Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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• Max Keiser Interviews Hugo Salinas Price on Idea for Greece to Back Drachma with Silver
• "Terror-Mongering" in Greece About to Backfire? Will Greeks Vote for "Complete Idiots"? Four Possibilities
• "Multi-Stage" Nannycrat Proposals; Devaluation - The Last Option? Note to Wolfgang Münchau, Martin Wolf, Jeremy Siegel at the Financial Times: Focus on the Obtanium not the Unobtanium
• Japanese Stocks Hit 28-Year Low, 9 Straight Weeks of Losses, Longest Streak in 20 Years

Max Keiser Interviews Hugo Salinas Price on Idea for Greece to Back Drachma with Silver Posted: 04 Jun 2012 11:09 PM PDT Inquiring minds are watching an interview by Max Keiser with With Hugo Salinas Price on a plan to back Greek currency with silver. In the first half of the video below, Max discusses unelected bureaucrats "running a gulag casino state" for their own benefit, financial terrorism against Ireland, and the simple-but-true (yet seldom initiated) concept that "bad debt banks should go bankrupt". Max also blasts Christine Lagarde who herself pays no taxes yet harasses Greek citizens to pay theirs. In the second half of the video, about 13 minutes in, Max interviews Hugo Salinas Price regarding silver. For additional details and a link if the above video does not play, please see Keiser Report: With Hugo Salinas Price Silver Backed Currency Details It is difficult to fully express ideas in 13 minutes. For a more detailed explanation of how Hugo's idea on silver currency might work, please see Silver, liquid and illiquid, the 'modified open mint' and gold & silver as parallel monetary systems by Hugo Salinas Price. Role of Gold in Trade For a discussion of trade imbalances and the role of gold please see Hugo Salinas Price and Michael Pettis on the Trade Imbalance Dilemma; Gold's Honest Discipline Revisited Additional Thoughts on Silver I asked my friend Pater Tenebrarum at the Acting Man Austrian Blog for some comments on proposal to reintroduce silver coins as currency. Pater responded ... At first glance, giving the coins a higher monetary than bullion value might seem a bit strange, but right now we have money with no value at all except the legally determined face value. With silver coins you'd at least have coinage that not only has a face value, but also a commodity value. Obviously if one wants the money to be used in payment, the silver in it must not be worth more than the face. Hugo is correct that one can not have silver and gold currency at a fixed ratio. In principle, a dual monetary system with silver and gold, but no fixed relationship between them seems feasible to me. Unfortunately, the proposal probably won't fly because the government is not interested in making money honest. Just think about the size of the federal debt. It's over $15 trillion and growing at over $1 trillion per year. If this debt were to be redenominated in silver and/or gold, the government would be forced to stop spending. It won't stop that until the market forces it to. So Hugo is right; it's only going to happen once the current system crashes and burns. That does not mean that his proposal wouldn't be feasibly in principle - it certainly would be. A crisis has not hit the US yet but what about Greece? I received Pater's response before Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras caused a deadlock in the last Greek election. Would a radical left party be open to a metal-backed currency? The idea may seem far-fetched but there is certainly everything to gain and nothing to lose by trying. Having sensible discussions is always worthwhile if for no reason than to plant seeds of ideas that may sprout at some unknown time in the future. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

"Terror-Mongering" in Greece About to Backfire? Will Greeks Vote for "Complete Idiots"? Four Possibilities Posted: 04 Jun 2012 02:21 PM PDT The Financial Times reports Greek right a hostage to its own failures. On June 17, Stathis Potamitis, managing partner at an Athens law firm, plans to break a promise he has kept since his participation in a 1970s clandestine student group that opposed Greece's military dictatorship. He will vote for the right. "I'm now driven to the dreadful situation of having to vote for this man who is one of the causes of the problems we have right now," he says, referring to Antonis Samaras, New Democracy's leader. His friend, Niki Siropoulou, a marketing executive, is more succinct. "I have to vote for a complete idiot," she says. Polls show New Democracy running a close race with Syriza – but it is hardly inspiring. "Terror-mongering will only get you so far," Mr Potamitis complains. In a troubling sign for Mr Samaras, the MRB research firm found last week that educated voters aged 45 to 55 were tilting toward Syriza. Such voters – with children, mortgages and other duties – would normally seem unlikely supporters of a self-described "radical" party. Dimitris Mavros, head of MRB, speculates that the scale of Greece's crisis has left many believing it is now too risky to stick with the status quo. "They have no room to go back and say, 'Ok, let's wait three or four years for Greece to re-set,'" Mr Mavros says. Close allies view Mr Samaras' predicament with a sense of tragedy. He opposed the austere terms of Greece's first bailout, arguing it would strangle the economy, before eventually signing under pressure from EU leaders. At the party's headquarters in a sleek Athens office building, Chryssanthos Lazarides, Mr Samaras' chief adviser, calls the May 6 contest "the last of the post-dictatorship era". He defends his boss's decision to press for early elections, arguing that the rapidly deteriorating economy was benefiting Syriza by swelling the ranks of the unemployed. "This is a pool of desperate people. They have lost everything – or think they have lost everything," he says. "We wanted elections soon because after June there would be a Bolshevik government." Four Possibilities Although I believe the Radical left will win the election it is entirely possible "known idiots" win.  The election might be stolen.  People might legitimately decide to give New Democracy one more chance.  Lastly, the military might forcibly takeover shortly after the election if it does not like the results. The worst outcome is a military takeover. The best outcome for Greece is if the Radical Left wins, cancels the bailouts, and riots do not ensue. Then from the depths of the depression, perhaps new leaders with sensible policies emerge. Near-term, regardless of who wins (or takes over), there is going to be a lot more pain for Greece. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

"Multi-Stage" Nannycrat Proposals; Devaluation - The Last Option? Note to Wolfgang Münchau, Martin Wolf, Jeremy Siegel at the Financial Times: Focus on the Obtanium not the Unobtanium Posted: 04 Jun 2012 08:58 AM PDT The stubbornness of economic writers, nannycrats, and eurocrats is nothing short of amazing. No matter how many times Merkel rejects eurobonds and other transfer mechanisms, the vast preponderance of economic writers, nannycrats, and eurocrats keep proposing the same futile actions, over and over, and over again. For example, Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Münchau writes How to build a fiscal union to save the eurozone. One does not even have to read the article to know his proposal will never fly. Nonetheless, I did suffer through it. My conclusion is "it will never fly". The reason it will not fly is that it requires both legislative changes and treaty changes, something rather obvious from the title I might add. Would the German supreme court allow it? Of course not. Would all the Northern states vote for it in this economic malaise? Of course not. Would German citizens vote for it? Of course not. Even if the answer to all those questions was different, here is one more key question: Will the market wait for it? Of course not. Impossible to Keep a Nannycrat Down Nonetheless, it is impossible to keep a nannycrat down. Münchau concludes with "I am, however, mildly encouraged by the sheer number of people in Brussels, Frankfurt, Paris and in Rome, who are now openly advocating a multi-stage fiscal union. There really is no alternative." No doubt Münchau will be even more encouraged by the June 3 Wall Street journal headline Germany Signals Crisis Shift However, inside the article, the details are the same collection of fluff promises found elsewhere. The issues on the table fall broadly into two categories. There are ideas such as creating joint European bonds, a European-wide deposit insurance and more broadly a "banking union," which fall into the category of mutual liability for sovereign debt and European banks. These are ideas French President François Hollande backs, but have been anathema to Ms. Merkel unless power to enforce budget discipline is shifted to Europe, which would mean a sacrifice of sovereignty. Germany is pushing again for far-reaching European control of national budgets, a fiscal-policy union, which would require member states to cede control of national budgets to some future European fiscal authority, an idea France staunchly opposes. There is little chance of a breakthrough in June, but German officials said a process is beginning. "There will be no big bang at the June summit," said a German official. "But it would be a big step for Europe if we succeed in creating a structure for the discussion, establishing a method, asking the right questions and putting it all into a certain timetable hat would be significant for Europe." Speaking to reporters at a summit of Baltic Sea Coast leaders last week, Ms. Merkel suggested she is willing to engage in discussion about any idea on the table. "Of course, it is possible to consider how we are going to develop over the next five to 10 years," she said. "But if we are constantly censuring our ideas it won't work." Got that? Merkel wants control over national budgets (something she actually cannot promise without a referendum), and France does not. Meanwhile France wants eurobonds. Yet on June 3, for the 1000nth time Merkel Rejects Debt Sharing as Obama Urges Europe Action Secret Plans?  Virtually nothing has changed. And that is why I am sticking with what I said on June 3 in Another Meaningless Nannycrat Rumor: Europe Mulls "Secret Plan for New Europe" More Holes Than Swiss Cheese One look at the nannycrat participants led by Van Rompuy and Jean-Claude "lie when it's serious" Juncker, is all you need to do to know the plan has far more holes than Swiss Lorraine cheese. I would have thought that no one could possibly take this seriously, even if such a meeting were agreed to. There is no plan. There is not even a plan for a plan. The secret plan is to develop a secret plan at the already scheduled June summit with "meat on the bones" coming later. For some inexplicable reason Münchau is mildly encouraged by all this hot air from nannycrats. I propose the only way to be encouraged by useless talk by nannycrats is to be a nannnycrat. What Hollande Must Tell Germany Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf writes What Hollande must tell Germany. What can Hollande possibly tell Germany that has not been said by economic writers, nannycrats, and eurocrats 10,000 times or more? The answer of course is "nothing". Devaluation: The Last Option? Finally, Financial Times columnist Jeremy Siegel proposes Devaluation – last option to save the euro The least disruptive route Europe can take is to sharply lower the value of the euro. This will help improve the trade deficit in the peripheral countries and bring some relief to their downward spiralling economies. Euro depreciation would push the German trade surplus even higher and cause some inflationary pressures in those few European countries that are still near full employment. Given the strong German labour market, a lower euro would be likely to raise German wages and help close the gap between German and other European labour costs. The mild inflationary effect of a euro closer to dollar parity would be far less painful for all concerned than forcing austerity or internal devaluation on the peripheral countries. Obvious Problems There are two obvious problems with Siegel's proposals. Germany will not go along with higher inflation  It would not help if Germany did  A devaluation of the euro while leaving the eurozone intact would do very little if anything for the  relative competitiveness of Spain, Greece, or Italy vs. Germany. Reportedly, Greece needs a 60% devaluation of the Drachma. Spain may need a 30% or 40% devaluation of the peseta. What does Italy need? See the problem? Even IF Germany were to agree to higher inflation, it cannot agree to differing rates simultaneously. The practical side says Germany would not agree to higher inflation in the first place and even if it would, certainly 30% is not in the ballpark. How long would it take Spain to be competitive to Germany if inflation in Germany was 6% and inflation in Spain 0%?  My answer is forever. The notion that inflation in and of itself cures anything is fundamentally flawed, and especially flawed between countries on the same currency.  Obama's Imaginary "Crisis Cloud" President Obama got into the act, warning Europe to end the "Crisis Cloud". For a discussion of Obama's imaginary cloud as well as my first take on "nannycrats", please see Obama Seeks End to "Crisis Cloud"; Cloud? What Cloud? Also see my original post on the "nannyzone" written June 2, 2011, nearly one year ago today: Trichet Calls for Creation of European "Nanny-State" and Fiscal "Nanny-Zone" No Cloud, Only Clouded Judgements There is no cloud, only clouded judgements by economic writers, nannycrats, eurocrats, prime ministers, and presidents. The euro project is a failure. It was ill-conceived in the beginning, poorly executed throughout, and together with fractional reserve lending helped destroy Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. With such a dismal track record it is somewhat a mystery why anyone would want the damn thing. No alternative? Really? Wolfgang Münchau says "There really is no alternative." Of course there is an alternative. How about a serious discussion of how best to breakup the eurozone? Focus on the Obtanium not the Unobtanium It is time to focus on reality instead of the impossible. The reality is the eurozone is going to bust up and nannycrats better get used to the idea or the markets will impose that break-up in their own messy way. The "obtanium" is a eurozone breakup. The "unobtanium" is a fiscal nannyzone. And without a fiscal nannyzone and common bonds, the eurozone cannot stay intact. Eurozone Breakup is Destiny A breakup is destiny. The important question is "how?" I discussed this last week on Capital Account with Lauren Lyster. The main topics were US GDP, hyperinflation, Ireland, and a eurozone breakup. Slow-and-Painful or Over-and-Done? The slow, painful, and highly disruptive breakup is for Greece to exit, followed by Spain, followed by Portugal, followed by Ireland, and ultimately Italy. The least painful way is for Germany to exit now. Why? Germany would immediately have a credible currency. Greece and Spain would not. Greece is highly likely to experience hyperinflation if it exits. If Germany and the Northern countries exit, then the ECB can print at will. It can do what Spain and Greece wants. Hollande can then have his fiscal union. However, would he still want that union if France instead of Germany is the main country backstopping the euro? The "Real Alternative" The choice is not between pain and no pain, but on how soon to get it over with. Bear in mind, Spain, Italy, and Greece have much to do whether the choice is slow-and-painful or over-and-done. The PIIGS in general need to address work rules and pension reform. So does France. The immediate irony is Spain's prime minister Rajoy says he wants this "Nannyzone", but would he actually obey the dictates of the Nannycrats if they ordered Spain to live within it's means and change union work rules as well? Clearly the answer is no, yet Rajoy argues forcefully for a "central nanny" enforcer. Germany is Going to Suffer No one should think Germany will get off Scot-Free. It's export machine is going to break down either way. Debts owed to Germany will be paid back in depreciated euros not Deutschmarks. German banks can somewhat prepare for this scenario by dumping all external debt immediately. There are hundreds of other details to work out. However, there are thousands of very disruptive details to work out case-by-case if the nannycrats succeed in throwing billions or trillions more euros down the drain hoping to save the unsavable. Enough is enough. It's time for economic writers to end these silly nannyzone proposals and instead concentrate on an intelligent discussion on how best to break apart the eurozone. The market is certainly moving in that direction even if the current crop of politicians is not. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Japanese Stocks Hit 28-Year Low, 9 Straight Weeks of Losses, Longest Streak in 20 Years Posted: 04 Jun 2012 12:48 AM PDT A quick check of Sunday night futures shows a certified bloodbath in Asia-Pacific including China, Australia, India, and Japan. Above chart courtesy of Yahoo! Finance Major World Indices. The Nikkei Index is not at a new low, however the Economic Times reports Tokyo Broader Markets Hit 28-year Low Amid Global Rout TOKYO: Asian shares tumbled on Monday, pushing the broader Tokyo market to a 28-year low, as investors extended a rout of global stocks and worried about a nightmare scenario of euro-zone breakup, U.S. economic relapse and a sharp slowdown in China. Tokyo's broader Topix index lost 2.1 percent to 693.35, a level not seen since late 1983, as Asian markets plumbed new lows for 2012. Japan's Nikkei average fell 2 percent after last week marking its ninth straight week of losses, the longest such losing streak run in 20 years. "It's not an issue of risk-on or risk-off anymore, it's nervousness all over until a clear direction emerges on a long-term trend," said Hisamitsu Hara, chief FX manager at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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Do you support equal pay for women?

Monday, June 4, 2012   Do you support equal pay for women? It's been nearly 50 years since Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, but today a woman who works full time still earns just 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. That's not just unfair. When women, who make up nearly half the workforce, bring home less money each day, it means they have less for the everyday needs of their families. That's bad for kids, it's bad for communities, and it's bad for the entire country. So President Obama is supporting the Paycheck Fairness Act, which is designed to update the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and help close the pay gap. Congress is scheduled to vote on the legislation this week. To help raise awareness of pay discrimination and make it clear that it is a problem with serious consequences, we've put together a series of e-cards to highlight the issue. Pick your favorite, then email it to your friends or share it online: http://www.whitehouse.gov/equal-pay Stay Connected     Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr Google+       This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Sign Up for Updates from the White House Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

The Definitive Guide to Qualifying a Link Prospect [with Video]

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The Definitive Guide to Qualifying a Link Prospect [with Video] Posted: 03 Jun 2012 02:31 PM PDT Posted by Adria Saracino Link builders should look at a website differently than other people. However, through my years of training new link builders, I found that most struggle with this. If they are new, they have trouble letting go of their "consumer lenses," taking everything at face value and evaluating a site by arbitrary trustworthiness cues. If it's SEO Consultants trying to do some link building, they are often looking at the architecture and diving deeply into site metrics. Link builders, on the other hand, should be looking for cues that make a website a good potential partner. They look at metrics like a SEO, but also less tangible cues like engagement and trustworthiness. I thought I'd share the work I'd already done through years of training and create the definitive guide to qualifying a potential link partner. Hopefully it can be used as both a refresher and a tool for training new hires. What Am I Talking About Here I think it's easiest to start with what I'm not talking about. I'm not going through the prospecting process - there are many a guide for that. I'm also not talking about sweet new hacks to scale this through the use of apps, spreadsheets, APIs, etc., though there are some pretty sweet ideas out there and I am all for speeding up the process. While I think efficiency is incredibly important, I think everyone needs to know how to do this stuff manually in order to truly understand how to evaluate a website. What I am talking about is what to do with a list of prospects once you've found them; the steps to take when you click on the first possible site and need to determine whether or not you will contact them. Going after every site willy nilly with an equal amount of effort is going to be a serious waste of time and resources. Here's a road map of where I'll be going with this article to help you improve efficiency: Link building metrics Less tangible metrics Bucketing qualified prospects Improving efficiency + a VIDEO DEMO Link Building Metrics Will this link pass value, and if so, how much? That's the question we're really trying to figure out with link building metrics. And let's be real, there are A LOT of different metrics that could make a data junkie OD. So how do you filter out the noise? This is one of the main stumbling blocks for new or occasional link builders. Just the other day during our #AskDistilled video series, the very first question I came across was, "What metrics do you look at to validate potential link partners?" While all this data is well and fun, it won't make you a great link builder if you spend all day analyzing it. Great link builder = being able to get shit done. If you really want to stand out you need to know how to scale, not spend 10 hours getting one link. So really, there are only a very few metrics I'd say you need to look at to determine if a prospect is worth going after. This is probably the #1 metric I look at because it will help me determine a prospective site's value for all types of projects. If I'm asking for a guest post or promoting an infographic, the new page this piece of content will be put on won't have metrics like page authority and # of linking root domains. But it will have domain authority. Yes, there are other nifty metrics like domain MozRank and domain MozTrust, but to get a quick impression of the site's value directly on the SEOmoz toolbar, this is my go to metric. Obviously the higher the better, but if it's higher on a site I don't recognize I'll evaluate it against other less tangible metrics (below) to determine the accuracy of this. This is one of the best-correlated Moz metrics because SEOmoz's analysis shows that ULD is well correlated with rankings, so you want to look at this. Ideally, the site will have a good amount of ULDs to both the page in question and domain. You can get a general sense of how popular that page/domain is to external websites, and more ULDs could mean more  If the number is high, upon first look it may be safe to say that the DA and PA metrics are statistically significant, and thus more likely to stay consistent (if in doubt, I'll look at the backlink profile to see if these ULDs are manipulated). What do I mean by this? If there are only a few ULDs, and 50% of them decide to remove the link, those metrics could drastically change over time. I glance at this when I'm on the home page, but overall I'll ignore this if promoting something for placement on, say, a blog post, since it will be a new page without any PA value yet. For static pages, I'll be really excited if this is a high number and has a good number of ULDs. Also, it's important to note that if I am doing outreach for placement on a subdomain – such as blog.DOMAIN.com, NAME.blogspot.com, NAME.wordpress.com, and so forth - I will look at the subdomain's PA, since the DA will be pretty irrelevant for these types of targets. By this, I mean link attributes like nofollowed vs. followed. I make sure that all of the nofollowed links are highlighted in the browser I'm using, by doing this on my SEOmoz toolbar: That way I can spot if all the links on the page are nofollowed. If so, I walk, as the chances of convincing someone to do otherwise are slim. Plus, I think it gets a bit too shady talking about that kind of stuff with potential partners – especially when it is very easy to avoid it otherwise. As I'm scrolling down the page, I always hover over the links and look at the URL in the bottom left of the browser (clicking through wastes time) to see 1) if the links are to external sites and 2) if so, are they clean URLs or are they redirected or have parameters attached to them (i.e. something that looks like this: http://www.domain.com/landing-page?affid=johndoe&sid=campaign1). Ideally, I'd like clean links in order to get the most out of that site's passable link juice. If I really want to know, I'll look at the "Page Attributes" tab in the SEOmoz toolbar, but oftentimes I just do a quick visual skim to see how many links are on the page, looking for blog rolls or excessive lists of links on sidebars. The more links, the more any link juice on that page is going to be split among all of them (regardless if they are followed or nofollowed). Thus, I want pages that have less links. However, a lot of links isn't necessarily a deal breaker, depending on the project goals. What those links say and what they are directing to come into play at that point, which moves us into the less tangible metrics (more below). Those are pretty much the only hard metrics I look at when qualifying a potential link partner. There are other useful ones, like comparing PageRank vs MozRank to check if the site has been penalized (if PR is a lot lower than mR, this could be a sign of a problem). You can also compare MozRank to MozTrust, to see if the site chases PR (though know why PR isn't a great metric for qualifying a site). Depending on the circumstances and my gut feeling, I'll start playing around with other metrics if needed, such as viewing the site code for potential iframes (which, when links reside in them, don't pass value), checking the HTTP status code of specific pages, and using OSE to decipher its top pages or analyze its backlinks. However, like I said, you do not want to waste a ton of time evaluating a site the first time around, only to be ignored when you reach out, or worse, realize you were targeting the completely wrong niche in the first place. Save that type of effort for high value prospects. Less Tangible Metrics Will this site owner work with me, and if so, what would be the best-case scenario? Some of the tangible metrics above will help answer this question, but there are other less tangible hints that an epic link builder will learn to pick up on. Here are the ones I find the most important, all of which can really tell you a lot about the site. This will be the first thing you notice, before you even click through to the site. Get in the habit of looking at URLs and what they tell you. First, does the domain name tell you what the site is about or is it a brand name? Is it highly optimized? Is it so optimized that it doesn't even make sense? There is a difference between www.lawyers.com and www.injury-lawyers-malpractice-law.com. When dealing with highly optimized sites, be on the lookout for ranking manipulation. I also look at the rest of the URL to see what else it says about the site. If it has any /index.html’s or /p=?’s, I may be dealing with a website that isn't completely SEO savvy, which could be great for outreach purposes. I also, do a quick check to see if the site is canonicalized. If it isn't, it might again mean the site isn't on the top of its architectural game (though note, some big brands have scary URL structure, so this isn't an end-all-be-all metric). This is important for sites that produce consistent content, like blogs or publications. If I notice that the most recent post was six months ago, it most likely means the site was neglected and I can cross it off my list. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've tried reaching out to a dead site and heard back with a, "Sure, your content is so good it took me out of my writing slump, thanks!" Pro Tip: If you notice a lot of linking root domains to that page, save it for a backlink analysis later. Reach out to the sites linking to that page and tell them they are linking to a dead site, but you have another resource they might be interested in linking to instead :) Again, this is for projects targeting articles and blog posts. Get in the habit of looking for bylines. First, are there any? If so, are they made up of names or generic terms like "staff?" Is it consistently the same name(s)? If yes, then you know whom to contact about editorial content. Also, if the articles are all hosted on the main page (aka not cut short with a more tag), as you scroll down the page look to see if there are bios. If so, these might very well be contributor pieces. If they are, it is very likely this site will work with you. These are really important to answering the "what would be the best-case scenario" question. The best-case scenario would be that the website would cover your piece and not only give you a link, but also leverage its community to push your content viral. These types of sites are what I like to call "influencers" and they can really help scale your link building efforts by helping your content essentially generate its own links simply by being put in front of the right eyeballs. So how do you know if you're looking at an influencer site? Look for clues that show the site has an engaged audience. These include things like: Number of comments Number of social shares Number of RSS feed and newsletter subscribers Number of social media followers People might ask why I say these are intangible. Well, unless you look at those comments or followers, you don't really know if they are real. Was the subscriber list scraped? Does the site owner accept spam comments? So I bucket this in the intangibles because prospecting isn't about sitting around all day analyzing the nitty gritty, but rather seeing the big picture. Another important part to answering the "will they link to me" question is determining if your company or the content you are pitching is relevant to the content the site hosts. Notice that I don’t look at a site’s content until later. This is because you could come across a site with amazing content, but if it has absolutely no valuable metrics you might not want to target it right away. Looking at the content does not mean you need to spend a ton of time reading the website. Rather try: Reading titles – article titles can tell you not only what the content is about, but the "voice" of the website (are they news headlines or are they bold statements with sometimes vulgar language?). Using the search feature – If I'm really unsure or think it's a stretch, I'll do a quick keyword search across the site to see if there is any reference to the topic. If so, this gives me great positioning power when contacting them because it lets them know that I know they cover this type of content. About page – If I am still in doubt, I'll take a quick gander at the site's about page to figure out the mission statement and see if my content fits. But really, this is a last resort and if I have to work this hard to make it work, I need to determine if it's worth the effort. Get in the habit of quickly glancing at navigation and footer links for clues like "contributors," "write for us," or "guest posts." If they have a page dedicated to getting content already, boom, there is my in for contacting them. Also, while you're busy browsing links, look for any red flag keywords that look like sponsored links with questionable anchor text (loans, Viagra, poker, etc.). These aren't generally desirable, so if it's bad enough I'll walk away. After looking at all of these metrics, I usually have a pretty good gut feeling of whether or not I should trust this site. If I'm still not sure and the site is of particular high value, I might use an outbound link checker to see if it's linking to any questionable sites. I may also look at its backlink profile to see if the majority of links coming in are from directories or pages titled "Free Link Exchange." Note, design can be somewhat arbitrary of a spam test because, in my experience, there are a lot of websites out there run by old men just doing it for fun, so they use templates to get some visibility in the online world. So don't always judge a book by its cover. If you're still stumped, here are some questions to ask yourself: Taking a cue from Panda, would I trust giving my credit card information to this site? Does this site offer good content? Is it of value to visitors? What percentage of its site is taken up by AdSense or external links? Does the content look like unique content, or is the site a syndication farm that scrapes articles from around the Internet? What types of content/links are on this site? Are there red flag keywords? Are the external links related to the site content? Does the content seem suspiciously optimized? Is the site transparent? Is there an about or contact section? Transparency is a huge one for me. When there is no contact information and no about section, it can mean the site owner doesn’t really care about offering good content and connecting with readers, but rather is using this site for SEO or advertising purposes. I do want to note that a lot of AdSense and external links aren’t necessarily bad. It is only a piece of the puzzle. I think the content and types of external links are more important, but sometimes a lot of AdSense can be an obvious indicator that a site owner is trying to drive traffic to the site in order to make money from click throughs. Bucketing Qualified Prospects As you're going through your prospects, you'll start making a long list of sites to contact. How do you prioritize these? If you think you don't need to, you are wrong. Bucketing your prospects is really important so you can determine how long you should spend on trying to convert them and in which order you should reach out. Not all prospects are created equally so you should not be treating them the same. You don't need to be really formal about this, bucketing them into separate lists or labeling them obsessively. But you definitely can if it helps. I've found that I have a pretty good memory and just know with a few quick sorts in Excel, but if this isn't you find a system of organization that works best for you. Here are the variables I tend to use for determining buckets: DA Influencer status Potential difficulty of getting a link Past relationship? First access play? That's pretty much it. All of the other metrics told me that the site was worth being on the list, but these are the ones needed to organize them. These are the buckets I use and what defines them (I know, ingenious titles): High Value Sites with a high DA (anywhere from 65+ depending on the project), extreme influencer power (will help my content go viral), and likely difficult to get a link on. Why the last metric? Because sites that are high enough value are worth the chase, and this metric will help determine how long you should wait before letting go. Medium Value Sites with a DA around 50 – 65, has some influencer status (might get a handful of comments and shares), and probably reasonably easy to get a link. Low Value DA below 45, barely any influencer status, easy to get a link on – probably has cues like "write for us" on site. So what do I do with these buckets? I prioritize using the last two metrics from the above list that I didn't mention yet. First access play helps figure out when to contact a prospect, and this is reserved for high value contacts. Why would you give a site with mediocre metrics first access to something? This is oftentimes effective on journalists, who are always hungry to break a story. The past relationship point also helps determine when you will contact a prospect. I usually give my existing contacts the courtesy of first dibs once a piece goes live not only out of respect, but also because the turnaround time will probably be quick and allow me to start raking in the wins. Plus, these contact attempts will be easiest because you don't need to butter them up, so get these out of the way. So what order do I do outreach in once I have my prospects in buckets? Why the back and forth? Because I never do outreach in a linear fashion. You could reach out to all your prospects in a particular bucket only to find out your contact approach was a fail. Link builders need to think on their feet and do some informal A/B testing to figure out what will work, because you can never 100% guarantee what responses will be like for outreach. So my advice would be not to put all your eggs in one basket, but do outreach in chunks and adjust if the approach doesn't work. Improving Efficiency This was a long article. I know. But just because it was long does not mean this process needs to take forever – but it will at first. Every new link builder gets caught up qualifying sites, and they will keep doing it until they gain the confidence to breeze through it. This comes with practice, so whether you are new yourself or hiring, please keep this in mind and adjust your expectations accordingly. Practice of course will improve speed. When looking at a site for all of the above metrics and clues, I take a minute or less. The only time it takes longer is when I am looking for a high value target's contact details. The qualifying process – being able to say "yes" or "no" to adding them to your list – should become second nature to you; so much that you no longer look at websites the same ever again, even as a consumer. To review, let me give you a quick video of what I look at when I am qualifying a potential prospect, putting all of these metrics into practice. My advice for becoming a speedier and more efficient link builder in general is: Be hyper organized – whether you use a tool like Buzzstream or spreadsheets, you need to stay on top of your game and be detailed so you don't have to keep going back to the site to remember why you put it on your list in the first place. You should be able to put it on your list and not have to go back to the website when you contact them. Here is an example of the information I collect on spreadsheets when prospecting: You'll see I have a dropdown list in place to explain the relationship stage. I color code these so when I have a long list and sort them, I can quickly browse. Flag date refers to the next time I want to remember to contact them. Notes is where I like to keep detailed information so I do not have to go back to the site before contacting. Have an efficient workflow – I prospect, outreach, repeat in chunks. I rarely do all my prospecting and then all my outreach because you could be targeting a niche that will fail or burn yourself out. Similarly, I don't prospect one site, contact it, prospect, repeat. Reaching out one by one is difficult to scale and speed through, so focus on one task and ship it, rather than waffling back and forth. After qualifying your prospects, you're ready to craft a pitch and contact the appropriate person for each site. Hopefully this will help qualifying become second nature, allowing you to speed through the process and focus on what really matters – building relationships and getting conversions. 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!

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Your Daily Snapshot for Monday, June 4, 2012   Ask the Press Secretary You’ve probably seen White House Press Secretary Jay Carney take questions from the press in the Brady Briefing Room here at the White House. With "First Question," we’re inviting Americans to ask their questions online for Jay to answer. Ask your questions on Twitter starting now with the hashtag #1q, and follow Jay Carney @PressSec. Make sure to check back at 1:45 p.m. EDT, when Jay will answer your questions using his Twitter account. Follow @PressSec and ask your questions on Twitter using the hashtag #1q. Photo of the Day President Barack Obama greets members of the audience following his remarks at the Honeywell Golden Valley Facility in Golden Valley, Minn., June 1, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) In Case You Missed It Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog: Women Entrepreneurs Are Creating Jobs: An Interactive Timeline American companies have added more than 4.3 million jobs over the past 27 months. Behind that number are countless small businesses – entrepreneurs with bold ideas and a willingness to dream big -- meet some of them using this interactive tool. Equal Pay for Equal Work? When women, who make up nearly half the workforce, bring home less money each day, it means they have less for the everyday needs of their families, and over a lifetime of work, far less savings for retirement. Preparing for this Year’s Hurricane Season Friday marked the start of the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season. Under the direction of President Obama, FEMA and DHS stand ready to support our state and local partners as the tropics start to produce their annual cyclones, storms, and hurricanes. Today's Schedule All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). 9:45 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing 12:30 PM: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney 3:25 PM: The President departs the White House en route Joint Base Andrews 3:40 PM: The President departs Joint Base Andrews en route New York City 4:00 PM: The Vice President delivers the commencement address to Cypress Bay High School graduates 4:35 PM: The President arrives New York City 5:20 PM: The President delivers remarks at a campaign event 8:25 PM: The President delivers remarks at a campaign event 9:35 PM: The President delivers remarks at a campaign event 11:20 PM: The President departs New York City en route Joint Base Andrews 12:15 AM: The President arrives Joint Base Andrews 12:30 AM: The President arrives the White House  Indicates that the event will be live-streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live Get Updates Sign up for the Daily Snapshot Stay Connected     Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr Google+     This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Sign Up for Updates from the White House Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111