Central Perk

marți, 30 decembrie 2014

The Best of 2014: Top People and Posts from the Moz Blog

Posted: 29 Dec 2014 04:15 PM PST

At the end of every year, we compile a list of the very best posts and most popular and prolific people that have been published on the Moz Blog and YouMoz. It's a really fun way to look back on what happened this year, and an insight-packed view of what really resonates with our readers.

Here's what we've got in store:

Top Moz Blog posts by 1Metric score
Top Moz Blog posts by unique visits
Top YouMoz Blog posts by unique visits
Top Moz Blog posts by number of thumbs up
Top Moz Blog posts by number of comments
Top Moz Blog posts by number of linking root domains
Top comments from our community by number of thumbs up
Top commenters from our community by total number of thumbs up

A huge thanks goes to Dr. Pete Meyers and Cyrus Shepard; their help cut the amount of time creating this piece consumed in half.

We hope you enjoy the look back at the past year, and wish you a very happy start to 2015!

1. Top Moz Blog posts by 1Metric score

Earlier this year, we created a new metric to evaluate the success of our blog posts, calling it "the one metric" in a nod to The Lord of the Rings. We even wrote about it on this blog. With the help and feedback of many folks in the community as well as some refinement of our own, we've now polished the metric, changed the spelling a bit, applied it retroactively to older posts, and are using it regularly in-house. The following posts are those with the highest scores, representing the 10 posts that saw the most overall success this year. In case there was any doubt, Cyrus really (really) knows what he's doing.

1. More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO
October 21 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
As marketers, helping search engines understand what our content means is one of our most important tasks. Search engines can't read pages like humans can, so we incorporate structure and clues as to what our content means. This post explores a series of on-page techniques that not only build upon one another, but can be combined in sophisticated ways.

2. New Title Tag Guidelines & Preview Tool
March 20 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Google's 2014 redesign had a big impact on search result titles, cutting them off much sooner. This post includes a title preview tool and takes a data-driven approach to finding the new limit.

3. Your Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet: Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird
June 11 - Posted by Marie Haynes
Do you have questions about the Panda algorithm, the Penguin algorithm, or Hummingbird? This guide explains in lay terms what each of these Google algorithm changes is about and how to improve your site so that it looks better in the eyes of the big G.

4. 12 Ways to Increase Traffic From Google Without Building Links
March 11 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
The job of the Technical SEO becomes more complex each year, but we also have more opportunities now than ever. Here are 12 ways you can improve your rankings without relying on link building.

5. The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
May 20 - Posted by Oli Gardner
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your learning regions.

6. Illustrated Guide to Advanced On-Page Topic Targeting for SEO
November 17 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
The concepts of advanced on-page SEO are dizzying: LDA, co-occurrence, and entity salience. The question is "How can I easily incorporate these techniques into my content for higher rankings?" The truth is, you can create optimized pages that rank well without understanding complex algorithms.

7. Panda 4.1 Google Leaked Dos and Don'ts - Whiteboard Friday
December 05 - Posted by Josh Bachynski
Panda is about so much more than good content. Let Josh Bachynski give you the inside information on the highlights of what you should (and should not) be doing.

8. 10 Smart Tips to Leverage Google+ for Increased Web Traffic
April 15 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
While not everyone has an audience active on Google+, the number of people who interact socially with any Google products on a monthly basis now reportedly exceeds 500 million.

9. The Rules of Link Building - Whiteboard Friday
April 04 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
Google is increasingly playing the referee in the marketing game, and many marketers are simply leaving instead of playing by the rules. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus Shepard takes a time-out to explain a winning strategy.

10. The Myth of Google's 200 Ranking Factors
September 30 - Posted by Gianluca Fiorelli
Nothing like the "The 200 Google Ranking Factors" actually exists. It is a myth, and those who claim to be able to offer a final list are its prophets. This post explains how the myth was born and the importance of knowing the stages of search engines' working process.

2. Top Moz Blog posts by unique visits

The heaviest-weighted ingredient in the 1Metric is unique visits, as one of our primary goals for the Moz Blog is to drive traffic to the rest of the site. With that in mind, we thought it interesting to break things down to just this metric and show you just how different this list is from the last one. Of note: Dr. Pete's post on Google's new design for title tags is a nod to the power of evergreen content. That post is one that folks can return to over and over as they fiddle with their own title tags, and amassed more than twice the traffic of the post in the #2 slot.

1. New Title Tag Guidelines & Preview Tool
March 20 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Google's 2014 redesign had a big impact on search result titles, cutting them off much sooner. This post includes a title preview tool and takes a data-driven approach to finding the new limit.

2. The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
May 20 - Posted by Oli Gardner
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your learning regions.

3. 12 Ways to Increase Traffic From Google Without Building Links
March 11 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
The job of the Technical SEO becomes more complex each year, but we also have more opportunities now than ever. Here are 12 ways you can improve your rankings without relying on link building.

4. Why Every Business Should Spend at Least $1 per Day on Facebook Ads
February 19 - Posted by Brian Carter
For the last three years I've constantly recommended Facebook ads. I recommend them to both B2C and B2B businesses. I recommend them to local theaters and comedians here in Charleston, SC. I recommend them to everyone who wants to grow awareness about anything they're doing. Here's why.

5. More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO
October 21 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
As marketers, helping search engines understand what our content means is one of our most important tasks. Search engines can't read pages like humans can, so we incorporate structure and clues as to what our content means. This post explores a series of on-page techniques that not only build upon one another, but can be combined in sophisticated ways.

6. Your Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet: Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird
June 11 - Posted by Marie Haynes
Do you have questions about the Panda algorithm, the Penguin algorithm, or Hummingbird? This guide explains in lay terms what each of these Google algorithm changes is about and how to improve your site so that it looks better in the eyes of the big G.

7. Make Facebook's Algorithm Change Work For You, Not Against You
January 23 - Posted by Chad Wittman
Recently, many page admins have been experiencing a significant decrease in Total Reach—specifically, organic reach. For pages that want to keep their ad budget as low as possible, maximizing organic reach is vital. To best understand how to make a change like this work for you, and not against you, we need to examine what happened—and what you can do about it.

8. How to Rank Well in Amazon, the US's Largest Product Search Engine
June 04 - Posted by Nathan Grimm
The eCommerce SEO community is ignoring a huge opportunity by focusing almost exclusively on Google. Amazon has roughly three times more search volume for products, and this post tells you all about how to rank.

9. Personas: The Art and Science of Understanding the Person Behind the Visit
January 29 - Posted by Michael King
With the erosion of keyword intelligence and the move to strings-not-things for the user, Google is pushing all marketers to focus more on their target audience. This post will teach you how to understand that audience, the future of Google, and how to build data-driven personas step by step.

10. Panda 4.0, Payday Loan 2.0 & eBay's Very Bad Day
May 21 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Preliminary analysis of the Panda 4.0 and Payday Loan 2.0 updates, major algorithm flux on May 19th, and a big one-day rankings drop for eBay.

3. Top YouMoz Blog posts by unique visits

One of our favorite parts of the Moz community is the YouMoz Blog, where our community members can submit their own posts for potential publishing here on our site. We're constantly impressed by what we're sent. These 10 posts all received such high praise that they were promoted to the main Moz Blog, but they all started out as YouMoz posts.

1. Make Facebook's Algorithm Change Work For You, Not Against You
January 23 - Posted by Chad Wittman
Recently, many page admins have been experiencing a significant decrease in Total Reach—specifically, organic reach. For pages that want to keep their ad budget as low as possible, maximizing organic reach is vital. To best understand how to make a change like this work for you, and not against you, we need to examine what happened—and what you can do about it.

2. Parallax Scrolling Websites and SEO - A Collection of Solutions and Examples
April 01 - Posted by Carla Dawson
I have observed that there are many articles that say parallax scrolling is not ideal for search engines. Parallax Scrolling is a design technique and it is ideal for search engines if you know how to apply it. I have collected a list of great tutorials and real SEO-friendly parallax websites to help the community learn how to use both techniques together.

3. (Provided): 10 Ways to Prove SEO Value in Google Analytics
February 25 - Posted by Jeff Sauer
We and our clients have relied on keyword reports for so long that we're now using (not provided) as a crutch. This post offers 10 ways you can use Google Analytics to prove your SEO value now that those keywords are gone.

4. How to Set Up and Use Twitter Lead Generation Cards in Your Tweets for Free!
May 07 - Posted by Dana Tan
Working as an in-house SEO strategist for a small business forces me to get "scrappy" every day with tools and techniques. I'm constantly on the lookout for an opportunity that can help my company market to broader audiences for less money. Here's how to set up your Twitter Cards for free!

5. 75 Content Starters for Any Industry
February 06 - Posted by Amanda Gallucci
Suffering from blank page anxiety? Before you go on the hunt for inspiration all over the Internet and elsewhere, turn to the resources around you. Realize that you can create exceptional content with what you already have at hand.

6. The Hidden Power of Nofollow Links
June 08 - Posted by Nicole Kohler
For those of us who are trying to earn links for our clients, receiving a nofollow link can feel like a slap in the face. But these links have hidden powers that make them just as important as followed ones. Here's why nofollow links are more powerful than you might think.

7. A Startling Case Study of Manual Penalties and Negative SEO
March 17 - Posted by Yonatan Dotan
One day in my inbox I found the dreaded notice from Google that our client had a site-wide manual penalty for unnatural inbound links. We quickly set up a call and went through the tooth-rattling ordeal of explaining to our client that they weren't even ranked for their brand name. Organic traffic dropped by a whopping 94% - and that for a website that gets 66% of its traffic from Google-based organic search.

8. How PornHub Is Bringing its A-Game (SFW)
July 23 - Posted by Javier Sanz
Despite dealing with a sensitive subject, PornHub is doing a great job marketing itself. This (safe-for-work) post takes a closer look at what they are doing.

9. Storytelling Through Data: A New Inbound Marketing & SEO Report Structure
January 07 - Posted by Aaron Friedman
No matter what business you are in, it's a pretty sure thing that someone is going to want to monitor how efficiently and productively you are working. Being able to show these results over time is crucial to maintaining the health of the long term relationship.

10. The Art of Thinking Sideways: Content Marketing for "Boring" Businesses
April 08 - Posted by Robin Swire
In this article, I'll examine the art of thinking sideways for one of the slightly more tricky marketing clients I've worked with. I hope that this will provide an insight for fellow content marketers and SEOs in similar scenarios.

4. Top Moz Blog posts by number of thumbs up

These 10 posts were well enough received that liked that quite a few readers took the time to engage with them, logging in to give their stamp of approval. Whiteboard Fridays are always a hit, and two of them managed to make this list after having been live for less than a month.

3. Dear Google, Links from YouMoz Don't Violate Your Quality Guidelines
July 23 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
Recently, Moz contributor Scott Wyden, a photographer in New Jersey, received a warning in his Google Webmaster Tools about some links that violated Google's Quality Guidelines. One example was from moz.com.

4. Your Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet: Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird
June 11 - Posted by Marie Haynes
Do you have questions about the Panda algorithm, the Penguin algorithm, or Hummingbird? This guide explains in lay terms what each of these Google algorithm changes is about and how to improve your site so that it looks better in the eyes of the big G.

5. Thank You for 10 Incredible Years
October 06 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
It's been 10 amazing years since Rand started the blog that would turn into SEOmoz and then Moz, and we never could have come this far without you all. You'll find letters of appreciation from Rand and Sarah in this post (along with a super-cool video retrospective!), and from all of us at Moz, thank you!

8. The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
May 20 - Posted by Oli Gardner
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your learning regions.

9. Does SEO Boil Down to Site Crawlability and Content Quality? - Whiteboard Friday
July 11 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
What does good SEO really mean these days? Rand takes us beyond crawlability and content quality for a peek inside the art and science of the practice.

10. How to Avoid the Unrealistic Expectations SEOs Often Create - Whiteboard Friday
December 12 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
Making promises about SEO results too often leads to broken dreams and shredded contracts. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand shows us how to set expectations that lead to excitement but help prevent costly misunderstandings.

5. Top Moz Blog posts by number of comments

While the discussions can take a big chunk out of an already busy day, the conversations we get to have with our community members (and the conversations they have with each other) in the comments below our posts is absolutely one of our favorite parts of the blog. These 10 posts garnered quite a bit of discussion (some with a fair amount of controversy), and are fascinating to follow.

1. Take the SEO Expert Quiz and Rule the Internet
May 28 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
You are master of the keyword. You create 1,000 links with a single tweet. Google engineers ask for your approval before updating their algorithm. You, my friend, are an SEO Expert. Prove it by taking our new SEO Expert Quiz.

2. The Rules of Link Building - Whiteboard Friday
April 04 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
Google is increasingly playing the referee in the marketing game, and many marketers are simply leaving instead of playing by the rules. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus Shepard takes a time-out to explain a winning strategy.

4. New Title Tag Guidelines & Preview Tool
March 20 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Google's 2014 redesign had a big impact on search result titles, cutting them off much sooner. This post includes a title preview tool and takes a data-driven approach to finding the new limit.

5. SEO Teaching: Should SEO Be Taught at Universities?
October 09 - Posted by Carla Dawson
Despite the popularity and importance of SEO, the field has yet to gain significant traction at the university level other than a few courses here and there offered as part of a broader digital marketing degree. The tide could be turning, however slowly.

6. 12 Ways to Increase Traffic From Google Without Building Links
March 11 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
The job of the Technical SEO becomes more complex each year, but we also have more opportunities now than ever. Here are 12 ways you can improve your rankings without relying on link building.

7. The Broken Art of Company Blogging (and the Ignored Metric that Could Save Us All)
July 22 - Posted by Dan Shure
Company blogging is broken. We're tricking ourselves into believing they're successful while ignoring the one signal we have that tells us whether they're actually working.

8. Real-World Panda Optimization - Whiteboard Friday
August 01 - Posted by Michael Cottam
From the originality of your content to top-heavy posts, there's a lot that the Panda algorithm is looking for. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Michael Cottam explains what these things are, and more importantly, what we can do to be sure we get the nod from this particular bear.

9. Ways to Proactively Welcome Women Into Online Marketing
September 17 - Posted by Erica McGillivray
SEO may be a male-dominated industry, but let's step out of our biases and work hard to welcome women, and marketers of all stripes, into our community.

10. More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO
October 21 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
As marketers, helping search engines understand what our content means is one of our most important tasks. Search engines can't read pages like humans can, so we incorporate structure and clues as to what our content means. This post explores a series of on-page techniques that not only build upon one another, but can be combined in sophisticated ways.

6. Top Moz Blog posts by number of linking root domains

What, you thought you'd get to the bottom of the post without seeing a traditional SEO metric? =)

2. Panda 4.0, Payday Loan 2.0 & eBay's Very Bad Day
May 21 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Preliminary analysis of the Panda 4.0 and Payday Loan 2.0 updates, major algorithm flux on May 19th, and a big one-day rankings drop for eBay.

3. Personas: The Art and Science of Understanding the Person Behind the Visit
January 29 - Posted by Michael King
With the erosion of keyword intelligence and the move to strings-not-things for the user, Google is pushing all marketers to focus more on their target audience. This post will teach you how to understand that audience, the future of Google, and how to build data-driven personas step by step.

5. The New Link Building Survey 2014 - Results
July 16 - Posted by James Agate
How has the marketing industry changed its views of link building since last year? James Agate of Skyrocket SEO is back with the results of a brand new survey.

6. Google's 2014 Redesign: Before and After
March 13 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Google's SERP and ad format redesign may finally be rolling out, after months of testing. Before we lose the old version forever, here's the before-and-after of every major vertical that's changed.

7. Google Announces the End of Author Photos in Search: What You Should Know
June 26 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
Many of us have been constantly advising webmasters to connect their content writers with Google authorship, and it came as a shock when John Mueller announced Google will soon drop authorship photos from regular search results. Let's examine what this means.

8. The Greatest Misconception in Content Marketing - Whiteboard Friday
April 25 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
Great content certainly helps business, but it isn't as simple as "publish, share, convert new customers." In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains what's really going on.

9. The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
May 20 - Posted by Oli Gardner
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your learning regions.

10. Your Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet: Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird
June 11 - Posted by Marie Haynes
Do you have questions about the Panda algorithm, the Penguin algorithm, or Hummingbird? This guide explains in lay terms what each of these Google algorithm changes is about and how to improve your site so that it looks better in the eyes of the big G.

7. Top comments from our community by number of thumbs up

These 10 comments were the most thumbed-up of any on our blogs this year, offering voices of reason that stand out from the crowd.

1. Marie Haynes | July 23
Commented on: Dear Google, Links from YouMoz Don't Violate Your Quality Guidelines

2. Brian Dean | September 30
Commented on: The Myth of Google's 200 Ranking Factors

3. Martin Pezet | July 22
Commented on: The Broken Art of Company Blogging (and the Ignored Metric that Could Save Us All)

4. Danny Sullivan | July 23
Commented on: Dear Google, Links from YouMoz Don't Violate Your Quality Guidelines

5. Cyrus Shepard | October 21
Commented on: More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO

6. Sarah Bird | September 17
Commented on: Ways to Proactively Welcome Women Into Online Marketing

7. Rand Fishkin | July 04
Commented on: 5 Fashion Hacks for the Modern Male Marketer - Whiteboard Friday

8. Martin Pezet | September 30
Commented on: The Myth of Google's 200 Ranking Factors

9. Jeff Ferguson | October 24
Commented on: Is It Possible to Have Good SEO Simply by Having Great Content - Whiteboard Friday

10. Robert Duckers | March 20
Commented on: New Title Tag Guidelines & Preview Tool

8. Top commenters from our community by total thumbs up

We calculated this one a bit differently this year. In the past, we've shown the top community members by sheer number of comments. We don't want, however, to imply that being prolific is necessarily good within itself. So, we added up all the thumbs-up that each comment on our blogs has received, and figured out which community members racked up the most thumbs over the course of the year. (We've intentionally omitted staff members and associates from this list, as they'd stack the deck pretty heavily!)

The graphics to the right of each community member show the number of comments they've left on blog posts in 2014 as well as the total number of thumbs up those comments have received.

This list is truly an illustration of how amazing the Moz community is. This site would hardly be anything without all of you, and we so appreciate your involvement on such a regular basis!

1. Samuel Scott (Moz username: SamuelScott)
MozPoints: 1557 | Rank: 54

2. Andreas Becker (Moz username: paints-n-design)
MozPoints: 667 | Rank: 148

3. Marie Haynes (Moz username: MarieHaynes)
MozPoints: 4706 | Rank: 7

4. Mark Traphagen (Moz username: MarkTraphagen)
MozPoints: 993 | Rank: 102

5. Steve Morgan (Moz username: steviephil)
MozPoints: 1249 | Rank: 72

6. Russ Jones (Moz username: russangular)
MozPoints: 3282 | Rank: 16

7. Martin Pezet (Moz username: mpezet)
MozPoints: 464 | Rank: 211

8. Chris Painter (Moz username: Pixelbypixel)
MozPoints: 2707 | Rank: 25

9. Bill Slawski (Moz username: billslawski)
MozPoints: 709 | Rank: 140

10. Dana Tan (Moz username: danatanseo)
MozPoints: 4071 | Rank: 11

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 : Cutting through Singer's Paradox

Cutting through Singer's Paradox

Teacher and ethicist Peter Singer shares a puzzle with his students:

I ask them to imagine that their route to the university takes them past a shallow pond. One morning, I say to them, you notice a child has fallen in and appears to be drowning. To wade in and pull the child out would be easy but it will mean that you get your clothes wet and muddy, and by the time you go home and change you will have missed your first class.

I then ask the students: do you have any obligation to rescue the child? Unanimously, the students say they do. The importance of saving a child so far outweighs the cost of getting one’s clothes muddy and missing a class, that they refuse to consider it any kind of excuse for not saving the child. Does it make a difference, I ask, that there are other people walking past the pond who would equally be able to rescue the child but are not doing so? No, the students reply, the fact that others are not doing what they ought to do is no reason why I should not do what I ought to do.

The paradox comes in when Singer points out that if it's a moral imperative to save this child at the cost of ruining a pair of shoes, we certainly face that same imperative every day. Using Paypal, we can send $20 somewhere in the world and with certainty, save the life of a child.

What's the difference? The child is far away, certainly, but she's still a child and she's still dying.

Marketing helps us understand the two key differences:

1. CLOSE & NOW: The first child is dying right in front of me. Right now. The shame I feel in walking way is palpable. Many times, we act generously or heroically because to avoid doing so is to risk being shamed. The ALS challenge got many things right, and this is one of them. When someone calls you out in public, it is close and it is now.

2. GRATITUDE: Even though it might not be at the top of mind, the fact is that once we pull someone out of the pond, we anticipate that they will thank us, and so will the community. In fact, if that didn't happen, if the kid just walked away and no one noticed, I think we'd be perplexed or even angry.

And this is the problem every good cause outside of your current walk to work faces. They are trying to solve a difficult problem far away. They're working to do something that is neither close nor now. And often, because the work is so hard, there's no satisfactory thank you, certainly not the thank you of, we're done, you're a hero.

The challenge for real philanthropic growth, then, is to either change the culture so our marketing psychology is to donate to things that are neither close nor now, and that offer little in the way of thanks, or to create change that hacks our current perceptions of what's important.

We're learning that the most important problems to solve might be the long-term ones, the ones where our cultural instincts don't lead to emergency donations.

Some options. And here's a year-end smile.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 29 decembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Gmail Dead in China, All Google Products Blocked; Reserve Currency Silliness Review
Snap Elections in Greece; 3-Year Bond Yield Tops 12%; Potential Cascade! Who Has the Upper Hand?
China's Zombie Factories Provide Illusion of Work and Prosperity; Rebalancing Chinese Style

Gmail Dead in China, All Google Products Blocked; Reserve Currency Silliness Review

Posted: 29 Dec 2014 12:43 PM PST

Access to Gmail in China was difficult, but not impossible. Workarounds included Outlook, Apple Mail, and third-party Gmail hosts.

Starting last Friday, the "Great Firewall" became nearly impenetrable as China's Censors Took Final Step in Blocking Gmail.

In the six months since Google's mail service Gmail was blocked in mainland China, users had been able to access it using third-party email applications such as Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail.

Beijing now appears to have closed the loophole, completely shutting down access to Gmail behind the so-called Great Firewall. Google data showed Gmail appeared to have been walled off starting Friday. Google spokesman Taj Meadows acknowledged the drop in traffic and said Monday that "there's nothing wrong on our end."

Google clashed with Beijing in 2010 after the company decided to stop censoring its Internet search results in China. Google shifted most of its Chinese operations to Hong Kong as a result, and it has been hard since then to access the company's services on the mainland.

As with Google search functions, Gmail users will now have to access the application through virtual private networks or other censorship circumvention channels, putting the email service on par with Facebook and Twitter in the eyes of Beijing censors.

Reserve Currency Silliness

China has no sizable bond market, no floating currency, few political freedoms, no freedom of speech, massive censorship, and questionable property rights, yet every week I see some article promoting the idea that the yuan will soon replace the dollar as world's reserve currency.

The idea is laughable. Lack of a bond market in sufficient size is enough to kill the notion.

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

Snap Elections in Greece; 3-Year Bond Yield Tops 12%; Potential Cascade! Who Has the Upper Hand?

Posted: 29 Dec 2014 10:18 AM PST

Despite fearmongering by Greek prime minister and the EU, prime minister Antonis Samaras fell 12 votes short of a needed majority to elect a new Greek President.

As a result, snap elections will be held on January 25.

Stavros Dimas, a former EU commissioner, captured 168 votes in Monday's decisive third presidential ballot,12 short of the required three-fifths majority after a weekend of frantic backroom politicking failed to round up additional votes from independent lawmakers and small opposition parties.

A sombre-looking Mr Samaras said in a televised statement: "It's time for voters to do what parliament couldn't — end uncertainty and restore stability so that we can continue with reforms and make a decisive exit from the bailout."

"Be optimistic and cheerful, austerity will soon be over," said Alexis Tsipras, Syriza's firebrand leader, as he left parliament after the vote. "The Samaras government which looted society and decided to take further austerity measures is finished."

Along with the IMF and the European Commission, the ECB played a key role in overseeing the four year €245bn bailout of Greece. "The ECB holds the key," said Greek finance minister Gikas Hardouvelis in an interview with Greece's To Vima newspaper on Sunday. He added: "This key can easily and abruptly turn off bank funding and strangle the Greek economy in a split second."

Commenting on Monday's vote, Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's finance minister, said in a statement: "We want to give Greece further support on its path of reform, helping it to help itself. If Greece chooses another way, it will be difficult. New elections will not change any of the agreements made with the Greek government. Any new government must keep to the contractual agreements of its predecessor."

Opinion polls at the weekend gave Syriza a lead of 3-4 percentage points over Mr Samaras's centre-right New Democracy party, but pollsters say it is unclear whether this would be sufficient to ensure an outright majority at election.

Yields Soar

Greek stock and bond markets reacted with disapproval. The Athens stock market fell about 10% and Yield on the 3-year note sailed above 12%.

On August 24, yield on the 3-Year note fell to an absurdly low 3.14%. Today it sits at 12.15%.

Potential Cascade to Spain, Italy

To prevent default on €50 billion or so of Greek bonds, the Troika gave Greece a €245 billion bailout, a sum that will be impossible for Greece to ever pay back.

Yet, German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble insists "new elections will not change any of the agreements made with the Greek government."

Either Germany changes its tune, or Greece may default on €245 billion. The following table shows what may happen.

Eurozone Financial Stability Contribution Weights

Country	Guarantee Commitments (EUR) Millions	Percentage
Austria	€ 21,639.19	2.78%
Belgium	€ 27,031.99	3.47%
Cyprus	€ 1,525.68	0.20%
Estonia	€ 1,994.86	0.26%
Finland	€ 13,974.03	1.79%
France	€ 158,487.53	20.32%
Germany	€ 211,045.90	27.06%
Greece	€ 21,897.74	2.81%
Ireland	€ 12,378.15	1.59%
Italy	€ 139,267.81	17.86%
Luxembourg	€ 1,946.94	0.25%
Malta	€ 704.33	0.09%
Netherlands	€ 44,446.32	5.70%
Portugal	€ 19,507.26	2.50%
Slovakia	€ 7,727.57	0.99%
Slovenia	€ 3,664.30	0.47%
Spain	€ 92,543.56	11.87%
Eurozone 17	€ 779,783.14	100%

The above table from European Financial Stability Facility

Who Has the Upper Hand?

Supposedly, Greece is responsible for 2.81% of its own default, quite illogical to say the least. Its portion would have to be spread out accordingly.

Spain's portion of a Greek default (not counting the extra spread) would be would be 11.87%.

Where is Spain supposed to get €29 billion or Italy €44 billion?

Yes, the IMF and EU could ruin Greece. But if Greece wants to play hardball, it actually has the upper hand.

One way or another, sooner or later, a significant portion of that €245 billion bailout (not of Greece, but of bondholders) will not be paid back.

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

China's Zombie Factories Provide Illusion of Work and Prosperity; Rebalancing Chinese Style

Posted: 28 Dec 2014 11:41 PM PST

China has zombie malls and even zombie cities, so zombie factories can hardly be a surprise. And as the malinvestments pile up, so do unrealized shadow bank losses.

The Financial Times reports China Zombie Factories Kept Open to Give Illusion of Prosperity.

In the shadow of a group of enormous smokestacks and abandoned foundries, a peeling sign welcomes visitors to the Wenxi Steel Industrial Park.

Highsee stopped paying its 10,000 employees six months ago. Local officials estimate the plant supported indirectly the livelihood of about a quarter of Wenxi county's population of 400,000. Highsee was the biggest privately owned steel mill in Shanxi, accounting for 60 per cent of Wenxi's tax revenues. For those reasons, the local government was reluctant to allow the company to go out of business, even though it had been in serious financial difficulties for several years.

"By 2011 Highsee was already like a dead centipede that hadn't yet frozen stiff with rigor mortis," says one official who asks not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to foreign reporters. "More than half the plant shut down, but it was still producing steel even though its suppliers wouldn't deliver anything without cash up front and it was drowning in debt."

In the past month alone Chinese media have reported on at least nine large steel mills that appeared to be suspended in limbo after halting production but which are forbidden from going formally bankrupt.

"There are large numbers of companies across China that should go bankrupt but haven't done so," says Han Chuanhua, a bankruptcy lawyer at Zhongzi Law Office, a Beijing legal practice. "The government doesn't want to see bankruptcy because as soon as companies go bust, unemployment spikes and tax revenues disappear. By stopping companies from going bankrupt, officials are able to maintain the illusion of local prosperity, economic growth and stable taxes."

The outstanding volume of non-performing loans in the Chinese banking sector has increased 50 per cent since the beginning of 2013, according to estimates from ANZ, the Australian bank, but the sector-wide NPL ratio remains extremely low, at just over 1.2 per cent.

In private, however, senior Chinese financial officials admit the real ratio is almost certainly much higher, obscured by local governments trying to prop up companies.

Rebalancing Chinese Style

As part of China's rebalancing effort, growth must slow (or an even bigger crash will come later), and shadow banking losses recognized. So far, all we see is the slowdown in growth.

Even then, China recently cut interest rates hoping to keep the illusion alive (as some might see it), or smooth the transition (as others might see it).

Regardless how one sees it, these closures are at the back end of a collapse in commodity prices as China moves from an investment (malinvestment) driven pattern of growth, to a consumer-driven pattern of growth.

The transition will not be easy. The SOEs (state-owned-enterprises), the regional governments, and all those who got wealthy from the prior boom will not let go easily.

Nor it seems will the central government. Failure to recognize absurdly high deposit rates are proof enough.

For a look at unsound deposit rates, please see Chinese Banks Hemorrhaging Deposits, 1st Quarterly Drop Since 1999; Banks Offer iPhones, Even Cars for Large Deposits.

For more on rebalancing implication, please see Pettis on Strains in China's Banking System; Avoiding the Fall.

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