Central Perk

sâmbătă, 5 mai 2012

How To Survive Google's Unnatural Links Warnings & Avoid Over-optimisation

Posted: 04 May 2012 03:00 AM PDT

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

Google’s actions against “overoptimised” sites have been intensified and it seems that the recent updates are able to detect various links-related overoptimisation violations that can result in short or long-term positional drops, with or without warnings. Even though Google announced the Penguin update on the 24th if April 2012, changes on Google’s link evaluation system have been noticeable several weeks before the public announcement.

It appears that in some cases Google has been overzealous, hitting (temporarily) even websites with rather natural link profiles. In other cases, Google admitted algorithmic classification mistakes, publishing apologetic messages like this one Matt Cutts posted on Google+.

According to Patrick Altoft (branded3) the sites that have received unnatural links notifications fall under five main categories, and they are not just the ones participating in link exchanges or other types of link networks. Rand made a Whiteboard Friday video about 6 changes every SEO should make before the overoptimisation penalty hits. Now that Google has rolled out the Penguin update against "black web spam," making sure that your website's backlink profile does not violate Google's quality guidelines is quite essential, especially if your traffic has gone down.

This is a follow up to the post ‘How to Monitor Your Website For Link Equity Loss’, which can be used to identify backlinks from low quality or penalised/deindexed websites. However, this post intends to cover the following links related overoptimisation cases:

A) Excessive Link Acquisition

B) Site-wide links detection

C) Unnatural Anchor Text Distribution

D) Unnatural Spread of Links Authority

A. Excessive Link Acquisition Check

Acquiring a high number of links over a short period of time has never been a good practice and webmasters need to keep an eye on the levels of acquired links, especially these days that negative SEO seems to become more of an issue. Phrases like the following one from Dan Thies, seem to be heard more often lately:

"Both sites have received “unnatural links” messages in Webmaster Tools. Neither site has had a “link building” campaign ever. By using 3rd party tools (e.g. Majestic) I can see a lot of unnatural links pointing at both sites, but I didn’t put those links there"

There are two quick ways to check your site's link acquisition velocity, using Ahrefs or Majestic SEO.

Extremely High Link Acquisition Velocity (Ahrefs)

Unnatural Link Acquisition Velocity (Majestic SEO historic index, cumulative view)

B. How To Check For Site-wide Links

A high number of blog-roll, header, footer or sidebar links can trigger Google’s “overoptimisation” wrath and keeping them to a minimum would be a rather reasonable thing to do. Certainly some site-wide links may have occurred naturally but the less "overoptimisation" signals you site sends out, the better. There are a few ways to quickly check your website against site-wide links with the quickest one being Webmaster Tools.

Under 'Your site on the web' -> Links to your site WMT list the domains that link the most to your site. The ones that link several times should be flagged as potential site-wide links and be manually checked.

Using Webmaster Tools to detect site-wide links is a rather easy and quick way. However, because WMT don't report all backlinks Google actually see, for a more thorough investigation a third party link intelligence service should be used such as Majestic SEO, Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs etc. One thing to bear in mind using any 3d party service, is that their crawlers do not try to replicate Google's behaviour, therefore in some cases the data can be significantly skewed. This is particularly the case for links from web sites that Google has removed from its index but the 3d party services will still report as normal links.

A section in the Ahrefs FAQ page reads: “Having the full information at hand you may decide on subjective estimates of links and figure out real situation with the given website or page”. In a similar manner a Majestic SEO rep commented that:

"Our index is independent of Google and will remain so. If Google has banned a site, it does not mean there are no longer links to that site. We map the link graph – not Google’s interpretation of it."

C. How To Check For Unnatural Anchor Text Distribution

Overoptimised anchor text seems like a ticking bomb, especially after Google made public the following two messages:

"Tweaks to handling of anchor text. [launch codename "PC"] This month we turned off a classifier related to anchor text (the visible text appearing in links). Our experimental data suggested that other methods of anchor processing had greater success, so turning off this component made our scoring cleaner and more robust."

"Better interpretation and use of anchor text. We’ve improved systems we use to interpret and use anchor text, and determine how relevant a given anchor might be for a given query and website."

This task is quite more complicated because, ideally, you need as much data as possible. Exporting anchor text data from as many different data sources as possible is strongly recommended e.g. Majestic SEO, Ahrefs, Open Site Explorer, Sistrix, Blekko.

Next you would need to filter the data removing the following:

Dead links - These are sites that no longer link to your site but used to link in the past. Filtering out the dead links is absolutely necessary and some 3d party services offer such tools. Otherwise, proprietary link checkers can be used like the one we use at iCrossing UK - Alex Ovsianikov's creation. Counting dead links into a backlinks audit can result in wrong conclusions.
Deindexed linking root domains - It's rather pointless carrying out a backlinks audit for Google including links from sites that Google has deindexed. NetPeak Checker, makes this task quite easy as it is explained on this post.
No follow links - These are unlikely to cause any overoptimisation issues and could be discounted
Site-wide links - These should be counted once, otherwise the anchor text distribution will be greatly skewed. Different services treat site-wides differently; hence you need to pay extra attention at how each service treats them.

After having applied the above filters, the remaining backlinks data could be analysed for different anchor text types such as:

Exact match targeted keywords e.g. hr software
Broad match keywords e.g. online hr software system
Brand terms e.g. BreatheHR, www.breatheHR.com
Keyword + brand terms e.g. Breathe HR software system
Image links
Other e.g. 'click here', 'this site' and other natural anchor text that doesn't fall under any of the above categories.

Having classified all different anchor text variations, it is now relatively easy to spot weaknesses - pay particular attention for spikes on exact match keywords as in the following graph:

D. How To Check For Unnatural Link Authority Spread

Another area where overoptimisation can occur is when backlinks are consistently gained from authoritative domains. Tom Anthony created a handy link profile tool to detect such anomalies.

In the following example the links authority of the site represented by the blue line seems quite unnatural compared to the backlinks authority spread of the other 4 sites, which seems far more natural. Any high spikes towards the middle of the graph could potentially be flagged by Google as suspicious attempts of PageRank maninpulation.

Proactively carrying out the above checks will help identify weaknesses on a site's backlink profile and be better prepared for Google's current and forthcoming "overoptimisation" updates.

Don’t Let The Penguin Leave You In the Cold

As with any new algorithmic update there will be winners and losers. Google have acknowledged that and there is a feedback form for web masters who feel that their site should not have been affected by the Penguin update.

If all the above fails, then try this petition where site owners are urging Google to kill the penguin update.

About the author
Modesto Siotos (@macmodi) works as a Senior Natural Search Analyst for iCrossing UK, where he focuses on technical SEO issues, link tactics and content strategy. Modesto is happy to share his experiences with others and posts regularly on digital marketing blog Connect.

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!

Weekly Address: A New Chapter in Afghanistan

Your Daily Snapshot for
Saturday, May 5, 2012

Weekly Address: A New Chapter in Afghanistan

President Obama calls on Congress to take the money we are no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the other half to rebuild America.

Watch the President's weekly address:

President Barack Obama tapes the weekly address in the Map Room of the White House, May 4, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Weekly Wrap Up

Your quick look at this week on WhiteHouse.gov:

Correspondents' Dinner: At the annual Correspondents' Dinner, which has been held since 1920, President Obama joked about himself and the coverage he has received from the reporters in attendance. In case you missed it -- or if you want to watch it again -- you watch President Obama's speech here.

U.S.-Japan Friendship: On Monday, President Obama met with Prime Minister Noda of Japan at the White House to reaffirm the U.S.-Japan Alliance, a 60-year old partnership and friendship that was exemplified in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the tsunami and nuclear crisis that followed. After a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office, the two leaders laid out a new joint vision to guide their alliance for decades to come.

Rebuilding America: Speaking to 3,000 attendees of the Building and Construction Trades Department conference in Washington, D.C. Monday, President Obama made an argument for investing in rebuilding America and urged Congress to get construction workers on the job by passing a bipartisan bill that could guarantee work for millions of construction workers.

2012 Warrior Games: The First Lady joined Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Warrior Games Monday -- an event that enables men and women who suffered injuries during a tour of duty to compete in a variety of athletic events. "No matter how seriously you're injured, no matter what obstacles or setbacks you face, you just keep moving forward," the First Lady remarked. "You just keep pushing yourselves to succeed in ways that just mystify and leave us all in awe."

Surprise Trip: President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday, where he signed an historic agreement -- the Strategic Partnership Agreement -- between the United States and Afghanistan that defines how the partnership between the two countries will be normalized as we look beyond a responsible end to the war. After his meeting with President Karzai, President Obama met with U.S. troops at Bagram Air Base, and took the opportunity to thank them for the sacrifices that they and their families have made over the past decade of war.

Cinco de Mayo: President Obama hosted a Cinco de Mayo reception Thursday -- a few days early -- at the White House. Speaking from the Rose Garden, President Obama remarked, "Right now, there are more than 50 million Americans of Latino descent -- one sixth of our population. You're our neighbors, our coworkers, our family, our friends. You're starting businesses. You're teaching in classrooms. You're defending this country. You're driving America forward."

West Wing Week: Your video guide to everything that's happening this week at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Watch here.

Stay Connected

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Seth's Blog : A simple antidote to a corporatized, unfeeling, profit-maximizing world

A simple antidote to a corporatized, unfeeling, profit-maximizing world

Care.

Care more than you need to, more often than expected, more completely than the other guy.

No one reports liking Steve Jobs very much, yet he was as embraced as any businessperson since Walt Disney. Because he cared. He cared deeply about what he was making and how it would be used. Of course, he didn't just care in a general, amorphous, whiny way, he cared and then actually delivered.

Politicians are held in astonishingly low esteem. Congress in particular is setting record lows, but it's an endemic problem. The reason? They consistenly act as if they don't care. They don't care about their peers, certainly, and by their actions, apparently, they don't care about us. Money first.

Many salespeople face a similar problem--perhaps because for years they've used a shallow version of caring as a marketing technique to boost their commissions. One report by the National Association of Realtors found that more than 90% of all homeowners are never again contacted by their real estate agent after the contracts for the home are signed. Why bother... there's no money in it, just the possibility of complaints. Well, the reason is obvious--you'd come by with cookies and intros to the neighbors if you cared.

Economists tell us that the reason to care is that it increases customer retention, profitability and brand value. For me, though, that's beside the point (and even counter to the real goal). Caring gives you a compass, a direction to head and most of all, a reason to do the work you do in the first place.

Care More.

It's only two words, but it's hard to think of a better mantra for the organization that is smart enough to understand the core underpinning of their business, as well as one in search of a reason for being. No need to get all tied up in subcycles of this leads to this which leads to that so therefore I care... Instead, there's the opportunity to follow the direct and difficult road of someone who truly cares about what's being made and who it is for.

• Email to a friend •

vineri, 4 mai 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Payroll Disaster: Nonfarm Payroll +115,000 Establishment Survey But -169,000 Household Survey, Labor Force Drops by 342,000
Spotlight Australia: Collapse in Service Sector; Unrelenting Discount Wars; Catastrophic Decline in Profits; Stranded Merchandise in Warehouses
California has 12% of US Population, 33% of Welfare Recipients; Texas is Best State to Do Business; California, Illinois, and New York the Worst; Where Does Your State Rank?

Payroll Disaster: Nonfarm Payroll +115,000 Establishment Survey But -169,000 Household Survey, Labor Force Drops by 342,000

Posted: 04 May 2012 07:55 AM PDT

Quick Notes About the Unemployment Rate

US Unemployment Rate fell .01 to 8.1%
In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,638,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 945,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,693,000.
The Civilian Labor Force fell by 342,000.
Those "Not in Labor Force" increased by 522,000. If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed.
Those "Not in Labor Force" is at a new record high of 87,419,000.
By the Household Survey, the number of people employed fell by 169,000.
By the Household Survey, over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by 2,237,000.
Participation Rate fell .2 to 63.6%
There are 7,853,000 workers who are working part-time but want full-time work
Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.

This month was another disaster. Actual employment fell by 169,000 and the only reason the unemployment rate dropped is the civilian labor force fell by 342,000. These numbers are well past the point of believability and will be revised at some point in my opinion.

Over the past several years people have dropped out of the labor force at an astounding, almost unbelievable rate, holding the unemployment rate artificially low. Some of this was due to major revisions last month on account of the 2010 census finally factored in. However, most of it is simply economic weakness.

Jobs Report at a Glance

Here is an overview of today's release.

US Payrolls +115,000 - Establishment Survey
US Unemployment Rate dropped .01 to 8.1% - Household Survey
Average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 34.5 hours
The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.8 hours.
Average hourly earnings for all employees in the private sector rose by 1 cent.

Recall that the unemployment rate varies in accordance with the Household Survey not the reported headline jobs number, and not in accordance with the weekly claims data.

April 2012 Jobs Report

Please consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) April 2012 Employment Report.

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 115,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 8.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in professional and business services, retail trade, and health care, but declined in transportation and warehousing.

Unemployment Rate - Seasonally Adjusted

Nonfarm Employment - Payroll Survey - Annual Look - Seasonally Adjusted

Employment is about where it was just prior to the 2001 recession.

Nonfarm Employment - Payroll Survey - Monthly Look - Seasonally Adjusted

click on chart for sharper image

Between January 2008 and February 2010, the U.S. economy lost 8.8 million jobs.

Since a recent employment low in February 2010, nonfarm payrolls have expanded by 3.7 million jobs. Of the 8.8 million jobs lost between January 2008 and February 2010, 42 percent have been recovered.

Statistically, 125,000+- jobs a month is enough to keep the unemployment rate flat. For a discussion, please see Question on Jobs: How Many Does It Take to Keep Up With Demographics?

The average employment gain over the last 26 months has been 142,000, barely enough (statistically speaking) to make a dent in the unemployment rate.

Yet, the civilian unemployment rate has fell from 9.8% to 8.1%.

Current Report Jobs

Average Weekly Hours

Index of Aggregate Weekly Hours

Average Hourly Earnings vs. CPI

"Success" of QE2 and Operation Twist

Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.8 percent. In March, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) had an over-the-year increase of 2.6 percent; growth in prices has recently been outpacing growth in earnings.
Not only are wages rising slower than the CPI, there is also a concern as to how those wage gains are distributed.

BLS Birth-Death Model Black Box

The BLS Birth/Death Model is an estimation by the BLS as to how many jobs the economy created that were not picked up in the payroll survey.

The Birth-Death numbers are not seasonally adjusted while the reported headline number is. In the black box the BLS combines the two coming out with a total.

The Birth Death number influences the overall totals, but the math is not as simple as it appears. Moreover, the effect is nowhere near as big as it might logically appear at first glance.

Do not add or subtract the Birth-Death numbers from the reported headline totals. It does not work that way.

Birth/Death assumptions are supposedly made according to estimates of where the BLS thinks we are in the economic cycle. Theory is one thing. Practice is clearly another as noted by numerous recent revisions.

Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2011

Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2012

Birth-Death Note

Once again: Do NOT subtract the Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.

Household Survey Data

click on chart for sharper image

In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,638,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 945,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,693,000.

That is an amazing "achievement" to say the least, and as noted above most of this is due to economic weakness not census changes.

Decline in Labor Force Factors

Discouraged workers stop looking for jobs
People retire because they cannot find jobs
People go back to school hoping it will improve their chances of getting a job
People stay in school longer because they cannot find a job

Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.

Part Time Status

click on chart for sharper image

There are 7,853,000 workers who are working part-time but want full-time work.

Table A-15

click on chart for sharper image

Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.

Notice I said "better" approximation not to be confused with "good" approximation.

The official unemployment rate is 8.1%. However, if you start counting all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 14.5%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Grossly Distorted Statistics

Given the complete distortions of reality with respect to not counting people who allegedly dropped out of the work force, it is easy to misrepresent the headline numbers.

Digging under the surface, the drop in the unemployment rate over the past two years is nothing but a statistical mirage. Things are much worse than the reported numbers indicate.

Note the drop in U-6 unemployment this month as the Civilian Labor Force fell by 342,000. This is beyond statistical noise, to the point of pure statistical bullsheet.

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

Spotlight Australia: Collapse in Service Sector; Unrelenting Discount Wars; Catastrophic Decline in Profits; Stranded Merchandise in Warehouses

Posted: 04 May 2012 12:05 AM PDT

Australia in in grim shape. Retailers are going under, home prices are sinking, and there is an enormous collapse in the entire service sector.

Collapse in Service Sector

Markit reports Australia Services Sector Slumps in April

KEY FINDINGS

The latest seasonally adjusted Australian Industry Group/Commonwealth Bank Australian Performance of Services Index (Australian PSI®) slumped by 7.4 points to 39.6 in April (readings below 50 indicate a contraction in activity with the distance from 50 indicative of the strength of the decline). This was the lowest monthly reading since March 2009.

The sharp fall in the Australian PSI® was driven by declines in the sales and new orders components of the index, which are now both at their lowest levels in almost three years.

Reports of weak trading conditions were widespread across all services sub-sectors and all states.

Consistent with these reports and with the latest weakening in Australian inflation (with headline inflation just 1.6% p.a. in the March quarter), the input prices and average wages and selling prices indices are now back at or below the levels seen during the Global Financial Crisis.

The sharp fall in the Australian PSI® was driven by especially large declines in the activity indices of the finance & insurance, personal & recreational services and health & community services sub-sectors.

NEW ORDERS

On a seasonally adjusted basis, new orders contracted further in April.

The new orders sub-index fell by 11.9 points to 35.8, which is similar to the levels seen following the Global Financial Crisis in 2009.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new orders declined across all service sub-sectors in April, with particularly sharp declines reported in the health & community services and personal & recreational services sub-sectors.

Price Squeeze

Check out the enormous margin squeeze on Australian service sector businesses.

click on chart for sharper image

Input prices have risen for 110 consecutive months and wages have risen for 33 consecutive months, but sales, new orders, and selling prices have collapsed.

Catastrophic Decline in Profit

The Age reports Retailers hit fast-forward in a race to the bottom

THE unrelenting and deep discounting war being fought in the retail sector has notched up its second victim in a week, with Harvey Norman revealing its pre-tax profit slumped 44 per cent in the March quarter.

Sales for the first nine months of this financial year have fallen nearly 7 per cent.

Only last week, rival electronics and entertainment retailer JB Hi-Fi - which released its own disappointing sales and profit forecast due to the double punch of price deflation and price competition - named Harvey Norman as one of the main culprits of the race to the bottom.
Advertisement: Story continues below

Yesterday, Harvey Norman said the technology category continued to be challenged by declining average selling prices, with global sales falling 6.7 per cent to $4.39 billion for the nine months to March 31.

Comparable-store sales, which take out the contribution of new stores, slipped 6.6 per cent.

Australia, the company's key region, led the decline, and showed a worsening trend through the nine months. First-quarter sales were down 2.9 per cent, but that accelerated to a 10.2 per cent fall in the second quarter, and sales in the third quarter were down 9.2 per cent.

Third-quarter, like-for-like sales were down 7.9 per cent in New Zealand, 5 per cent weaker in Slovenia-Croatia and 1.3 per cent stronger in Ireland.

The knock-on effect to pre-tax profit has been catastrophic.

Stranded Merchandise in Warehouses

Please consider Freight firm fails at cost of 1000 jobs

RETAILERS and building suppliers across the country have been left with large amounts of stock stranded in the warehouses of collapsed transport firm 1st Fleet.
The express freight and warehousing company yesterday sacked its entire workforce, of 600 permanent employees and 400 sub-contractors.

It collapsed with debts worth tens of millions of dollars, triggered by the withdrawal of its lead banker, Coface, from its Australian portfolio.

Near midnight on Tuesday, night-shift workers at company depots were confronted by the firm's administrators and security guards, who locked them out and changed the locks. In Melbourne, most found out they no longer had a job when they turned up for the 7am shift.

Neil Chambers from the Victorian Transport Association said the economic climate for transport and logistics companies was as bad as during the 2008 financial crisis. "1st Fleet is almost like the tip of the iceberg," he said, with wafer-thin margins sending small transport firms to the wall.

RBA downgrades Australian Growth Forecasts, More Rate Cuts Likely

The Australian reports RBA downgrades Australian growth forecasts, more rate cuts likely

THE Reserve Bank of Australia dramatically downgraded its growth forecasts for the Australian economy, sparking the prospect that more interest rate cuts could be ordered in the next few months.

In its quarterly Statement of Monetary Policy, the RBA said that the domestic economy would now grow by just 2.75 per cent by June, down from its forecast of 3.5 per cent delivered just three months ago.

The economy is then predicted to bounce back slightly to 3 per cent by the end of 2012.
The RBA has also softened its inflation forecasts, which economists predict will likely bring on more interest rate cuts.

Not Dramatic Enough

I have no idea what the RBA is smoking but "growth" is not in the picture, nor is a year-end bounce.

Does the RBA even believe what they are saying? If they did, they would not have cut by a half, surprising nearly every economist in the country.

Alternatively, they are monetarist clowns who actually believe they can fine tune the economy with monetary policy even though the enormous property bubble proves otherwise.

Australia in Recession

Australia is now in recession and it will be a long, harsh one, no matter what the RBA does or doesn't do. Retail prices are too high, wages are too high, real estate prices are too high, and belief in policy makers is too high.

Many Australians have been emailing me for years that Australia is recession proof., that housing is in short supply and Chinese exports will keep the economy humming.

Reality is about to set in big, big-time.

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

California has 12% of US Population, 33% of Welfare Recipients; Texas is Best State to Do Business; California, Illinois, and New York the Worst; Where Does Your State Rank?

Posted: 03 May 2012 10:15 PM PDT

Chief Executive's eighth annual survey of best states to do business shows Another Triumph for Texas

In Chief Executive's eighth annual survey of CEO opinion of Best and Worst States in which to do business, Texas easily clinched the No. 1 rank, the eighth successive time it has done so. California earns the dubious honor of being ranked dead last for the eighth consecutive year.

This year, 650 business leaders responded to our annual survey, up from 550 in 2011. CEOs were asked to grade states in which they do business among a variety of areas, including tax and regulation, quality of workforce and living environment. The Lone Star State was given high marks foremost for its business-friendly tax and regulatory environment. But its workforce quality, second only to Utah's, is also highly regarded.

Florida moved up from number three last year to number two.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Texas and Florida have the highest net migration of people to their states from 2001 to 2009. (By contrast, New York and California lost over 1.6 million and 1.5 million in net migration out of the states, respectively, over the same period.)

It may be no accident that most of the states in the top 20 are also right-to-work states, as labor force flexibility is highly sought after when a business seeks a location.

California's enduring place of perpetual decline continues in this year's ranking. Once the most attractive business environment, the Golden State appears to slip deeper into the ninth circle of business hell. The economy, which used to outperform the rest of the country, now substantially underperforms. And its status as the most ruinously contentious place to operate remains undisturbed in eight years. Its unemployment rate, at 10.9 percent, is higher than every other state except Nevada and Rhode Island.

With 12 percent of America's population, California has one-third of the nation's welfare recipients. Each year, the evidence that businesses are leaving California or avoid locating there because of the high cost of doing business due to excessive state taxes and stringent regulations, grows.

Bottom 10

Please consider a Slideshow of the Bottom 10.

Illinois is trying hard for that top spot, but California and New York are tough competition.

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

sâmbătă, 5 mai 2012

How To Survive Google's Unnatural Links Warnings & Avoid Over-optimisation

How To Survive Google's Unnatural Links Warnings & Avoid Over-optimisation

D. How To Check For Unnatural Link Authority Spread

Don’t Let The Penguin Leave You In the Cold

Weekly Address: A New Chapter in Afghanistan

Seth's Blog : A simple antidote to a corporatized, unfeeling, profit-maximizing world

A simple antidote to a corporatized, unfeeling, profit-maximizing world

More Recent Articles

vineri, 4 mai 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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sâmbătă, 5 mai 2012

How To Survive Google's Unnatural Links Warnings & Avoid Over-optimisation

How To Survive Google's Unnatural Links Warnings &amp; Avoid Over-optimisation

D. How To Check For Unnatural Link Authority Spread

Don’t Let The Penguin Leave You In the Cold

Weekly Address: A New Chapter in Afghanistan

Seth's Blog : A simple antidote to a corporatized, unfeeling, profit-maximizing world

A simple antidote to a corporatized, unfeeling, profit-maximizing world

More Recent Articles

vineri, 4 mai 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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Persoane interesate

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How To Survive Google's Unnatural Links Warnings & Avoid Over-optimisation