Central Perk

marți, 23 decembrie 2014

A Step-by-Step Guide to Updating Your Website Without Destroying Your SEO

Posted: 22 Dec 2014 03:05 PM PST

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

The first thing any SEO thinks when a client says "I'm redesigning my website" is what impact will this have on all my work? In these events, often the client doesn't even consider telling their online marketing agency about the redesign until two days before launch.

This resource will cover how to do SEO checks on your test site/development site to ensure the structure, URLs, Page Titles, Meta Descriptions and more all match up properly. It also serves as an SEO checklist touching on things that are often forgotten when a website goes through a complete overhaul.

Why consider SEO in a redesign?

Why is it important to consider your SEO during a website's revamp? In short, you have a lot to lose.

Let's say your site's doing great. Rankings are strong, organic traffic is flowing and revenue is growing. Do you really want to undo all that hard work? I'm guessing not.

However, by thinking strategically, you can take the opportunity to improve a site's performance after a redesign. That's what this client did: Organic Performance

As you can see, a steady increase in traffic followed (from the red circle) even during the re-indexing phase. If you do a redesign right, you won't lose any traffic or rankings; in fact, you'll gain them.

Below I outline some steps that can help you understand the test site being built and your current site from an SEO viewpoint. This is vital when changing your website around, and I will cover how to make sure the web development agency keeps the important SEO work that's gone into your website.

Step 1 – Consider the SEO

The first thing you must do is think about SEO. Too often clients don't stop to consider the SEO impact of changing their website. They chuck away valuable content from historical pages or decide it would be a good idea to completely change every single URL without redirecting the old ones.

This only happens because they misunderstand how Google et al. read a website and how URLs hold credibility. It's no fault of their own, but it happens.

Step 2 – Crawl the existing site

Why do I need to crawl my site?

If you don't know what your site's structure looks like now, you'll set yourself up for a massive fall. Grabbing the structure, meta data and URLs is vital to identifying exactly what is changing and why.

How to do it

Your SEO crawl will give you a roadmap of how your entire site is currently set out. The best way to grab this data is to use a tool like Screaming Frog. Once you have the current site's meta data and structure, you will know how to match the new site up.

Step 3 – Audit the old site

Next, you need to audit the site. Free tools like Woorank will do the job, but I strongly advise you to get your hands dirty and manually do the work yourself. There's nothing like getting into the nitty gritty of your site to find any problem areas.

Why audit the site?

You need to know what search engines like and don't like about your site. This can help you spot any problems areas, in addition to enabling you to see which areas must be retained.

What am I looking for?

Here are some of things we check at Liberty. Sometimes it's worth checking more, but these are top-level checks:

Using your Screaming Frog data, I advise checking the following:

Missing page titles
Duplicate page titles
Page titles over 512 pixels
Page titles below 200 pixels
Missing H1 tags
Duplicate H1 tags
Multiple H1 tags
Missing meta descriptions
Duplicate meta descriptions
Meta descriptions over 923 pixels
Canonical tags
Canonicalisation
Broken internal/external links
Image alt text

You should also manually check for:

XML sitemap
Robots.txt
Duplicate content (do exact match search "insert content" or use Copyscape)
Pages indexed by Google (do a site: command in Google)
Site speed and performance (here's a tool to check)
URL structure
Pages indexed by Google using a site: command in Google
Site speed and performance using Google's PageSpeed Tools

This data gives you a good understanding of what the website's doing well and areas for improvement.

Step 4 – Noindex your test site

Why do we need to noindex?

This stage is simple; yet it's the point where many redesigns go awry.

If you're working on your test site, the last thing you want is for Google et al. to index it. If you've added great new content, it will get indexed. Then when you launch the new site, the new content will have no value because it will be duplicate.

How to noindex your test site

A site can be noindexed in two ways by your developers.

1 – Tick the noindex box in your site's CMS. If you have WordPress, for example, you simply check the box that reads: "Discourage search engines from indexing this site."

Blocking Search Engines in Wordpress

This adds the following code in the <head> of every page:

No Index Meta Data

2 – Your second option is to block the site in the Robots.txt file. This is a little trickier; hence, why most CMS have a box-ticking option.

If your CMS doesn't allow for this, you can put the following in your Robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

No CMS? You can manually insert the code if you have access to the header file by implementing the noindex, follow code as above.

Step 5 – Crawl the test site

Why should I crawl the test site?

You also need to understand how your test site is structured. Using a site crawler, crawl the test site again to see how it looks in comparison to your current site.

How to do it

Open the first crawl of your current site and make a copy. Click "Save+As" and name the file "Current Site Crawl for Editing". This is your editable copy.
Crawl the test site. Export the test site crawl and save it as "Test Site Crawl". Make a copy and name it "Test Site Crawl for Editing"—from now on we're going to use this.
Take the newly created old site crawl (Current Site Crawl for Editing from Step 1) and do a find and replace on all the URLs in Excel. Replace your domain name: "example.com" with your test server's domain: "test.example.com".
Select all the URLs and copy them into a txt file (use something like notepad ++ or similar). Save this as the "Testing Crawl for Screaming Frog". At this point, you should have the following documents:
- Current Site Crawl (xls)
- Current Site Crawl for Editing (xls)
- Test Site Crawl (xls)
- Test Site Crawl for Editing (xls)
- Testing Crawl for Screaming Frog (txt)
In Screaming Frog, locate the Mode in the menu bar and select List. The system will change slightly, and you'll be able to upload a .txt file to the crawler.
Locate your txt file (Testing Crawl for Screaming Frog) of all the URLs you changed and pop that into Screaming Frog. Hit Start.
If you followed this correctly, you'll end up with all the URLs being crawled. If it didn't, go back and make sure you didn't miss anything. You'll need to allow the crawler to crawl blocked/noindexed URLs. Simply click Configuration and Spider. Then you'll find a tick box that says Ignore robots.txt. You may need to tick this. On the same part in the tab called Advanced, you'll see Respect Noindex; you may need to un-tick this, too. It will look something like this:

Download all of the HTML and save it as an Excel file. Name it "Final Crawled Test Site". This will be the test crawl you'll check through later. Also, hold onto the very first crawl we did of the test site (Test Site Crawl).

At the end, you'll have these docs:

Current Site Crawl (xls)
Current Site Crawl for Editing (xls)
Test Site Crawl (xls)
Test Site Crawl for Editing (xls)
Testing Crawl for Screaming Frog (txt)
Final Crawled Test Site (xls)

Okay, you made it. Now you have the data in Excel format, and you can see what works on the test site, and what doesn't. This allows you to understand what's missing from the test site that is on the current site.

Step 6 – Analyse Your Data

What we're looking for

Now that we've done all the crawls, we need to open up the XLS spreadsheet called "Final Crawled Test Site" from Screaming Frog. You should see a lot of data.

First, delete the row across the top named "Internal HTML". Then do the same for number "2," if this is a blank row. You should have these headings:

Address
Content
Status code
Status
Title 1
Title 1 length
Title 1 pixel width
Meta description 1
Meta description 1 length
Meta description 1 pixel width
Meta keyword 1
Meta keywords 1 length
H1-1
H1-1 length
H2-1
H2-1 length
Meta robots 1
Meta refresh 1
Canonical link element 1
Size
Word count
Level
Inlinks
Outlinks
External outlinks
Hash

Some of these have the number "1" next to them, signifying that there is only one. If some of yours have number 2 next to them, then you have several of these. The elements you shouldn't have a number "2" on are as follows:

Title
Meta description
Meta keywords
Canonical tag
H1 (I'll leave that open to debate)

With all this, we'll begin identifying what changes need to be made.

Go to the Status Code header, click the filter icon and select 200 code. This shows all the URLs that are working. You might see "Connection Timed Out" on some of these. This could be because Screaming Frog timed out. Manually check these. If they work, just update the spreadsheet; if they don't work, then you've identified a problem. Let the developer know these are timing out. They should be able to identify a fix.

How to match up the data

I've told you how to test the data, but not what to do with all those crawls. The purpose of crawling your current and test sites in this way is to identify meta data, structure and errors the test site currently has. First, apply a filter to the columns:

Excel Filter

Locate the Level heading, right click and sort from smallest to largest. Now segment all the data. I start with Page Titles (Title 1). Take the first 7 columns on the spreadsheet and highlight them all. Copy and paste these onto another sheet within the same Excel spreadsheet called "Page Titles". Do the same for "Meta Description", but this time pick the first 4 columns, then 8-10. Repeat this for each section to end up with the different sheets as follows:

Page Title Sheet
- Address
- Content
- Status code
- Status
- Title 1
- Title 1 length
- Title 1 pixel width
Meta Description Sheet
- Address
- Content
- Status code
- Status
- Meta description 1
- Meta description 1 length
- Meta description 1 pixel width
Meta Keywords Sheet
- Address
- Content
- Status code
- Status
- Meta keyword 1
- Meta keywords 1 length
H1 Sheet
- Address
- Content
- Status code
- Status
- H1-1
- H1-1 length
H2 Sheet
- Address
- Content
- Status code
- Status
- H2-1
- H2-1 length
Canonicals, Word Count, Level, In-links and Out-links
- Address
- Content
- Status code
- Status
- Canonical link element 1
- Word count
- Level
- In-links
- Out-links

This number of sheets may look like overkill, but in my experience working with smaller amounts of data is much easier than trying to work on one large, data heavy spreadsheet.

Here's the best bit

Remember all the crawls we did before? Well, we'll need to go and open Current Site Crawl for Editing. Filter the Level first so it shows "smallest to largest", then locate the following columns on this spreadsheet:

Title 1
Title 1 length
Title 1 pixel width

Highlight all the data in these three columns and copy them into your test site spreadsheet onto the Page Titles Sheet in the empty columns. Place those three columns apart from Title 1 Pixel Width.

Now that you have the test site's Page Titles next to the current site's Page Titles, you can highlight the duplicates. Highlight both Title 1 columns and go to Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cell Rules > Duplicate Values. This will highlight everything that matches.

I have no shortcut for this. You'll need to manually move things around and get them in the right place. I go about this by looking at the Page Title 1 closest to the left, (the one from the test site) then copy the text. Use the Find and Replace box (ctrl+F) to search the text. Hit "next" and go to the next match, where you'll grab the three relevant columns and stick them next to the text you copied. Then repeat.

Sometimes nothing will match. When this happens, try doing this:

Search a few words.
Remove the brand at the end or beginning.
Check if there is a | or - in place.
Check for apostrophes.
Check for misspellings.

These are a few things that may cause issues with matches, so be sure to check yours with vigilance.

Rinse and repeat

After you've done this process once, you'll need to rinse and repeat for the other sheets to match up all your Meta Descriptions, Canonical Tags, Word Counts, etc. It's important to remember that the point of checking these areas is to ensure that any changes are good changes.

Once you've nailed all 200 codes, you'll want to look at the 404s.

Go to the Status Code header and select 404 on the filter icon again to find URLs that aren't working. This is assuming you have 404s.

This will give you a list of all the URLs that didn't work. In theory, it should give you everything else that needs to be checked. You should only have 200 status codes and 400 status codes, but sometimes you will have 500s or 300s that need further investigation.

404 time

If the URL is a 404, it means that the page doesn't exist. So we'll need to do one of two things:

Create this URL on the test server.
Redirect the old URL to the test server's new URL.

Here's an example of a 404:

Lego's 404 Page

Look at the test server's URL. If you think it needs to redirect, highlight it in red. If you have to create a new URL, fill its cell with the relevant meta data and highlight it green. Don't forget what each colour means.

You'll also need to highlight the corresponding URL that will redirect to the new version on the Current Site Crawl for Editing.

What do to with live URLs that aren't on your current site?

These URLs are most likely new pages. Like with any page on your website, it has to be optimised correctly. There are tons of guides to help you here (this visual guide is my favourite).

Now what?

I'm glad you asked. Now you have a fully comprehensive spreadsheet of everything needed to minimise the damage of moving a site. You need to work closely with the developers to get the changes you've recommended implemented. With the spreadsheets laid out in this way, you can simplify the data and give the developers the bits they need, making their lives easier.

Don't forget, when you redirect pages to a new site, you'll lose around 10%-30% of your link equity. But you're giving search engines the best opportunity to bring over your old site's strong reputation.

From this point onwards, I'll detail things that can go wrong, common problems, and important elements to check along the way to monitor the changes.

Now you've given the new URL structure and changes to your developers, you need to check they've got it right. You've been involved in several meetings discussing the strategy to proactively make sure you don't upset the rhythm and have a positive impact on the changes. But, unfortunately, it doesn't stop there.

You've more than likely been handing over changes periodically and testing as you go. Now, it's a good opportunity to test everything again.

Crawl the test site again—being vigilant in cross-referencing all the relevant meta data and ensuring that the URLs match up. If they are even slightly off, then change them. One way you can check is to use "find and replace" in Excel. This time, swap the test.example.com with example.com, then crawl the URLs with Screaming Frog.

From now forward, make it a habit to check these additional elements.

Step 7 – All the additional checks

Rank check

Why do you need to rank check?

A rank check measures how the site performs for a host of keywords in search engines. You'll use this data as a comparison for the newly launched site. If things change, you can react and identify the problems when you check the results.

What to look out for:

Big movements. If a keyword jumps from page 1 to page 20, you may have a problem. Look out for any big or unusual movements by checking these things:

Did the URL change?
Did you change the meta data?
Has the page lost all its content?
Is there a redirect in place?
Does it have a noindex tag in place?

Content

Don't delete anything you don't have to delete. You might think your old blog posts aren't needed, but they are all adding to the credibility of your site. Without these blogs, you'll lose a chunk of value.

Similarly, now's not the time to change your landing page content if you're currently enjoying decent rankings.

Analytics code

This is pretty self-explanatory—make sure you place your analytics code back in the <head> section of the site. It is important to check the ecommerce tracking, goals and event tracking if you currently have those in place.

Unblock the site

It's time to check the new site to see if it's allowing search engines to index it. Simply follow the reverse instructions of blocking the site. Whichever method you used to block it, do the reverse to unblock. Failure to do this could create big problems when you launch the new site.

Summary checklist

Here's the checklist I mentioned earlier. If you skipped to this, then use it as a guide to help you do a redesign with SEO in mind. With this in your arsenal, you never need to fear a website redesign again.

Think about SEO from the start

Crawl the current site

Audit your existing site

Stop the test site from being indexed

Crawl the test site

Find and replace URLs

Crawl those swapped URLs

Check test site meta data on live URLs

Check 404s on test site

Map out 301s

Optimise all new pages

Check implementation

Do additional checks

Launch!

Common problems to look out for

Each scenario will differ between websites. It's important to understand how this foundation approach helps segment and break down important meta data so you don't lose SEO value during a redesign.

As with any project, there are common problems SEOs, businesses and developers all come up against:

Communication—This is the big one, which is why it's first on the list. We all know how important communication is, and lack of communication is at the center of most problems associated with web redesigns. Right at the start, have your SEO in the initial strategy meeting with the web developers or anyone else who has an obvious connection with the website. From there, keep the lines of communication open.
Missing meta data—Crawls can be fickle endeavors. You cannot afford to launch the new site with missing information. If you force search engines to guess what they should be putting there, the ensuing results will not be to your liking.
Missing Content—All too often, content isn't given the credit it deserves. Take the time to get the right content in the right places on the new site.
Failure to implement redirects—This is a very important step. After you've laid out the redirects, it's vital they're put in place and work as planned.

Additional resources

Once you've checked these elements, you are in a strong position to launch. It's still important to keep a close eye on the performance of the new site. Sometimes a single line of code can upset the rhythm.

Here are some additional resources to reinforce what we've covered here:

Search Engine Journal – Website Redesign Disaster
Search Engine Watch – Website Redesign: Re-launching Without Losing Sleep
Moz – Site Redesign - Checklist for Online Marketing

One last thing…

As with any changes to your website, it is important to monitor the situation. Use whatever tools you have available to keep a close eye on the following:

Rankings
Organic traffic
Indexed pages
Webmaster Tool errors

These things will help spot any problems. If you notice your rankings plummet, you can quickly investigate and make any needed changes.

If Webmaster Tools reports errors when Google tries to crawl the site, then you know to be proactive and explore the problem.

Once you are confident there are no issues, loosen up a bit. You don't need to keep such a close eye on these things. You can work on promoting the site and carrying on with your growth and maintenance SEO work.

Give me some feedback

How do you approach a site move?

Do you have any cast-iron techniques you recommend to maintain strong rankings during a move? I'd love to hear from you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Seth's Blog : The meritocracy trap

The meritocracy trap

This recent quote from an early PayPal exec is absurd: “If meritocracy exists anywhere on earth, it is in Silicon Valley.”

It's pretty common for successful people to imagine that their success is solely the result of merit. It's more satisfying than pointing to all the external factors that have contributed to that success. The trap is in being satisfied. Satisfaction in their meritocracy causes companies, industries and cultures to calcify, to harden themselves against new ideas and new people.

CULTURE is something we create, and culture works against pure merit. That's because culture creates insulation and connections and histories that count at least as much as the pure horsepower of merit.

HEAD STARTS get compounded. Early success gives people the resources, confidence and connections that can be used to create later success.

LOCK IN means that organizations and ideas can succeed far longer than they would without it. You don't give up on a social network or smart phone merely because one element of it isn't the best available one. It's easier to stick than to switch.

And of course, lock in goes way beyond operating systems. It includes worldviews, friendships, momentum of all kinds.

At the philharmonic, the first chair violinist might believe the job came solely as a result of merit, through blind auditions. But the combination of culture (going all the way back to the age of 5, combined with access to teachers, combined with the tenure that comes with many roles) means that even at these rarified heights, merit alone isn't the guiding force. On this day, is this violinist actually the very best violinist in the world? (And defining merit gets super difficult once we mix it together with vague measures of effort and potential).

And so, in Silicon Valley we have a deeply ingrained culture that rewards people who understand it, that play by certain rules and have access to various resources that seem out of reach to many. A great idea, powerful work ethic and good design are rarely sufficient on their own. And lucky people who are bold enough to dig in often find that early effort leads to a head start, that they can choose to compound, which, in the most legendary cases, leads to a lock-in a market that can last for a decade or more.

And of course, it's not just Silicon Valley. It's the breaks I got along the way, the resources that let me do my work and the ability to post this blog daily, it's the farmer who was born with access to a better piece of land, it's everywhere where we build a culture, a system for creating utility, a network. And it works. Until it doesn't.

For me, the huge hurdle we face is, "seems out of reach." In cultures and economies with rapid change (and the Valley certainly qualifies) there are huge opportunities, but too many people talk themselves out of reaching, aren't thirsty enough to take a leap. Part of that resistance comes from the industry itself proclaiming its meritocracy as opposed to actively opening doors and selling people (hard) on finding the thirst, the desire to leap.

[If someone is looking for a true meritocracy, where the deck is reshuffled and the best weighs in first, check out pumpkin growing].

• Email to a friend •

Seth's Blog : Festivus (and the airing of grievances)

Festivus (and the airing of grievances)

In order to air your grievances, of course, you first have to list them, prioritize them, amplify them and intensely relive them.

To prepare for the airing of grievances, a ceremony we often partake in but which rarely produces anything of value, we make ourselves unhappy all over again.

Perhaps we could have an airing of privileges instead. Or an airing of good fortune. An airing of times we've been trusted or supported or given a chance. Those lists are much more productive to make.

Other than that, a fabulous holiday. Enjoy.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 22 decembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

New York Times Asks Obama to Prosecute Cheney; Outsourced Torture
Chinese Banks Hemorrhaging Deposits, 1st Quarterly Drop Since 1999; Banks Offer iPhones, Even Cars for Large Deposits
Spain to Suspend Evictions, Rewrite Bankruptcy Law Making Mortgage Debt Dischargeable
North Korea Threatens White House, Labels US a "Cesspool of Terrorism"; Sony Ponders YouTube Release of "The Interview"

New York Times Asks Obama to Prosecute Cheney; Outsourced Torture

Posted: 22 Dec 2014 08:13 PM PST

As horrific as the CIA torture revelations were, please understand that most of the investigation is still classified. I have to wonder, what's in the report we did not see.

Although I commend senator Dianne Feinstein for making sure excerpts of the CIA torture report saw the light of day, her efforts did not go far enough.

Feinstein should have published the entire document. I suspect that would have ended the controversy once and for all. Instead we have nothing but a pack of lies about the use of the intelligence gathered from the likes of Dick Cheney.

Outsourced Terror

Even had Feinstein published the entire report, please understand there are hundreds if not thousands of horrific stories of CIA-sponsored torture that aren't in the Senate report.

The Salon has details in its report on Outsourced Terror.

The executive summary released last week makes only passing reference to an integral component of the CIA program: the "extraordinary rendition" of prisoners to foreign custody for "interrogation" by those countries' intelligence services—with the full knowledge that the men would be tortured.

Because rendition was beyond the report's scope, there's still no official account of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other victims of torture that the CIA is responsible for.

As the Washington Post revealed in 2005, the CIA identified two categories of prisoners for detention and interrogation: "high value" detainees that the agency held onto and "second tier" ones who were farmed out for detention and interrogation to other governments. As former CIA officer Bob Baer explained in disturbing detail, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear—never to see them again—you send them to Egypt."

Mistakes Irrelevant

Of course, torturing or even killing the wrong guys does not matter to Dick Cheney. He had the gall to say "I'd do it again".

New York Times Asks Obama to Prosecute Cheney

At long last, someone besides a few bloggers like myself has taken the right stand.

I am pleased to announce the New York Times editorial board has come out with the correct assessment.

Here's the headline: Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses.

Mr. Obama has said multiple times that "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards," as though the two were incompatible. They are not. The nation cannot move forward in any meaningful way without coming to terms, legally and morally, with the abhorrent acts that were authorized, given a false patina of legality, and committed by American men and women from the highest levels of government on down.

Americans have known about many of these acts for years, but the 524-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report erases any lingering doubt about their depravity and illegality: In addition to new revelations of sadistic tactics like "rectal feeding," scores of detainees were waterboarded, hung by their wrists, confined in coffins, sleep-deprived, threatened with death or brutally beaten. In November 2002, one detainee who was chained to a concrete floor died of "suspected hypothermia."

These are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law, which defines torture as the intentional infliction of "severe physical or mental pain or suffering." They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture.

So it is no wonder that today's blinkered apologists are desperate to call these acts anything but torture, which they clearly were. As the report reveals, these claims fail for a simple reason: C.I.A. officials admitted at the time that what they intended to do was illegal.

But any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. There are many more names that could be considered, including Jose Rodriguez Jr., the C.I.A. official who ordered the destruction of the videotapes; the psychologists who devised the torture regimen; and the C.I.A. employees who carried out that regimen.

Starting a criminal investigation is not about payback; it is about ensuring that this never happens again and regaining the moral credibility to rebuke torture by other governments. Because of the Senate's report, we now know the distance officials in the executive branch went to rationalize, and conceal, the crimes they wanted to commit. The question is whether the nation will stand by and allow the perpetrators of torture to have perpetual immunity for their actions.

Moving Forward

As I have noted before, "moving forward" to Obama means sweeping this all under the rug. I want every bit of this out in the open, preferably in front of an international war crimes tribunal.

At the very least the US attorney general is obligated himself to bring criminal charges.

I am pleased to be at the forefront of this issue from the beginning, years ago actually, as pertains to Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush.

Here's my Top 5 prosecution list.

Top Five War Crimes Candidates

Former Vice President Dick Cheney
Former President George Bush
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
Former CIA director George Tenet
President Barack Obama - for drone policy

Number 5 sure is not going to happen, but I will take any prosecutions we can get.

For further reading, please see

By all means, let's move forward, complete with the knowledge that "moving forward" means sending Cheney to prison for the rest of his pathetic, disgusting life.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Chinese Banks Hemorrhaging Deposits, 1st Quarterly Drop Since 1999; Banks Offer iPhones, Even Cars for Large Deposits

Posted: 22 Dec 2014 04:00 PM PST

Chinese banks have experienced an outflow of deposits for the quarter for first time since 1999. Customers are attracted to trust funds and the stock market which has been on a tear, up 43% in the last six months.

In the first week of December, Chinese investors opened almost 600,000 stock-trading accounts, a 62 percent increase over the previous week, according to China Securities Depository and Clearing Co.

To compete for funds, Chinese banks offer anything from fresh vegetables for small deposits to a Mercedes A180 for deposits big enough and long enough. The effective yield on the Mercedes is approximately seven percent!

China Daily explains the setup in Lenders Look to Attract Deposits with Goodies.

Lenders in China, desperate to attract customers who are finding alternatives for their savings, are turning to giveaways. On offer at one branch in Beijing: An iPhone 6 Plus or a Mercedes-Benz.

Cash rebates, trips abroad, interest rates at the highest premium ever over the official benchmark rate, even free vegetables are among other goodies banks are dangling to get Chinese savers to deposit their yuan in savings accounts.

"Chinese banks are hemorrhaging their deposits," says Rainy Yuan, a Shanghai-based analyst at brokerage Masterlink Securities Corp. "There is no fix for this. All the efforts they made to win savers back will only push up the costs, so it's a losing battle to fight."

Higher returns from Internet funds and investment products such as trusts, combined with the promise of a soaring stock market, have China's banks feeling the drain. They lost 950 billion yuan ($153 billion) of deposits in the three months through September, the first quarterly drop since 1999. In the first 11 months, new deposits were 23 percent lower than in the same period last year, People's Bank of China data show.

The iPhone promotion, by Shenzhen-based Ping An Bank Co in October at a branch in Beijing, offered a 128-gigabyte iPhone 6 Plus in lieu of interest payments for depositing 38,000 yuan for five years. For parking 903,000 yuan for the same period, savers could pick one of four Mercedes-Benz models. A Mercedes A180, which costs 252,000 yuan, would give investors the equivalent of an annualized return of almost 7 percent, compared with the benchmark rate of 4 percent on five-year deposits.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission in September banned what it called "illicit" deposit-gathering practices, including gifts and rebates on deposits. Banks that flout the curbs could face punishment, the regulator said, without clarifying whether product giveaways in lieu of interest payments qualify as gifts.

Loan Financing Scheme Will Implode

Think Chinese banks can lend money at rates that exceed 7 percent safely? I don't, and if not, this scheme of attracting depositors will backfire big time.

How big this deposit-chasing scheme gets is anyone's guess, but the root cause is systemic speculation fueled by central banks' loose monetary policies that manifest in different forms in different places.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Spain to Suspend Evictions, Rewrite Bankruptcy Law Making Mortgage Debt Dischargeable

Posted: 22 Dec 2014 12:41 PM PST

Under a new set of family insolvency laws in Spain, those who have stopped paying their mortgage will be shielded from eviction from their homes.

Via translation from El Confidential, please consider Changing the Bankruptcy Law.

A bill in Parliament proposes new regulations on family insolvencies and will protect from eviction all those individuals who have suspended mortgage payments. The reform centers around rights of the 'consumer debtor' which will have full legal guarantees to negotiate funding agreements with creditors for half of the accrued liability and take up to fifteen years to pay.

The measure is justified by the massive overhang of family suffering in Spain, currently condemning many to full settlement and consequent total ruin of those who go through a bankruptcy process.

Currently, citizens drowned by their financial situation are usually first evicted from their homes and then have to drag existing debt perpetually throughout their working and social life.

The key amendment is on the table prior work involves a negotiation process that empowers the consumer to inform the Court their willingness to reach an agreement with its creditors. The deadline to apply this voluntary refinancing process is two months from the date it becomes impossible for someone to meet payment obligations.

The mere communication to the court of the start of negotiations suspends any eviction proceedings, including those declaratory judgments that may already be in process.

The law also amends substantial aspects of the settlement process in cases where a person fails to reach an agreement with creditors.

The liquidation plan will take into consideration assets of 'consumer debtor' while prioritizing the essential livelihood of the affected person.

The bill has an aim of preserving basic necessities and will also guarantee a 'fresh start' or second chance for people doomed to a dramatic insolvency. To that end, and in the worst case, the court may totally wipe out all existing debts including that portion not covered by asset liquidation. This is a radical change from the current procedural process.

Issues and Questions

How many will stop paying their mortgage simply to start a negotiation process?

How much harder will it be for someone to get a mortgage?

Lots of bad debt on the books of banks will have to be realized. How much more capital will Spanish banks need as a result?

There is no way for Spanish banks to pretend debts will be paid once they are discharged in bankruptcy.

This story is going to be interesting to watch from numerous angles.

Addendum:

Reader Bran who lives in Spain provides a more precise translation of the article. Bran writes ....

The reform is articulated from (around) the definition of the so called 'consumer debtor' who will be given full legal rights to suggest financial agreements to his creditors with haircuts of up to half of accumulated debt (liability) and delays of up to 15 years.

The debtor will be able to ask the courts to oversee the delinquency proceedings, both of consumer debt and mortgage debt. The judge will be responsible for deciding if the debtors offer (which must be at least 50% of what is owed) is acceptable. Mortgage debt would not be directly actable but would have to follow the judges oversight in a liquidation procedure that includes all other debt , and that would be designed to help ensure the debtor maintains essential possessions.

From the article it is hard to say exactly how the interpretations of the judge, and so forth would work in practice. What it does do is to delay foreclosure and provide judicial oversight and allow intervention in favor of the debtor. What is more, after any liquidation proceedings are finished (i.e. in bankruptcy) then any unpaid debt will be written off and the debtor may not be pursued for that debt after the proceedings.

Creditors may reject offers by the debtor and the debtor may appeal decisions, but the main point is that is not clear how a judge would rule when it came down to evicting the debtor.

All the best, Bran.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

North Korea Threatens White House, Labels US a "Cesspool of Terrorism"; Sony Ponders YouTube Release of "The Interview"

Posted: 22 Dec 2014 03:03 AM PST

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is an incredible blowhard, but no credible threat to anyone outside North Korea. He just wants attention.

And he's going to get it following his Threat to target White House after Obama Claims North Korea Behind Sony Hacking.

President Barack Obama is "recklessly" spreading rumours of a Pyongyang-orchestrated cyberattack of Sony Pictures, North Korea says, as it warns of strikes against the White House, Pentagon and "the whole US mainland, that cesspool of terrorism".

A long statement from the powerful National Defense Commission late Sunday underscores Pyongyang's sensitivity at a movie whose plot focuses on the assassination of its leader Kim Jong-un.

"Our toughest counteraction will be boldly taken against the White House, the Pentagon and the whole US mainland, the cesspool of terrorism, by far surpassing the 'symmetric counteraction' declared by Obama," said the commission's policy department in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

US May Put North Korea Back on State Terror List

I never thought that I would agree with Kim Jong on anything significant, but his labeling the US a cesspool of terrorism seems an accurate description of US drone policy.

In response to his idle threats, US May Put North Korea Back on State Terror List.

The United States may classify North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism after its "cybervandalism" of Sony Pictures, President Barack Obama has said.

The president said the hack on the Hollywood studio was not an act of war but was "very costly", and could land Pyongyang back on the administration's terror list, a designation lifted by the Bush administration in 2008 during nuclear talks.

"We're going to review those [issues] through a process that's already in place," he told CNN in an interview broadcast on Sunday. "I'll wait to review what the findings are."

'The Interview'

In case you are not in tune with what's happening, Sony was about to release a film called "The Interview".

The film stars Rogen and James Franco as journalists instructed to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (played by Randall Park) after booking an interview with him.

Sony Hacked

Prior to release of the film, Sony was Hacked and threatened.

A message from the Guardians of Peace, the hacker group that breached the computer systems of Sony Pictures and warned against releasing the film, said "we want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately."

The hackers promised that if Sony scrubbed all traces of the comedy from the Internet — an impossible task — they would cease a campaign that has lasted almost a month and has threatened employees and their families, embarrassed executives and potentially unleashed 100 terabytes of private company data into the world.

A few hours later, President Obama added his voice to the chorus of critics, including irate Hollywood actors, who say Sony and the nation's theater operators should not have canceled the release. "We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States," he said.

Obama Says Sony Made Mistake by Pulling 'The Interview'

In a press conference, President Obama claimed Sony Made Mistake by Pulling 'The Interview'.

I agree with the president that pulling the movie is giving into the demands of fools. But it was not really Sony that pulled the plug.

Actor George Clooney, in an interview yesterday with Deadline, noted that Sony didn't want to cancel its film, but had no choice once movie theaters started canceling screenings.

"Sony didn't pull the movie because they were scared; they pulled the movie because all the theaters said they were not going to run it," he said. "And they said they were not going to run it because they talked to their lawyers and those lawyers said if somebody dies in one of these, then you're going to be responsible."

Sony CEO Michael Lynton denied that his company had "caved" under the threat. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter this morning, he said, "The movie theaters came to us one by one over the course of a very short time. We were very surprised by it…. At that point in time we had no alternative to not proceed with a theatrical release on the 25th of December….We have not caved. We have not given in. We have persevered."

Who Hacked Sony?

Wired says Evidence That North Korea Hacked Sony Is Flimsy.

Attribution Is Difficult If Not Impossible

First off, we have to say that attribution in breaches is difficult. Assertions about who is behind any attack should be treated with a hefty dose of skepticism. Skilled hackers use proxy machines and false IP addresses to cover their tracks or plant false clues inside their malware to throw investigators off their trail. When hackers are identified and apprehended, it's generally because they've made mistakes or because a cohort got arrested and turned informant.

Nation-state attacks often can be distinguished by their level of sophistication and modus operandi, but attribution is no less difficult. It's easy for attackers to plant false flags that point to North Korea or another nation as the culprit. And even when an attack appears to be nation-state, it can be difficult to know if the hackers are mercenaries acting alone or with state sponsorship—some hackers work freelance and get paid by a state only when they get access to an important system or useful intelligence; others work directly for a state or military. Then there are hacktivists, who can be confused with state actors because their geopolitical interests and motives jibe with a state's interests.

Alternate Theories

New York Magazine proposes 4 Alternate Theories while asking What If North Korea Didn't Hack Sony?

I read the article and none of the alternate theories had any strong evidence, but neither does the North Korea theory.

China Condemns Cyber Attack

This morning, Reuters reports China condemns cyberattacks, but says no proof North Korea hacked Sony.

China said on Monday it opposed all forms of cyberattacks but there was no proof that North Korea was responsible for the hacking of Sony Pictures, as the United States has said.

North Korea has denied it was to blame and has vowed to hit back against any U.S. retaliation, threatening the White House and the Pentagon. The hackers said they were incensed by a Sony comedy about a fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which the studio has pulled.

YouTube Release

Sony's CEO says 'we would still like the public to see this movie'.

That seems pretty obvious to me. What other reason is there to make a movie?

And given that theaters pulled the plug on the release, Sony considers YouTube a possible distributor for The Interview.

My personal viewpoint is the script sounds incredibly boring. I would not watch this thing if it was free. Then again, I do not like movies in general, so I am not the best of judges.

I am curious though, how many will want to see this thing simply because of the controversy. Regardless, I won't be in that group.

I am also curious about one more thing: How would president Obama and Congress have reacted if the script was an assassination plot on Obama instead of Kim Jong-un?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com