are once again supporting him.

Republican Dead Heat in Iowa

Bloomberg reports on the Republican Dead Heat in Iowa

A Bloomberg News poll shows Cain at 20 percent, Paul at 19 percent, Romney at 18 percent and Gingrich at 17 percent among the likely attendees with the caucuses that start the nominating contests seven weeks away.

Economic issues such as jobs, taxes and government spending are driving voter sentiment, rather than such social issues as abortion and gay marriage, the poll finds. Only about a quarter of likely caucus-goers say social or constitutional issues are more important to them, compared with 71 percent who say fiscal concerns.

The poll reflects the race's fluidity, with 60 percent of respondents saying they still could be persuaded to back someone other than their top choice, and 10 percent undecided. Paul's support is more solidified than his rivals, while Cain's is softer. All of the major contenders have issue challenges to address.

Among Paul supporters who backed him in the 2008 caucuses, 69 percent are still with him now.

Poll participant Sarah Stang, 78, a retired teacher who lives in Osage, Iowa, said she switched parties four years ago so she could vote for Paul.

"He doesn't want to raise taxes on us middle- and low- income people," she said, adding that she "loves" his challenges to the Federal Reserve. "They have way too much power. They should let the marketplace do what it's supposed to," she said.

Fox News Gives Ron Paul 5 Seconds

Huntington News reports Fox News Gives Paul Five Second Mention

Based on the most recent Iowa caucuses Bloomberg News poll, the four Republican candidates are running a too close to call race. The poll taken Nov. 10-12 has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4%. Herman Cain leads with 20%, followed by Ron Paul 19%, Mitt Romney 18% and Newt Gingrich 17%. According to the poll, 71% of the caucus goers have "fiscal" issues on their minds not social or constitutional ones.

Paul backers have not pulled in their daggers regarding Fox News and CBS News. One writes that Fox did a "five second" on the Iowa poll's man in second place. The commentator stated, "they spent the next 20 minutes talking about Gingrich, Cain, Romney and … Perry. Nothing about the guy in second place."

The Ron Paul "Distraction"

RT News discusses the "Ron Paul Distraction"

Less than two months before the Iowa caucuses occur — the next monumental step in the course of events leading up to the Republican Party makes their nomination for the presidency — Texas Congressman Ron Paul has taken the lead in the latest poll.

Paul resurgence comes despite a serious lack of attention from the mainstream media, who have time and time again downplayed the candidate's campaign, instead offering coverage to other candidates such as Herman Cain and Mitt Romney. During last week's debate, CNBC only awarded Paul 89 seconds to respond to questions during the televised portion of the event. According to the latest polling from Bloomberg, however, that might have been enough to give Paul the most powerful chance at the White House yet.

"If I were Romney and Perry, I would be thinking of a way to get Ron Paul off the stage because he is a distraction," Republican strategist Bradley Blakeman explained to Fox Business in earlier in the race.

The "Real" Distractions

The "real" distractions are Herman Cain and his sexual allegations, Newt Gingrich with three marriages and a record of failed leadership, Rick Perry who cannot even remember his own three-point proposal to cut government departments, and war-mongering Mitt Romney who does not know an damn thing about trade policy but did create the essential basis of Obama's reviled health care plan.

Ron Paul has no such distractions, and that is why the media ignores him in general. Fox News ignores Paul for a different reason: Fox News favors a war monger, which means anyone but Ron Paul.

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

Selloff in European Debt Continues; Spanish Five-Year Government Note Yield Increases to Euro-Era Record 5.82%

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 12:29 AM PST

The selloff in European debt continues. Were it not for the ECB loading up its balance sheet with the garbage, no telling how high yields would be.

Nonetheless, Spanish Five-Year Government Note Yield Increases to Euro-Era Record 5.82%

Spanish five-year notes fell for a third straight day, driving the yield 11 basis points higher to 5.82 percent at 7:35 a.m. London time. That's the highest since before the euro was created in 1999.

Italian five-year notes also fell for a third day, pushing the yield up nine basis points to 7.12 percent.

Expect the ECB to intervene any time now, probably as I am typing at 2:30 AM Central. However, don't expect ECB intervention to do any long-term good, because it won't.

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

joi, 17 noiembrie 2011

Duplicate Content in a Post-Panda World

Duplicate Content in a Post-Panda World

- Sgt. Jericho “Bamboo” Jackson

I. What Is Duplicate Content?

II. Why Do Duplicates Matter?

The Supplemental Index

The Crawl “Budget”

The Indexation “Cap”

The Penalty Debate

The Panda Update

III. Three Kinds of Duplicates

(1) True Duplicates

(2) Near Duplicates

(3) Cross-domain Duplicates

IV. Tools for Fixing Duplicates

(1) 404 (Not Found)

(2) 301 Redirect

(3) Robots.txt

(4) Meta Robots

(5) Rel=Canonical

(6) Google URL Removal

(7) Google Parameter Blocking

(8) Bing URL Removal

(9) Bing Parameter Blocking

(10) Rel=Prev & Rel=Next

(11) Syndication-Source

(12) Internal Linking

(13) Don’t Do Anything

V. Examples of Duplicate Content

(1) “www” vs. Non-www

(2) Staging Servers

(3) Trailing Slashes ("/")

(4) Secure (https) Pages

(5) Home-page Duplicates

(6) Session IDs

(7) Affiliate Tracking

(8) Duplicate Paths

(9) Functional Parameters

(10) International Duplicates

(11) Search Sorts

(12) Search Filters

(13) Search Pagination

(14) Product Variations

(15) Geo-keyword Variations

(16) Other “Thin” Content

(17) Syndicated Content

(18) Scraped Content

(19) Cross-ccTLD Duplicates

VI. Which URL Is Canonical?

VII. Tools for Diagnosing Duplicates

(1) Google Webmaster Tools

(2) Google’s Site: Command

(3) SEOmoz Campaign Manager

(4) Your Own Brain

I Hope That Covers It

The Great American Smokeout

Seth's Blog : Self truth (and the best violinist in the world)

Self truth (and the best violinist in the world)

More Recent Articles

miercuri, 16 noiembrie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

Subscribe to