marți, 17 iunie 2014

Feeding the Hummingbird: Structured Markup Isn't the Only Way to Talk to Google

Feeding the Hummingbird: Structured Markup Isn't the Only Way to Talk to Google

Feeding the Hummingbird: Structured Markup Isn't the Only Way to Talk to Google

Posted: 16 Jun 2014 05:04 PM PDT

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

I used to laugh at the idea of Hummingbird optimization.

In a recent poll, Moz asked nearly 300 marketers which Google updated affected their traffic the most. Penguin and Panda were first and second, followed by Hummingbird in a distant third.

Which Google update had the biggest affect on your web traffic?

Unsurprising, because unlike Panda and Penguin, Hummingbird doesn't specifically combat webspam. 

Ever wonder why Google named certain algorithms after black and white animals (i.e. black hat vs. white hat?) Hummingbird is a broader algorithm altogether, and Hummingbirds can be any color of the rainbow.

One aspect of Hummingbird is about better understanding of your content, not just specific SEO tactics.

Hummingbird also represents an evolutionary step in entity-based search that Google has worked on for years, and it will continue to evolve. In a way, optimizing for entity search is optimizing for search itself.

Many SEOs limit their understanding of entity search to vague concepts of structured data, Schema.org, and Freebase. They fall into the trap of thinking that the only way to participate in the entity SEO revolution is to mark up your HTML with complex schema.org microdata.

Not true.

Don't misunderstand; schema.org and structured data are awesome. If you can implement structured data on your website, you should. Structured data is precise, can lead to enhanced search snippets, and helps search engines to understand your content. But Schema.org and classic structured data vocabularies also have key shortcomings:

  1. Schema types are limited. Structured data is great for people, products, places, and events, but these cover only a fraction of the entire content of the web. Many of us markup our content using Article schema, but this falls well short of describing the hundreds of possible entity associations within the text itself. 
  2. Markup is difficult. Realistically, in a world where it's sometimes difficult to get authors to write a title tag or get engineers to attach an alt attribute to an image, implementing proper structured data to source HTML can be a daunting task.
  3. Adoption is low. A study last year of 2.4 billion web pages showed less than 25% contained structured data markup. A recent SearchMetrics study showed even less adoption, with only 0.3% of websites out of over 50 million domains using Schema.org.

This presents a challenge for search engines, which want to understand entity relationships across the entire web - not simply the parts we choose to mark up. 

In reality, search engines have worked over 10 years - since the early days of Google - at extracting entities from our content without the use of complex markup.

How search engines understand relationships without markup

Here's a simple explanation of a complex subject. 

Search engines can structure your content using the concept of triples. This means organizing keywords into a framework of subject → predicate → object.

Structured data frameworks like schema.org work great because they automatically classify information into a triple format. Take this example from Schema.org.

<div itemscope itemtype ="http://schema.org/Movie">    <h1 itemprop="name">Avatar</h1>    <span>Director: <span itemprop="director">James Cameron</span> (born August 16, 1954)</span>    <span itemprop="genre">Science fiction</span>    <a href="../movies/avatar-theatrical-trailer.html" itemprop="trailer">Trailer</a>  </div><br>

Extracting the triples from this code sample would yield:

Avatar (Movie) → Has Director → James Cameron

Subject → Predicate → Object

The challenge is: Can search engines extract this information for the 90%+ of your content that isn't marked up with structured data? 

Yes, they can.

Triples, triples everywhere

Ask Google a question like who is the president of Harvard or how many astronauts walked on the moon, and Google will often answer from a page with no structured data present.

Consider this query for the ideal length of a title tag.

Google is able to extract the semantic meaning from this page even though the properties of "length" and its value of 50-60 characters are not structured using classic schema.org markup.

Matt Cutts recently revealed that Google uses over 500 algorithms. That means 500 algorithms that layer, filter and interact in different ways. The evidence indicates that Google has many techniques of extracting entity and relationship data that may work independent of each other.

Regardless, whether you are a master of schema.org or not, here are tips for communicating entity and relationship signals within your content.

1. Keywords

Yes, good old fashioned keywords.

Even without structured markup, search engines have the ability to parse keywords into their respective structure. 

But keywords by themselves only go so far. In order for this method to work, your keywords must be accompanied by appropriate predicates and objects. In other words, you sentences provide fuel to search engines when they contain detailed information with clear subjects and organization.

Consider this example of the relationships extracted from our title tag page by AlchemyAPI:

Entities Extracted via AlchemyAPI

There's evidence Google has worked on this technology for over 10 years, ever since it acquired the company Applied Semantics in 2003.

For deeper understanding, Bill Slawski wrote an excellent piece on Google's ability to extract relationship meaning from text, as well as AJ Kohn's excellent advice on Google's Knowledge Graph optimization.

2. Tables and HTML elements

This is old school SEO that folks today often forget.

HTML (and HTML5), by default, provide structure to webpages that search engines can extract. By using lists, tables, and proper headings, you organize your content in a way that makes sense to robots. 

In the example below, the technology exists for search engines to easily extract structured relationship about US president John Adams in this Wikipedia table.

The goal isn't to get in Google's Knowledge Graph, (which is exclusive to Wikipedia and Freebase). Instead, the objective is to structure your content in a way that makes the most sense and relationships between words and concepts clear. 

For a deeper exploration, Bill Slawski has another excellent write up exploring many different techniques search engines can use to extract structured data from HTML-based content.

3. Entities and synonyms

What do you call the President of the United States? How about:

  • Barack Obama
  • POTUS (President Of The United States)
  • Commander in Chief
  • Michelle Obama's Husband
  • First African American President

In truth, all of these apply to the same entity, even though searchers will look for them in different ways. If you wanted to make clear what exactly your content was about (which president?) two common techniques would be to include:

  1. Synonyms of the subject: We mean the President of the United States → Barack Obama → Commander in Chief and → Michelle Obama's Husband
  2. Co-occuring phrases: If we're talking about Barack Obama, we're more likely to include phrases like Honolulu (his place of birth), Harvard (his college), 44th (he is the 44th president), and even Bo (his dog). This helps specify exactly which president we mean, and goes way beyond the individual keyword itself.

entities and synonyms for SEO

Using synonyms and entity association also has the benefit of appealing to broader searcher intent. A recent case study by Cognitive SEO demonstrated this by showing significant gains after adding semantically related synonyms to their content.

4. Anchor text and links

Links are the original relationship connector of the web.

Bill Slawski (again, because he is an SEO god) writes about one method Google might use to identity synonyms for entities using anchor text. It appears Google also uses anchor text in far more sophisticated ways. 

When looking at Google answer box results, you almost always find related keyword-rich anchor text pointing to the referenced URL. Ask Google "How many people walked on the moon?" and you'll see these words in the anchor text that points to the URL Google displays as the answer.

Other queries:

Anchor text of Google's Answer Box URL

In these examples and more that I researched, matching anchor text was present every time in addition to the relevant information and keywords on the page itself.

Additionally, there seems to be an inidication that internal anchor text might also influence these results.

This is another argument to avoid generic anchor text like "click here" and "website." Descriptive and clear anchor text, without overdoing it, provides a wealth of information for search engines to extract meaning from.

5. Leverage Google Local

For local business owners, the easiest and perhaps most effective way to establish structured relationships is through Google Local. The entire interface is like a structured data dashboard without Schema.org.

When you consider all the data you can upload both in Google+ and even Moz Local, the possibilities to map your business data is fairly complete in the local search sense.

In case you missed it, last week Google introduced My Business which makes maintaining your listings even easier.

6. Google Structured Data Highlighter

Sometimes, structured data is still the way to go.

In times when you have trouble adding markup to your HTML, Google offers its Structured Data Highlighter tool. This allows you to tell Google how your data should be structured, without actually adding any code.

The tool uses a type of machine learning to understand what type of schema applies to your pages, up to thousands at a time. No special skills or coding required.

Google Webmaster Structured Data Highlighter

Although the Structured Data Highlighter is both easy and fun, the downsides are:

  1. The data is only available to Google. Other search engines can't see it.
  2. Markup types are limited to a few major top categories (Articles, Events, etc)
  3. If your HTML changes even a little, the tool can break.

Even though it's simple, the Structured Data Highlighter should only be used when it's impossible to add actual markup to your site. It's not a substitution for the real thing.

7. Plugins

For pure schema.org markup, depending on the CMS you use, there's often a multitude of plugins to make the job easier.

If you're a Wordpress user, your options are many:

Looking forward

If you have a chance to add Schema.org (or any other structured data to your site), this will help you earn those coveted SERP enhancements that may help with click-through rate, and may help search engines better understand your content.

That said, semantic understanding of the web goes far beyond rich snippets. Helping search engines to better understand all of your content is the job of the SEO. Even without Hummingbird, these are exactly the types of things we want to be doing.

It's not "create content and let the search engines figure it out." It's "create great content with clues and proper signals to help the search engines figure it out." 

If you do the latter, you're far ahead in the game.


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!
Publicat de 1 la 11:00 0 comentarii

Bulk Update Ad Group Labels with an AdWords Script

Bulk Update Ad Group Labels with an AdWords Script

Link to White.net

Bulk Update Ad Group Labels with an AdWords Script

Posted: 17 Jun 2014 12:55 AM PDT

AdWords Labels! They're so useful! At least they are once you've got them applied.

You can use them to segment ad groups by product types, or tag recently changed bids, or see how a multi-ad-group ad test is going with ease… but for some reason, two years after their announcement, you still can't bulk edit labels. You can't even see them in Editor. You've got to manually add them in the online interface.

You could use comments in Editor instead of labels, but it's hard to make this work if you're in a team: comments aren't shared automatically. Also you can't see totals, and there isn't an easy way to get a time series.

There is, however, an alternative: AdWords Scripts can read data from Google Doc spreadsheets, and they can create and apply labels – so all you need to do is have a bulk sheet in a Google Doc and let a Script do the hard work.

Here's how to do that to apply labels to ad groups.

The Google Doc

Just go to Google Drive, create a spreadsheet, and fill it in a bit like this:
A spreadsheet with columns 'Campaign', 'Ad Group', 'Label' and 'Notes'

Leave the 'Notes' column blank – it isn't for your notes, it's where the Script will say if it's applied the label, or if there's been a problem.

The AdWords Script

In your AdWords account go to 'Bulk operations', then 'Scripts', then click the red '+ SCRIPT' button. Name it something sensible (like 'Ad Group Labeller') and copy and paste in this code:

function main() {
// Applies labels to specified ad groups, based on a Google Doc Spreadsheet.
// From http://white.net/blog/bulk-update-ad-group-labels-adwords-script/

//Change this to your spreadsheet's URL!
var spreadsheetUrl = "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/YOUR-URL-HERE";

var inputSheet = SpreadsheetApp.openByUrl(spreadsheetUrl).getActiveSheet(); //The sheet in the Google Doc
var i = 2; //Integer for the loop
var numberOfLabels = inputSheet.getLastRow() //Number of rows in the sheet, which is the number of ad groups that want to be labelled

while (i <= numberOfLabels) //This loops through all the rows
{
if (inputSheet.getRange("D"+i).getValue() == "") //If there are no notes for the current row
{

var labelCampaignName = inputSheet.getRange("A" + i).getValue();
var labelAdGroupName = inputSheet.getRange("B" + i).getValue();
var labelText =inputSheet.getRange("C" + i).getValue();

var printToSpreadsheet = "-"
//This is a variable that records what will be noted in the spreadsheet for each ad group (whether the label has been added, or there was an error)

var adGroupIterator = AdWordsApp.adGroups() //Finds the ad groups with the specified name and campaign name
.withCondition("CampaignName = '" + labelCampaignName + "'")
.withCondition("Name = '" + labelAdGroupName +"'")
.get();

if (adGroupIterator.hasNext()) //If there is an ad group then the label will be applied
{
var adGroup = adGroupIterator.next();
AdWordsApp.createLabel(labelText); //Creates the label - if the label already exists then there may be an error, but the Script will continue
adGroup.applyLabel(labelText); //Applies the label to the group
printToSpreadsheet = "Done";
}
else
{
//This means the ad group iterator was empty, so there wasn't an ad group of the right name (or a campaign of the right name).
printToSpreadsheet = "Ad group not found"; //An error message will be recorded in the spreadsheet.
}

inputSheet.getRange("D" + i).setValue(printToSpreadsheet); //Writes into the Notes column in the spreadsheet
Logger.log("Label " + labelText + " applied to '" + labelAdGroupName + "' in '"+ labelCampaignName +"':" + printToSpreadsheet); //Also writes into the Log

}//End 'if there are notes'

i = i+1;

}//End while loop
}

Remember to change the spreadsheet URL, so that it looks at the right spreadsheet!

You need to click the 'Authorise now' button before the Script can run (don't worry – it won't make changes aside from adding labels). Then you can click 'Run script now' and see if it works.

The Results

Check your ad groups – they should be labelled!

Also check the Notes column in your Google Doc:
The spreadsheet, now with the Notes filled in

Here you see there's been a problem with the last ad group – it looks like I've mistyped the ad group name. So I can either add a row to the bottom of the spreadsheet with the correct ad group name, or I could apply the label manually.

If the Script timed out then there would be rows without anything in the Notes column: in that case you can just try running the Script again.

And next time you want to label a bunch of groups, you can replace the contents of the Doc with the new set of groups to label and run the Script again – without any more messing with code.

Note – You're Likely to See Errors in the Summary

When you run this Script there's likely to be errors saying "You’re already using this label name". That's because AdWords needs you to create a label before applying it to something, and I haven't worked out an efficient way to check if a label exists: so the Script just tries to create a new label every time, and if it already exists then there's an error message which is just ignored. If anyone has a better idea how to handle this, please comment!

On the other hand, you won't see errors in the summary if ad groups haven't been found: you need to check the Google Doc for that.

Alternatives

PPC Hero also have a Script for applying labels to keywords, but it applies the same label to a list of keywords (and the label text is hard-coded, so you'd need to change the code manually to make different labels), and it doesn't have a way of coping if the Script times out. Also it goes through all keywords and then checks if they match one in the list – I'm not sure if this is more efficient in general than my 'grab the data lots of times' approach, but I suspect it's not as good if you only want to label a few keywords in a large account.

Scripts for Labelling Keywords and Ads Coming Soon…

So, does this Script work for you? Are there other similar Scripts I haven't found yet? Have you found a more efficient way to work with labels? If you've got any comments then write in below…

Image credit: Tagged by JD Hancock

The post Bulk Update Ad Group Labels with an AdWords Script appeared first on White.net.

SMX Advanced 2014 – Seattle

Posted: 13 Jun 2014 09:48 AM PDT

What a great week this has been! Why you may ask? Well this week I attended SMX Advanced over in Seattle, one of the most talked about and recommended search marketing conferences in the world.

The week started off with a trip to the Moz office for a look around, followed by the SMX Advanced conference and networking sessions, ending on Thursday with me and Stuart beating Matt Cutts and partner in a game of pool.

Beating Matt Cutts from Google in Pool at SMX Advanced 2014

But it was the conference that I was here for, and I wasn’t disappointed. The content that was available was great from some very good marketers. The calibre of the attendees was also extremely good, with some interesting questions being asked and some great conversations had during the networking sessions.

In this post I have provided my thoughts and some key points from a selected number of sessions that I thought you would be most interested in, and would provide the most value.

The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors in 2014.

The very first session of the conference was extremely interesting with some of the points that came from it. With Marcus Tober, Marianne Sweeny and Matthew Brown providing some valuable insight from there own experiences and survey data.

One of the biggest take-aways from the session was to make sure that what ever you do, whether it is from a marketing or UX point of view make sure it is done for the user. All three of the speakers spoke about the importance of site speed, and ensuring that both the user.

Here are some of the key points from this session:

  • SEO has to be concerned with UX and UX has to be concerned about SEO.
  • Understand what Google are going to use when there are not enough links to rank a page but the page is of value.
  • Mobile usage is continuing to increase at a rapid rate, but how do you link to a page on a mobile?
  • 77% of URLs are different in search when comparing Mobile vs Desktop usage.
  • Don’t make the image to overpowering, as users prefer the content.
  • Content is important, but it is more important to have quality content. To understand whether you have quality content you need to conduct a content audit/inventory.
  • Update your content on a regular basis where possible without changing the URL. This is especially true for those evergreen pieces that can be updated and shared regularly.
  • Create content for where the user is, not for where you think the user is. You can understand this by looking at pageviews and page/folder level within your analytics.
  • You really need to be utilising structured data, but you need to have the right markup implemented as it could lead to you losing clicks.
  • Focus on entity optimisation! This a big focus for Google, so you need to get up to scratch and quickly.

Keyword research on Roids!

For me, this session was mainly about the second talk with Rae Hoffman (@sugarrae) talking about how she uses SEMrush alongside other tools to find opportunities for optimisation and content. Now I am not saying the other talks weren’t great, I just felt that they were more talks about what you could do rather than providing actionable data.

Here are some of the key points from this session:

  • The question is not whether mobile is an important part of the process. Its about understanding how each device influences the consumer differently.
  • Conduct keyword research to identify topics that relate to content opportunities.
  • Utilise Analytics to identify the top 50-100 landing pages. Once you have these put them into SEMrush to identify the keywords that they are ranking for.
  • Segment your keyword research into categories. These categories could include topics such as content marketing, category pages, related terms and opportunities.
  • Do you know your position value? Use SEMrush’s total traffic, and remove the top 10 traffic driving terms to understand what portion of traffic they are driving.
  • Utilise the domain analysis tool within SEMrush to identify any keywords that you may have missed but your competitors are targeting.
  • You need to have a realistic understanding of whether you are really going to rank for a target term or phrase. Within SEMrush, they provide a keyword relevance score that will help you make the right choices.

During the Q&A of the session, there were two questions that drew quite a bit of discussion. The first was “what is more importaint in keyword research, search volume or conversions?” This was a relatively straightforward question in my opinion, with the answer being conversion first, utilising conversion rates to understand the potential money that you are going to receive, but if that isn’t possible then revert back to potential traffic.

The second question was how to utilise keyword data within GWT. The panel agreed that utilising the data was important but that the data is lost on a regular occurrence because GWT only shows 90 days worth.

Set an alert for every 90 days to download ALL of your GWT data or you will just lose it. – Rae Hoffman

and here are the slides…

What SEMs should do for Mobile.

A theme in a lot of sessions at SMX Advanced was that mobile is coming quickly, and the majority are not ready. Go and have a look at the Apple website on a mobile? Did you know that they don’t have a mobile website? Do they actually need one? Well that is another question but it goes to show that if one of the biggest companies in the world don’t have it nailed down, then what hope do the others.

For this session, the main focus was on strategy and advertising but one point that stuck with me is that people are having issues with tracking. We use many different mobile devices before we make a purchase, which makes attributing a purchase extremely difficult. This problem is something that will continue, but we would hope to be solved in the very near future.

Here are some of the key points from this session:

  • The question is not whether mobile is an important part of the process. Its about understanding how each device influences the consumer differently.
  • A critical step for mobile planning is to ensure your entire strategy, not just across mobile or other. It needs to be about business goals.
  • Mobile search drives multiple types of conversions – set kpis realistic to campaign objectives.
    • Enable click to call / call tracking.
    • mobie coupon codes.
    • enable location extensions.
    • instore mobile offers.
  • Mobile search drives multiple conversions and can’t be measured in isolation.
  • Utlise mobile ad extensions within advertising to take up more real-estate.
  • Track calls using different numbers across devices & desktop.
  • There are still people who have flip phones and use WAP. This means that you need to advertise to using WAP text ads.
  • Use localised numbers rather than 0800 numbers. People like to see real numbers.
  • There are 3 major problems with mobile – low conversions / the SEM auction is broken / there are tracking issues.
  • It is very difficult to understand cross-device attribution as there is so many touch points across them all before a purchase/action is made.

One bit of information that shocked me the most was how quickly the click through rate changes from position one to two when comparing it to the current desktop studies.

Click through rate dropped by 45% from position 1 to 2 on mobile devices – Jaclyn Jordan

Creating blockbuster content

As you would expect with the changes over recent times, content has been a big part of all the sessions that I attended. There was a constant message throughout that content that goes viral will not happen each and every time. It takes time to understand what works for each audience, what piece of content is relevant to the consumer at the right time, and is different or better than anything else that is available.

Here are some of the key points from this session:

  • Quality of content is far more important than quantity.
  • Content going forward needs to be mobile friendly, load fast, have authorship markup, include social signals and allows engagement.
  • Long form content tends to get more interaction, better engagement, is shared more and linked to.
  • Having great social signals gives a much better indication of the quality of content, alongside authorship.
  • Use keyword research to help inform content not be the main focus of your content.
  • Determine what works? Social signals, engagement, links.
  • Ensure that you break up paragraphs for easy reading and use images to summarise concepts.
  • Images are meant to serve a purpose not to fill a space.
  • Use internal search for content ideas.
  • Ask your staff one question to gather as much information as possible. “What is the one question you get asked all the time?”.
  • Use research tools such as Google Instant, Uber Suggest and yahoo Answers to see what people are looking for, and then create it better.

Content takes time. It can’t be done on a trial basis. It needs to be created, tested and updated to make content work.

and here are the slides…

Executing a Flawless Content Marketing Strategy

Here are some of the key points from this session:

  • Mobile apps are the future of content marketing, but HTML 5 responsive versions.
  • You need to have a strong call to action, otherwise what is the point?
  • Make your content interactive and engaging and it will help with getting to your goals!
  • Smaller newspapers generally have a more engaged audience, so look to these for coverage of your content.
  • Use Facebook Graph search to find journalists and gather as much information as possible. Use LinkedIn and send InMail for pitching.
  • Pitch as early as possible to have a better chance of getting interest and coverage.
  • Once you have a relationship, nurture it. its not a one night stand! Say thank you, use social & email to stay in touch, be available.

and here are the slides…

You&A with Matt Cutts & Danny Sullivan

As you would expect this was by far the most popular session of the conference with so many attendees wanting to quiz Matt about what is going on at Google, and what is coming next. Once this session got going it was extremely fast paced, so I am afraid I haven’t got many notes to share, however Rae Hoffman did an amazing job of tweeting and then fleshing out the content, so I would recommend going to have a read here.

Conclusion

Was it worth it? Yes! Most definitely. I have learn’t and picked up a lot of useful information whilst also meeting new people within the industry on the otherside of the pond. Now that I have experienced it, I am hoping that I can go back in the future, possible as a speaker…

The post SMX Advanced 2014 – Seattle appeared first on White.net.
Publicat de 1 la 05:10 0 comentarii

Seth's Blog : Most likely to succeed

 

Most likely to succeed

"Succeed" is in the eye of the beholder...

Most likely to hit a home run

Most likely to please my boss

Most likely to do the work

Most likely to work for free

Most likely to stick it out

Most likely to change everything

Most likely to be trustworth

Most likely to attract attention 

Most likely to be invisible

Most likely to be worth it

There are many versions of most likely to succeed. When you're looking for a gig or a client, the category you are placed in by those that choose is up to you. And no category = invisible.

       

 

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luni, 16 iunie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Three Cheers for Starbucks, But ...

Posted: 16 Jun 2014 07:14 PM PDT

Earlier today, Starbucks announced a College Achievement Plan in which it will pay for its baristi and other employees to go back and finish their college degrees.

Employees only have to work 20 hours a week to be eligible. The plan is an online program in partnership with Arizona State University.

For the first two years, Starbucks will pick up about half the employees expenses. For the final two years, Starbucks will pick up all of them. This presumes the students are eligible for Pell grants, which most of them should be as the employees make about $10 per hour.

Moreover, and unlike programs at other companies, there are no strings attached. Workers do not have to stay employed at Starbucks for any length of time after they graduate.

The offer only applies to company owned stores, not franchises. But that's not my "but ...", which I will get to in a moment.

Many Positives

From a marketing standpoint as well as a business standpoint, the announcement makes sense. For the students, what can be better?

In return, Starbucks will get very dedicated workers for four years. Employee loyalty will be exceptional and turnover low.

Think students will prefer Starbucks over other brands? I do. Many will be loyal to Starbucks for the rest of their lives.

Other Details

MarketWatch has other details in its report.

Bloomberg reports Starbucks to Pay U.S. Workers to Get Degree From ASU Online
Starbucks employees who work at least 20 hours a week and enroll in the university's online bachelor's degree will get $6,500 -- about half of their tuition -- for the first two years, the company said in a statement. They will then get full tuition for the final two.

"We've always known that our partners work hard every day," Cliff Burrows, president of Starbucks' Americas region, said in a phone interview. "This is the best way we can serve them."

Of Starbucks' 135,000 U.S. store employees, about 25 percent already have a bachelor's degree. Seattle-based Starbucks has about 11,600 U.S. locations. More schools besides ASU may be added to the program in the future, Schultz said during a webcast earlier today.
Please note that 25% of Starbucks workforce already has a degree. Clearly they cannot find jobs in their field of expertise.

Cost of Education

The Huffington Post reports "Tuition for an online degree at ASU is about $10,000 a year, roughly the same for its traditional educational programs."

That is my "but ...":

  1. Why should an online education cost as much as a traditional program?
  2. What has Arizona State done to lower costs for everyone?

To be sure, a degree at ASU is not as expensive as degrees from other universities, but $40,000 is a lot of money for most kids attempting to work their way through college.

Moreover, I am not in favor of Pell grants or student loans. The former is a taxpayer subsidy to teachers and administrators, not students.

Pell grants do nothing to increase competition, and everything to keep costs high. And student loans make debt slaves out of kids for decades.

While the Starbucks program addresses the debt slave issue, it does nothing to address the real problem: the extremely high cost of education at most US universities.

Still, this move by Starbucks is likely to pay dividends to both the students and the company. Things would be much better still if only government would get out of the way.

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

Russia Announces "Pay-First" Gas for Ukraine; Revised Estimates on How Long Ukraine's Gas Stockpile Will Last

Posted: 16 Jun 2014 11:34 AM PDT

Ukraine is now on a pay as you go system for natural gas following a breakdown in negotiations with Russia.

Ukraine is not under immediate threat having enough gas to last until September according to some reports, December in others.

Much depends on how cold, how fast Autumn turns into winter, and also on how much conservation Ukraine can manage in the meantime.

For now, I will accept Gazprom's estimate of mid-October rather than Ukraine's estimate of "until December" or earlier reports of "until September".

Please consider Russia Cuts Gas Supply to Ukraine as Tensions Soar.
Russia halted natural gas deliveries to Ukraine on Monday, spurning Ukraine's offer to pay some of its multibillion-dollar gas debt and demanding upfront payments for future supplies. Ukraine has enough reserves to last until December, according to the head of its state gas company Naftogaz.

Russia had demanded $1.95 billion by Monday for past-due bills. At talks over the weekend in Kiev, Ukraine was ready to accept a compromise of paying $1 billion now and more later, but Russia rejected the offer, the European Commission said.

Sergei Kupriyanov, spokesman for the Russian gas giant Gazprom, said since Ukraine missed the deadline, from now on it had to pay in advance for energy. Yet that's a nearly impossible demand for the cash-strapped nation, which is fighting an insurgency and investigating possibly billions lost to corruption under its former pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych.

In 2013, Ukraine imported nearly 26 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia, just over half of its annual consumption.

Kupriyanov said Russian gas supplies for Europe will continue through Ukrainian pipelines as planned and warned Ukraine to make sure they reach European customers.

At a news conference in Moscow, Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, berated the Ukrainian government, saying it scoffed at compromise and was deliberately turning commercial negotiations into a political discourse.

"Ukraine will get as much gas as it pays for," Miller said Monday. "The risks to the (gas) transit are there and they're significant."

He said in order to prevent serious disruptions to energy supplies in winter, Ukraine needs to pump in gas to its underground storages before mid-October. The current amount of gas in storage is not enough for Europe to last through the winter, he said.

Ukrainian consumers, however, will be facing higher prices no matter what Russia does. Previous governments had sold gas to consumers at about a fifth of what Naftogaz pays for it — leaving little incentive to conserve and saddling the government with huge deficits.

Ukraine's new government is in the process of raising domestic gas prices, a condition of its $17 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund.
Biting the Hand that Feeds You

Tensions are high enough already, yet Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk added fat tom the fire with his statement "We won't subsidize Gazprom," he said. "Ukrainians will not take $5 billion per year (out of their pockets) to let Russia spend this money on weapons, tanks and planes to bomb Ukrainian territory."

That's quite the charge. If Russia is indeed doing what Yatsenyuk stated, the two countries would be in an open state of warfare, and all gas would have been shut off long ago.

Meanwhile, Russia will keep the pipeline open provided gas flows through to Europe. The risk to Russia is substantial as the chance Ukraine siphons gas from the pipeline is high.

Last year, Russia offered gas to former prime minister Victor Yanukovych at a discounted rate, but that deal ended with his ouster.

It's ironic that Yatsenyuk complains about subsidizing Gazprom when Ukraine had a sweetheart deal and did not even pay discounted prices. Ukraine now owes Russia $4.458 billion for unpaid gas bills from the past two years.

I still expect cooler heads to prevail, with some agreement in due time, say the end of September or the middle of October, but there is always a chance things escalate out of control given reckless political comments and the downing of a Ukrainian jet by pro-Russia separatists.

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