Central Perk

marți, 9 septembrie 2014

On the Bus with Secretary Duncan

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For the fifth year in a row, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is hitting the road for the Department of Education's back-to-school bus tour.

This year's tour is themed "Partners in Progress," and the Secretary will be traveling through Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee to see educational innovation at work, and to discuss progress, promise, and results.

Yesterday, Secretary Duncan took over the White House's Instagram account to give you a behind-the-scenes look as he met teachers, parents, students, and education leaders who have been partners in making progress for our nation's children.

Follow along and get the latest bus tour updates here:

The Big List of SEO Tips and Tricks for Using HTTPS on Your Website

Posted: 08 Sep 2014 04:37 PM PDT

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

It's rare that Google reveals any of its actual ranking factors, so it came as a big surprise when representatives announced they would reward sites using HTTPS encryption with a boost in search results.

HTTPS isn't like other ranking factors. Implementing it requires complexity, risks, and costs. Webmasters balance this out with benefits that include increased security, better referral data, and a possible boost in rankings.

Google's push for HTTPS adoption appears to be working. A recent Moz Poll found 24% of webmasters planning to make the switch.

SEO advantages of switching to HTTPS

In addition to the security offered by HTTPS (which we'll discuss below) there are additional SEO benefits for marketers to take advantage of.

1. More referrer data

Whenever traffic passes from a secure HTTPS site to a non-secure HTTP site, the referral data gets stripped away. This traffic shows up in your analytics report as 'Direct.' This is a problem because you don't know where the traffic actually comes from.

If you use HTTP, traffic from sites like Hacker News shows up as 'direct', because Hacker News uses HTTPS.

Fortunately, there's a simple solution: when traffic passes to an HTTPS site, the secure referral information is preserved. This holds true whether the original site uses HTTP or HTTPS.

As more and more sites make the switch, this becomes increasingly important.

2. HTTPS as a rankings boost

On one hand, Google has confirmed the ranking boost of HTTPS. On the other hand, with over 200 ranking, it's likely you'll find the effect of any ranking influence to remain quiet small.

In fact, a recent study by Search Metrics showed no detectable advantage to sites using HTTPS.

Like most ranking signals, it is very hard to isolate on its own.

In fact, don't expect HTTPS to act as a silver bullet. If rankings are your only concern, there are likely dozens of things you can do that will have a bigger impact. Here are several:

14 SEO activities more impactful than HTTPS:

1. Attract links

2. Competitive analysis

3. Improve social meta tags

4. Reduce crawl errors

5. Fix duplicate content

6. Perform a site audit

7. Optimize for speed

8. Local optimization

9. International targeting

10. Create quality content

11. Target relevant search phrases

12. Freshen your content

13. Improve internal linking

14. On page optimization

3. Security and privacy

Many people argue that HTTPS only provides an advantage if your site uses sensitive passwords. That's not exactly true. Even regular boring content websites can benefit from HTTPS / SSL encryption.

HTTPS adds security in several ways:

HTTPS verifies that the website is the one the server it is supposed to be talking to,
Because HTTPS prevents tampering by 3rd parties, it stops Man-in-the-middle attacks, making your site more secure for visitors.
HTTPS encrypts all communication, including URLs, which protects things like browsing history and credit card numbers.

My advice is this: Make the switch to HTTPS if doing so is reasonable for your business. Security and trust add to the small ranking gains, making it worth the effort if you can.

Challenges to overcome with HTTPS

1. Mistakes happen

Moving your entire site to HTTPS requires many moving parts. It's easy to overlook important details.

Did you block important URLs in robots.txt?
Did you point your canonical tags at the wrong (HTTP) URL?
Is your website causing browser bars to display warnings that frighten people away from your site? (Side note: That's the very first article I wrote for SEOmoz!)

While rare, these problems do happen. Moz has spoken privately with webmasters who have seen both rankings and conversions plummet after implementing HTTPS.

In most cases it's a simple fix, but beware the risk.

2. Speed issues

Because HTTPS requires extra communication "handshakes" between servers, it has the potential to slow down your website – especially on slower sites.

Add to this the fact that speed is itself a ranking factor, especially on mobile.

The good news is, if you follow best practices your site should be more than fast enough to handle HTTPS. New HTTPS friendly technologies like SPDY offer you the opportunity to speed up your website more than ever before.

3. Costs

Many webmasters pay between $100-200 a year for SSL certificates. That's a significant amount for small websites. It's also a barrier that most spammers won't bother with.

On the other hand, it's completely possible to switch to HTTPS for free.

4. Not everything is ready for HTTPS

Sometimes, things don't play well with HTTPS. Older web applications can have trouble with HTTPS URLs. (Fortunately, Moz updated Open Site Explorer just this year.)

If you run AdSense, you may see your earnings fall significantly, as Google will restrict your ads to those that are SSL-compliant.

Even Google's own Webmaster Tools doesn't yet support HTTPS migration. The world may be moving toward 100% SSL encryption, but in the meantime be prepared for growing pains.

Growing number of sites using HTTPS

Lots and lots of sites use HTTPS today, but most restrict usage to checkout and registration pages.

Very, very few sites use HTTPS sitewide.

According to the latest statistics from BuiltWith, only 4.2% of the top 10,000 websites redirect users to SSL/HTTPS by default. While that number appears small, the percentage drops to 1.9% for the top million sites.

This number is likely to increase in the very near future as more websites pursue adoption.

SEO and HTTPS best practices

This post talks about the SEO implications of switching to HTTPS. If you are looking for a technical guide, there are several we'd recommend:

What type of SSL certificate works best?

Companies offer a myriad and confusing array of SSL certificates. The two primary ones to pay attention to are:

Standard Validation SSL – Standard level of validation. Typically cost between $0-$100.
Extended Validation SSL – Offers the highest level of validation and often costs between $100-500.

From a rankings point of view, it makes absolutely no difference what type of certificate you use. For now.

John Mueller of Google has stated that Google doesn't care what kind of SSL certificate your website uses, but that may change in the future.

From both a security and user experience point of view, the type of certificate you choose can have an impact. Consider how different certificates alter how your website appears in the web browser address bar.

The green bar associated with extended certificates communicates trust, while the warning symbols associated with errors can cause worry with visitors.

SEO checklist to preserve your rankings

Make sure every element of your website uses HTTPS, including widgets, java script, CSS files, images and your content delivery network.
Use 301 redirects to point all HTTP URLs to HTTPS. This is a no-brainer to most SEOs, but you'd be surprised how often a 302 (temporary) redirect finds its way to the homepage by accident
Make sure all canonical tags point to the HTTPS version of the URL.
Use relative URLs whenever possible.
Rewrite hard-coded internal links (as many as is possible) to point to HTTPS. This is superior to pointing to the HTTP version and relying on 301 redirects.
Register the HTTPS version in both Google and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Use the Fetch and Render function in Webmaster Tools to ensure Google can properly crawl and render your site.
Update your sitemaps to reflect the new URLs. Submit the new sitemaps to Webmaster Tools. Leave your old (HTTP) sitemaps in place for 30 days so search engines can crawl and "process" your 301 redirects.
Update your robots.txt file. Add your new sitemaps to the file. Make sure your robots.txt doesn't block any important pages.
If necessary, update your analytics tracking code. Most modern Google Analytics tracking snippets already handle HTTPS, but older code may need a second look.
Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS). This response header tells user agents to only access HTTPS pages even when directed to an HTTP page. This eliminates redirects, speeds up response time, and provides extra security.

Tips for FeedBurner and RSS

Many sites still use FeedBurner for RSS feeds. Unfortunately, Google stopped supporting it long ago and FeedBurner isn't compatible with HTTPS.

If you use FeedBurner, you'll need to migrate your RSS to an HTTPS-compatible service. If you're technically competent you can do this yourself, or FeedPress has a very inexpensive RSS migration solution.

Migrating social share counts

When migrating to HTTPS, you often want to preserve you social share counts. These are the numbers that display in social share buttons.

These counts don't impact your rankings (as far as we know) but they act as strong social proof, and it's frustrating to migrate a page with thousands of tweets and likes only to see them reset to zeros.

In fact, some social networks will transfer the social counts through their APIs, but it may take weeks or months for them to show up correctly. Here's a list of what does and doesn't eventually transfer over:

Facebook: Yes
Twitter: No
Google +1s: Yes
Google shares: No
LinkedIn: Yes
Pinterest: No

If you want instant karma, Mike King wrote an excellent tutorial on how to preserve your social share counts by altering the code of your social buttons. We used this method on Moz when we migrated from SEOmoz in order to preserve the counts on our content.

Example button codes to preserve social shares (edit for your site):

<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://moz.com/blog/10-tools-for-creating-infographics-visualizations" data-send="false" data-layout="box_count" </div>

<a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-counturl="http://moz.com/blog/10-tools-for-creating-infographics-visualizations" data-url="https://moz.com/blog/10-tools-for-creating-infographics-visualizations" data-count="vertical" data-via="moz">Tweet</a>

<div class="g-plusone" data-size="tall" data-href="http://moz.com/blog/10-tools-for-creating-infographics-visualizations"></div>

Keep in mind: This only displays social shares from the URL you dictate. Because of this, it doesn't update your counts with any new social shares. This works best with content like older blog posts that are likely not to get many new shares.

If you expect your content to continue to earn social activity, you may simply want to let the numbers update naturally over time.

Making the leap

Much of the web is now moving towards SSL encryption, and within a few years it may even become the default. SEOs, consultants and agencies that become experts know may be rewarded as the popularity of the protocol grows.

Will you make the switch to HTTPS?

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

Seth's Blog : The most important marketing decision the CMO makes...

The most important marketing decision the CMO makes...

Is the goal to get people to notice what we make?

Are we setting out to make something people choose to talk about?

If you don't know your boss's answer to this, find out. If you do, act accordingly.

Hint: getting people to talk (or care) about your average stuff for average people is a lot more difficult than it ever was before.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 8 septembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

EU Threatens New Sanctions; Russia Responds with Threats on Natural Gas and Airspace Flight Restrictions
Japanese Economy Contracts Bigger than Expected 7.1% in 2nd Quarter; Really Bad Theories
Should Banks Lend Money At All?

EU Threatens New Sanctions; Russia Responds with Threats on Natural Gas and Airspace Flight Restrictions

Posted: 08 Sep 2014 12:28 PM PDT

The tit-for-tat sanction madness in Europe took a huge leap forward today with new sanctions in the work on Russian energy companies.

Russia responded by threatening to restrict commercial flights over its airspace, by threatening to halt reverse flows of natural gas to Ukraine, and with a threat to reduce gas delivery to Europe.

EU Plans New Sanctions

The Wall Street Journal reports New EU Sanctions to Stop Fundraising by 3 Russian Oil Giants

New European Union sanctions on Russia will expand the number of Russian companies unable to raise money in the bloc's capital markets to include three state-owned oil companies, according to documents seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The documents show the EU seeking to hit Russian oil companies, but leaving unscathed those involved in gas production and export, which are critical to many European countries' energy supplies.

Under a modest expansion of sanctions introduced in late July, the three oil companies — Gazpromneft, the oil-production and refining subsidiary of OAO Gazprom, oil transportation company Transneft, and oil giant Rosneft — will be forbidden from raising funds of longer than 30 days' maturity.

Three companies involved in military production — Oboronprom, United Aircraft Corp., and Uralvagonzavod — will be barred from future EU fundraising. The sanctions will also bar new contracts for services needed for oil exploration and production in deep water, the Arctic or shale-oil projects.

Unacceptable Behavior

EC president José Manuel Barroso commented on the Unacceptable Behavior of Russia.

"We are showing to the Russians this kind of behaviour is not acceptable," José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, said on the sidelines of the Nato summit in Wales. "We believe it's extremely important to have a firm position in terms of making clear to Russia it should respect international principles."

Russia immediately responded to the threat of more sanctions with its own views on what is unacceptable behavior.

Airspace Restrictions

In part one of Russia's two-part asymmetrical response to the EU, Russia Threatens Flight Ban.

Blaming the West for damaging the Russian economy by triggering "stupid" sanctions, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would press on with measures to reduce reliance on imports, starting with increasing output of domestic aircraft.

Medvedev suggested Russia should have hit back harder over the action by the United States and European Union to punish Moscow for its role in Ukraine, saying it had been too patient in the worst confrontation with the West since the Cold War.

"If there are sanctions related to the energy sector, or further restrictions on Russia's financial sector, we will have to respond asymmetrically," he told Russian daily Vedomosti, adding the airlines of "friendly countries" were allowed to fly over Russia.

"If Western carriers have to bypass our airspace, this could drive many struggling airlines into bankruptcy. This is not the way to go. We just hope our partners realise this at some point," he said in the interview published on Monday.

Russia Threatens to Reduce Gas Supply

For part two of Russia's response to the EU regarding unacceptable behavior, please consider Russia Aims to Choke Off Gas Re-Exports to Ukraine.

Moscow is seeking to prevent its European customers re-exporting Russian gas to Ukraine, threatening to choke off a crucial lifeline for Kiev and deepen the energy crunch it faces this winter.

The threats come as EU officials geared up to announce sanctions against three state-controlled Russian energy companies – Rosneft, Gazpromneft and Transneft – that will sharply limit their access to western financial markets.

In an effort to offset lost volumes from Russia, Ukraine has sought to secure more gas from the EU, principally through "reverse flows" – re-exports of Russian gas via countries such as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.

But Gazprom, Russia's state gas company, has long complained about the re-exports, with Alexei Miller, its chief executive, denouncing them as a "semi-fraudulent mechanism".

Senior officials in the European Commission and in eastern European governments say Russia has been raising the prospect of reducing export volumes so their customers have no gas left over for reverse flows to Ukraine. "They say this pretty openly," said one central European ambassador.

Why EU and US economic-jackasses think sanctions will accomplish anything positive or change Russia's behavior one bit is at first glance a bit of a mystery.

However, economic-jackasses by definition are going to do stupid things, so we should expect more and more of the same failed tactics.

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

Japanese Economy Contracts Bigger than Expected 7.1% in 2nd Quarter; Really Bad Theories

Posted: 08 Sep 2014 10:45 AM PDT

By now it should be pretty clear that Abenomics is a complete failure. Abenomics did not spur lending, investment, hiring, or wage growth.

It's one touted "success" is that prices have gone up. And for cash-strapped consumers facing higher taxes, that alleged "success" is actually a disaster.

Japanese Economy Contracts Bigger Than Expected 7.1% in Second Quarter

Please consider Japan says economy contracted 7.1 percent in April-June on bigger drop in business investment.

Japan's economy contracted at a larger than earlier estimated annual rate of 7.1 percent in April-June, as companies and households slashed spending following a tax hike.

The revised data released Monday show business investment fell more than twice as much as estimated before, or 5.1 percent, while private residential spending sank 10.4 percent, in annual terms. The earlier estimate showed the economy contracting 6.8 percent.

The recovery of the world's third-largest economy has slowed following the increase in the sales tax to 8 percent from 5 percent on April 1.

Really Bad Theories

Here's a statement from the article regarding theories that caught my eye:

"Theoretically, there should be no impact from the consumption tax increase on corporate spending or long-term corporate planning, but a large number of Japanese corporations seemed to see a large impact from the hike on final demand," said Junko Nishioka, an economist at RBS Japan Securities in Tokyo.

Good grief. Nishioka has theories, but they are as sound as a home foundation in a swamp. Here's an easy to understand explanation.

Eight Point Explanation

Japan's sales tax increased from 5% to 8%.
Wages did not go up.
Consumers have 3% less money to spend.
Consumers with less money, spend less.
Businesses faced with a slowdown in consumer spending reduce future plans.
Abe plans to hike the sales tax again and businesses know that as well.
Business sentiment sours.
Japanese demographics are such that businesses already have substantial worries.

What is it about those eight points that economist Nishioka fails to understand?

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

Should Banks Lend Money At All?

Posted: 08 Sep 2014 01:45 AM PDT

Banks are in the business of making loans. Is that the right model?

Before answering, please consider the model of Lending Club.

Lending Club is an online financial community that brings together creditworthy borrowers and savvy investors so that both can benefit financially. We replace the high cost and complexity of traditional lending with a faster, smarter way to borrow and invest.

Here is the initial process straight from the Lending Club Website.

Steps

You decide you want to borrow money
You go to the Lending Club website
You enter the amount
You specify what it is for
You answer a question regarding your credit
Lending Club evaluates the information with no impact on your credit score, determines an interest rate and instantly presents a variety of offers to qualified borrowers
If accepted, you can prepay at any time with no penalty

Lending club claims borrowers substantially reduce their rates over those offered by banks.

Exploring Lending Club

Bloomberg columnist Mat Levine explores the issue in Lending Club Can Be a Better Bank Than the Banks.

There are a lot of ways in which [Lending Club] is not a bank, but the big one is that basically all (95.6 percent) of its liabilities are "notes and certificates," that is, just unsecured structured notes tied directly to specific underlying loans.

Banks, on the other hand, are funded mostly by deposits and repo and other short-term senior borrowing.

Lending Club's assets and liabilities are perfectly matched in duration: Those notes and certificates mature when the corresponding loans mature. A bank, on the other hand, is in the business of borrowing short to lend long.
Lending Club's assets and liabilities are perfectly matched in loss bearing: Every dollar that a borrower doesn't pay back to Lending Club is a dollar that Lending Club doesn't pay back to note holders. The note holders know going in that they bear the entire risk of loss on the underlying loans. A bank depositor expects to get her money back even if the bank makes some bad mortgage loans.

This takes, in round numbers, all of the risk out of Lending Club's balance sheet.

In any useful sense, Lending Club is a 100 percent equity-funded bank: Every dollar that it lends comes from long-term, loss-bearing investors.

100% Equity-Funded Bank

Lending Club is effectively a 100% equity-funded bank with 0% lending risk!

Ironically, Lending Club does not make loans. Instead, it facilitates matching borrowers with creditors and takes a fee for its efforts.

So, what's not to like?

Unfortunately Levine jumps off the deep end with his next set of statements.

First: You wouldn't want all banks to be like Lending Club. People like having checking accounts. Even beyond checking accounts, people like having liquid risk-free money-like claims. Banks exist to turn risky investments -- loans to people and businesses! -- into risk-free money-like claims, whether those are checking accounts or certificates of deposit or repo agreements....

For starters, the idea that banks can turn risky investments into risk-free claims is preposterous. Second, the idea that checking accounts would disappear is preposterous. Third, I certainly would prefer lending banks to be legitimately risk-free operations like lending Club.

Advantages

Lending club does not print money into existence
Lending club does not offer loans of mismatched duration
There is a zero percent chance of a run on the bank with lending club
Investors in Lending Club take a risk in return for the opportunity to earn interest
There is no legitimate need for FDIC
Lending Club itself takes no lending risk, instead investors willing to lend money take a risk

Lending Banks vs. Safekeeping Banks

For all intents and purposes, Lending Club is the ideal risk-free lending bank. Given that it does not lend money, no bank-associated financial crisis is possible in such a model,

Does that mean checking accounts cease to exist? Hardly, and Levine should know better.

All that's needed is a separation of duties (lending vs. safekeeping): Safekeeping banks don't make any loans or facilitate making loans, ever. All checking accounts (demand deposit accounts) would reside in safekeeping banks.

In return for safekeeping, banks charge fees (just as they do now - ATM fees, transaction fees, checking account fees, etc.) There is no need for FDIC as no money is lent.

In this separation of duty model, lending banks would facilitate lending exactly as does Lending Club. Want to earn interest? OK you pick a loan you like, for a duration you like, and you invest in it.

Such loans would be term-duration loans, not FDIC guaranteed (and that is an added bonus, not a drawback). Those lending money for interest should logically assume some risk.

We might see some changes such as the end of cheap 30-year mortgages. Some might see that as a drawback, but that too is an advantage. Cheap, easy loans contributed to the housing bubble and a near financial collapse. If 10- or 15-year loans became the standard, so much the better. Houses should primarily be a place to live, not a speculative plaything.

Printing money into existence is at the forefront of every financial crisis, and it also helps explain the growing income inequality problem.

I am not against loans. Rather I am against borrowing money into existence, FDIC, duration mismatches, etc.

I suggest it's time to change the model to a 100% reserve system that eliminates duration mismatches, does not allow printing of money into existence, and also stops runs on banks without FDIC.

A distinct separation between lending banks and safekeeping banks appears to be a great starting point for discussion, not that peer lending itself is the perfect solution.

Note: I revised the last statement to make it clear that I am after a 100% reserve system model, not a peer lending model per se.

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

Damn Cool Pics

Abandoned Horse Rescued

Posted: 08 Sep 2014 05:05 PM PDT

People from Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) have found and rescued a horse named Polly. Let's see before and after pictures of an amazing transformation.

Slide to the left:

10 million -- that's the number of jobs American businesses have added over the last 54 months, marking the longest streak of private-sector job growth in American history.

While there's still a lot more work to do, the economy has improved significantly since President Obama took office in 2009. Back then, the economy was shedding jobs by the hundreds of thousands, the housing market had hit rock bottom, and the American auto industry was on the brink of collapse.

But the President took action, and now -- thanks to the resilience of American workers and business men and women -- you can see the progress we've made in four key economic sectors that have helped make 10 million jobs possible.

Want to see exactly how far we've come since the Great Recession? Just slide to the left:

From breaking ground on new homes and building more cars, to selling more American products abroad and buying more at home, check out these interactive charts to see where we stood when President Obama took office and where we are now -- then share them with whoever needs to see it.

"These Are Some Special Stones"

Featured

"These Are Some Special Stones"

As the last stop on his trip to Estonia and to the NATO Summit in Wales, President Obama visited the prehistoric monument Stonehenge on Friday -- and really enjoyed his time there.

"I would come here, and if it wasn't a monument, I'd sit on one of these rocks and I'd just watch the sunrise," the President said. "It would really cleanse your mind."

Watch President Obama's stroll around Stonehenge here:

marți, 9 septembrie 2014

On the Bus with Secretary Duncan

The Big List of SEO Tips and Tricks for Using HTTPS on Your Website

The Big List of SEO Tips and Tricks for Using HTTPS on Your Website

SEO advantages of switching to HTTPS

1. More referrer data

2. HTTPS as a rankings boost

14 SEO activities more impactful than HTTPS:

3. Security and privacy

Challenges to overcome with HTTPS

1. Mistakes happen

2. Speed issues

3. Costs

4. Not everything is ready for HTTPS

Growing number of sites using HTTPS

SEO and HTTPS best practices

What type of SSL certificate works best?

SEO checklist to preserve your rankings

Tips for FeedBurner and RSS

Migrating social share counts

Example button codes to preserve social shares (edit for your site):

Making the leap

Seth's Blog : The most important marketing decision the CMO makes...

The most important marketing decision the CMO makes...

More Recent Articles

luni, 8 septembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics

Slide to the left:

"These Are Some Special Stones"

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

marți, 9 septembrie 2014

SEO advantages of switching to HTTPS

1. More referrer data

2. HTTPS as a rankings boost

14 SEO activities more impactful than HTTPS:

3. Security and privacy

Challenges to overcome with HTTPS

1. Mistakes happen

2. Speed issues

3. Costs

4. Not everything is ready for HTTPS

Growing number of sites using HTTPS

SEO and HTTPS best practices

What type of SSL certificate works best?

SEO checklist to preserve your rankings

Tips for FeedBurner and RSS

Migrating social share counts

Example button codes to preserve social shares (edit for your site):

Making the leap

luni, 8 septembrie 2014

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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