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anryuuepic · 3 years ago

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Winterkill Works: Basic Character Intros (Part 2)

[Part 1] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]

RANK: Executive

Dieterich Bruinsma

Daryan

The leader of Ward 1, which is devoted to medicine and drugs. Despite its fairly respectable past, Dieterich has reduced it to shady new lows. The man himself is a former street dealer known for selling unknown and highly dangerous concoctions of his own making.

In personality, he’s the type to never take anything seriously. The world is an amusing place, and he lives to make money, gain power, and have fun. With his sick sense of humor and extremely dubious “morals”, very little is beyond what he’s willing to do to get ahead.

Mingxia Vesalius

Daryan

The leader of Ward 2, which is devoted to biology, both Anryuu and animal. An iron-fisted superior who expects nothing but the best of herself and others. Her ward is run to brutal efficiency, with results prioritized above all else.

A ruthlessly calculating, dangerously short-tempered woman who demands the kind of effort that kills people and treats others like pawns in a strategy game. She barely tolerates most of the rest of Winterkill Works, only respecting Winterkill herself and a few other superiors.

Seamus Morael

Daryan

The leader of Ward 3, which is devoted to psychology and the operations of the Anryuu mind. Another former Scarab Tower employee, Seamus grew frustrated with the “lack of respect” he received there and set out to find employment where he could do as he pleased.

A self-proclaimed genius whose strengths don’t lie where he thinks they do. While he’s remarkably skilled at research and textbook knowledge, actually interacting with others is where his talents fall apart. Very opinionated, stuck on himself, and self-assured.

Gaware Collyer

Daryan

The leader of Ward 4, which is devoted to nutrition and other such specialized biology. The ward itself is neither underproductive nor overachieving, and the workers seem oddly satisfied with its management. Gaware runs it well, but never attracts much attention.

A good-natured man with strong passions and a poor constitution. Despite his happy-go-lucky attitude, he’s skilled at what he does... but also seems to be hiding something serious. He has a frequent habit of eating to the point of sickness, especially sweets.

Hikura Faraday

Daryan

The leader of Ward 5, which is devoted to chemical compounds of all kinds. Her ward is in close contact with Ward 1, mainly because Hikura herself is a frequent client of Dieterich’s. The two wards often work in cooperation and share research projects with each other.

Thanks to a habit of using personality-altering drugs, she fluctuates between varying types of behavior and has little memory of what her original personality was. Dieterich claims to be friends with her, but their relationship is far more like a drug dealer and client.

Beatrice Mukhina

Daryan

The leader of Ward 6, which is devoted to metalwork and machinery of any variety. Due to the debatable nature of machines in Anryuu culture, her ward is viewed as a place of insanity... which she doesn’t exactly help. To put it very mildly, she’s devoted to her practice.

Her number one passion in the world is metal, to the point where she joined Winterkill Works solely to learn how to be closer to it. She’s generally a kind, sane person, but her excitement often gets carried away, and she seems oblivious to many of the shady things around her.

Lisette Arondight

Daryan

The leader of Ward 7, which is devoted to magical studies. Her ward’s success comes in sudden spikes, mostly because Lisette herself is often preoccupied. However, she has a long-standing rivalry with Seamus, and as such, never allows Ward 3 to best her own without a fight.

A delusional woman with a massive superiority complex and a love for the finer things in life. She uses her rank to get what she wants, and really only does enough work to keep her job (and beat Seamus at every opportunity). She’s cruel, selfish, prideful, and decadently indulgent.

#Winterkill Works #Character Info #Dieterich Bruinsma #Mingxia Vesalius #Seamus Morael #Gaware Collyer #Hikura Faraday #Beatrice Mukhina #Lisette Arondight

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violetsystems · 5 years ago

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#personal

I’ve been trying to take a lunch hour just to get away from work. I usually just walk away from my office as far as possible. Things these days are beyond claustrophobic with little explanation or respect for my feelings or emotions. This is the city let alone the world at this point in my eyes. After spending so much time away from America it feels like the problem is the country at large. This isn’t to say that I’m not exposed to a lot of different cultures here. There is a rather large uptick in the diversity I see every day which is inspiring. But I still feel like I have become a fixture in the background much like a billboard. A service for people to point to as a sort of beacon but won’t acknowledge or give credit for existing. A light switch to flick on and off. A manufactured piece of consent paraded in front of people as the good guy though nobody knows my superhero name, my powers or what I even do. I guess this is what I get for wearing so many fonts and statement shirts. On my lunch break I passed a man being followed by a real live pigeon. It came to my attention that pigeons seem to communicate better than most Americans. I said that out loud. The man made a howling sound that was at once laughter and at once judgement. Those kind of interactions are fun sometimes. But it was a very real sentiment. I wake up every morning to two feral cats on my doorstep. The other morning my neighbor ran into me feeding them on the porch. It was a friendly interaction but they seemed hesitant to proceed up the stairs. My neighbor asked if they would bite. My landlord has asked this too. I never really assumed anyone would be afraid of cats but it’s a valid safety issue. I wonder why these cats aren’t afraid of me when historically everyone seems to make me out as the monster behind my back. I used to be afraid of dogs when I was small. The thing I love about animals is that they communicate their emotions very intelligently. You get back what you give. While science might explain away domestication of cats as emotionless manipulation of humans for food it doesn’t explain how humans treat each other for capitalism over money and power. In a city where for years people have been afraid to accept that I have dreams, desires, and needs I’ve become a Frankenstein like figure. The one thing I can agree with the current trends in America for social justice and cancel culture is that it is confusing, isolating, and divisive at times. But serving these societal needs sometimes is not as satisfying as you would like it to be. We resist and protest in America to change things. Change requires organization, planning and strategy. Also an endgame that results in either compromise or complete destruction apparently. And when you are the only one with a plan three years running, you start to think maybe you need a new plan or a new life entirely. Because everyone wins at the cost of you losing year after year.

I was listening to Chomsky instead of the debates the other day. He had remarked that you can predict the outcome of an election with scary accuracy just by looking at the funding. And it is true that in America you are mostly free if you have the money to justify the air you breathe. But America also has a history of taking freedom away for the benefit of others. In liberal circles this is called “sharing power.” Sometimes this is justified depending on the lens you view it through. Is it fair? For all the shit we talk about capitalism and how it is evil how is it any different? It’s not concerned with a balanced budget or being fair. It’s about profiting at any cost and our country depends on it regardless if someone else’s freedom. life, liberty or pursuit of happiness is at stake. The same can be said about human capital. If I’m the one doing all the work shouldn’t I be the one who profits? I believe you shouldn’t profit at the expense of others. This is why I generally work a non profit job. Dj’ing is also a non profit job in my experience along with making music since it makes no money. People pretend they’re worth gold because of it. It may return some sort of social capital for people. But my entire legacy of social capital is null and void these days. All I can really rely on is the fact that I have a stable enough job and lifestyle to pay my bills and stay healthy. I’m not the kind of person who is viewed as successful but I’m the person everyone always needs. I have no social support network other than what I’ve built here anymore. I’ve had the luxury of opening up about my experiences here and had people read from all over the world. Maybe people who value me more than anyone possibly could in my home town. But as far as how people view me in my own city it’s perverse and disappointing at best. People point to me as some sort of example that nobody wants to make the sacrifices to become. And people laugh at me because of it year after year and call me crazy. I just sit here alone at my kitchen table thinking how hopeless it’s all become. People in America love to shout from the mountains that they have freedom of speech but they never listen to anyone but themselves. Or worse they surround themselves with people who constantly validate them and never make any sort of criticism. Art school is full of critique. I saw a flyer on the wall for critique in Chinese. I thought that was amazing. I’ve been the subject of English critique for over two decades and look where that got me. Everybody’s favorite water cooler topic to bully and make fun of. It’s like I’m the mascot. Charlie Brown with hair. Or Edward Norton overlayed in CGI green. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

I’ve given up on so much shit this last year. Nobody really cares how much I’ve sacrificed or how it’s made me feel. At least not on the surface. But imagine an entire life of having to walk the streets with your ear scraping the ground every moment of the day. Just to know people’s intentions about why they feel the need to interact or acknowledge you. There’s people who see me on the street and think it’s my problem that I don’t recognize them. Like nobody understands that largely for years other people have caused more problems for me demanding my interaction. Chicago has a very forced sense of community. It goes far back to the days of shady politics that still haunt our city. People with money and power who intimidate you in and out of situations. I have been hurt tremendously over the years sticking my neck out for people who don’t care if I live or die. The minute you stop is the minute people have an opinion about it. Like my services to people moved way past good Samaritan mode. Now it’s an expectation that I bend over backwards for everyone while I suffer in obscurity. I don’t often try to argue any of this. I’ve almost nearly just shut up and down completely. I don’t leave my house much other than to travel an hour on public transit to mow my mom’s lawn. And even then people are always trying to get to know you and start some trouble. Use you as a prop or an example then call you a hermit behind your back. For years that is really what I have become. A prop in the background to manipulate. An urban legend that has no form and thus no real need to appease with anything material. Unlike a Chupacabra I do have physical form. I don’t have a personal life. It’s been bludgeoned to death by abstractions and expectations from greedy people. To this day nobody ever really addresses me like a human other than maybe cats on my doorstep at five in the morning. I’ll never be good enough or successful enough to break free of my landlord. I’m always negotiating my right to frown about my situation. My privilege is checked at the door when I leave only to be greeted by a city that swings it’s own clout around in my face. And then there’s the people on the internet who would rather argue about it like it’s a dirty secret. I am that secret. I am the one suffering in ways you could never imagine. And everybody is just ok with it. Nobody has any sort of emotion at all. There is no closure. It’s just me week after week typing into a void hoping that somebody is listening that knows how much it all hurts. And generally if I take a deep breath and a sip of coffee I know this to be true. Just like I know the world is bigger than America and it’s view of profit before people. Just like I know the universe is vast and the planet is small. In another month I’ll be back in New York. And a couple of months after that. And so on and so on until it clicks. I’m worth more than this. The trick is believing it enough to save yourself and wait for something that actually appreciates it. That’s what intimacy is all about. Save all the abuse, psychological manipulation and anger for the stand up routines. They don’t call it the Second City for nothing. I deserve to live in a world that puts me first after all this. <3 Tim

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windynebula · 5 years ago

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Here's some fragmented and disjointed Deep Lore bits on Backlight.

Ivy and her group are a gang of sorts. They used to be human test subjects in a shady facility. There used to be 1000 people each assigned a number instead of a name. The tests ranged from semi-normal stuff like endurance and intelligence tests, but also what appeared to be aking to trying to make them physically and mentally superhuman. Eight (trans man) and Five (trans woman) also get the HRT they ask for, but only because the scientists are more interested in fucking around with hormones and seeing how they'd affect their normal tests.

But eventually they started dying off as the tests kept getting more and more extreme. Soon the thousand were down to ten. The remaining ten decide that they're not going to die like the 990 before them. They're going to escape. Number One gets assigned leader because she's One. Then they hatch a plan.

Now, there's only ten of them and god knows how manu guards. Not to mention that Six is a child and Four and Seven are so traumatized from the tests that they're barely lucid. Eight and Ten have massive anger issues. But they do have superhuman strenght, speed and healing factor, ironically thanks to the testing facility.

Three, Eight, Nine and Ten, the strongest and most aggressive ones, are fighters who are going to go in first and dispatch the guards. Two is going to deal with any devices they come across. One and Five are making sure that Four, Six and Seven, the most fragile keep up with the group.

Execute plan. The group moves out. The bruiser group mows down on any guards they come across and the ten run for it. Of course they're overpowered and cornered soon. One's plan didn't work.

They're taken back to their cells, dejected. The punishment on them is so severe that Five and Six's legs are severely injured. But Nine is still ready to try again, with a new and better plan. It takes a little convincing, but the ten prepare themselves better and try again.

Execute plan, reprise. The bruisers distract guards and start a fire while Two cuts the electricity of the facility, scrambles the guards' walkie talkies and disables the facility's fire estinguishers. Five and One take care of Four, Six and Seven. Each group have their own exit strategy, but they will reunite when they make it outside.

It's a success. The facility is burning and ten are free. One willingly lets Nine be the new leader because her plan was the one that got them to freedom.

But what now? They don't have money, passports, IDs or even real names. They find the nearest city and start doing whatever to keep themselves afloat. One finds her knack for psychology and starts treating the ten and herself on the PTSD that the facility gave them. Three, Nine and Ten do manual labour. Two learns to hack computers. Four eventually breaks out of her shellshock and becomes really good at debating and haggling for food. Five sells premonitions. Six entertains by juggling and sleight of hand. Seven comes out of her reverie swinging. She starts taking part in underground fights to cope with her PTSD and gets paid a little for it, too. Eight, traumatized from fighting the guards, swears to never hurt another person again and finds that he can channel his own healing factor to other people. He starts treating people who can't or won't go to official doctors for one reason or another.

Eventually they have enough to buy themselves a bunch of fake IDs.

One becomes Eins, Nine's wife and Six's mother, a therapist/psychologist.

Two becomes Irantu, an IT expert.

Three becomes Tatu, a beginner DJ.

Four becomes Ivy, a lawyer.

Five becomes Shàn, a librarian by day, a psychic by night.

Six becomes Setta, a beginner pro-gamer.

Seven becomes Nana, a kickboxer.

Eight becomes Otto, a nurse.

Nine becomes Sonela... I don't have a job for her...

Ten becomes Dix, a chef and a patisserie.

They settle down. Life isn't easy, but it gets better with time. At least they have each other.

Eventually, they start feeling a change. Shàn gets premonitions more frequently, Otto finds it easier to heal people. Sonela hears vague rumours that there is a group who plans to bring magic back. She investigates and tracks it down to a certain Englishman, who is currently living in Finland...

#windycat.txt #backlight #windy oc #ill tag the names later bc im on phone now #oc: eins #oc: irantu #oc: tatu #oc: ivy #oc: shán #oc: setta #oc: nana #oc: otto #oc: sonela #oc: dix

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moneywisealpha · 5 years ago

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Top 10 Active Ways to Make Money With Cryptocurrency

Scam Alert!

Now, this is critically important! Many scams are in the cryptocurrency industry! A great site to use to check if a cryptocurrency-related website might potentially be a scam is http://www.badbitcoin.org/, which has already vetted many websites, but it is not foolproof!

Due to always new investment opportunities popping up in the cryptocurrency industry, many sites might not prove to be valid, and you don’t want to fall prey as one of the initial victims! Therefore, you should always use your sound judgment! If the promised returns seem too good to be true — it probably is!

Diversifying Your Portfolio Is A Good Practice

A good practice is to diversify your portfolio — don’t put all your eggs in one basket! Practice an incremental approach, one step at a time, as you learn more and become aware of potential scams, you can invest more money. Always start with a tiny investment first! Please don’t get pressured by the hype and follow the herd because of the fear of missing out (FOMO) — go at your own pace!

Active Ways To Make Money With Cryptocurrency Requires Time And Energy

Active methods require you to devote your time and energy towards generating income with cryptocurrency, similar to a typical job or a business that you manage yourself. The good news is that there are many exciting ways to make active income with cryptocurrency. Using all my research, practical experience and the occasional run-in with scams, here are the top 10 active ways to make income with cryptocurrencies that I discovered:

1) Buy and Keep (HODL)

2) Trading

3) Cryptocurrency Payment Gateway

4) Invest in Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs)

5) Invest in Security Token Offerings (STOs)

6) Cryptocurrency Education

7) Cryptocurrency News & Trends Subscriptions

8) Forming an Inner Circle

9) Bounty / Rewards Programs

10) Gaming

Active Method 1: Buy and Keep (HODL)

Figure 1: HODLing Cryptocurrency

The simplest, though not necessarily, the most lucrative strategy is to buy and hold your favorite cryptocurrencies, also known as HODL (“hold on for dear life”) in the community. HODLing is a long-term investing strategy that requires proper fundamental analysis. The topic of fundamental analysis is a huge one, but some basics to look out for are:

1) Company Analysis: Management has a history of success, right products, well-financed, good marketing, etc.

2) Industry Analysis: Not too much competition; government regulations are open; environmental factors are favorable, etc.

3) Economic Conditions: Are we in a bear or bull market? Are there any unforeseen economic conditions that can affect the product or service?

4) Future Profit Outlook: Will the products or services be in demand in the future? How large is the total addressable market? In what time frame might the product or service become obsolete?

After doing your fundamental analysis for a particular cryptocurrency-related product or service, and choosing your top picks, an excellent strategy to use is dollar-cost averaging. For example, if you get paid once or twice a month, you can allocate a small portion of your earnings to invest in your favorite cryptocurrency endeavor. In a few months after doing some more fundamental analysis, you might choose to rebalance your portfolio in favor of another cryptocurrency project, as well.

Tip: Coinmarketcap.com does some fundamental analysis for you already that is accessible if you view the rating tab for a particular cryptocurrency. Another good site to use is coinpaprika.com.

Recommendations:

If you are a long-term investor, you might also want to consider storing your crypto assets in high yielding mobile wallets as a form of savings. Using the Celsius App, long-term investors can get an annual interest rate of up to 10% with some stable coins such as USD, PAX, DAI, TUSD, GUSD, and others.

Active Method 2: Trading

Figure 2: Trading View

If you are technically minded and like to look at visual charts, you might also consider becoming a cryptocurrency trader. Figure 2 shows a popular trading platform used by many cryptocurrency traders known as Trading View. Cryptocurrency exchanges are open 24 hours 7 days a week so you can perform trades anytime, unlike traditional markets such as equities. Many types of traders require different levels of both involvement and risks. Here are some of the different types of traders:

1) Trend Traders: follow the trend to buy low and then sell high

2) Swing Traders: take advantage of market volatility

3) Margin Traders: bet prices will fall so short the market instead of going long

4) Futures Traders: They hedge against volatility with fixed asking & selling prices

5) Options Traders: bet it’s going to be a buyers’ or sellers’ market

6) Day Traders: open and close multiple positions within 24 hours

Tip: Good YouTube channels to use to learn about cryptocurrency trading are Data Dash and Ready Set Crypto. They offer many free videos to learn about using technical analysis for trading.

Tip: For a listing of top cryptocurrency exchanges by volume visit https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

Recommendations:

Here are some cryptocurrency exchanges that I recommend:

1) Binance: The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world! Now supports margin trading!

2) Coinbase: This is a prevalent cryptocurrency exchange, especially in the US, that supports fiat to crypto conversions.

3) KuCoin: This exchange allows you to invest in new coins and coins you won’t find on the larger exchanges!

4) LocalBitcoins: This exchange has a vast number of ways to buy Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies that are sometimes even discounted from the market rate!

Active Method 3: Cryptocurrency Payment Gateway

Many retailers and online sellers now accept cryptocurrencies for payments. You can set up a cryptocurrency payment gateway yourself in your retail or online store. The model is similar to how PayPal, Mastercard, and Visa are accepted. Sellers make money with transaction fees and some margin in price. Some retailers also maintain cryptocurrency-based ATMs. You can buy real estate, cars, gold, and many other items with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Figure 3: Some subway franchises accept Bitcoin.

Figure 4: Some retail outlets also maintain cryptocurrency ATMs.

Tip: For buying gold and silver with cryptocurrencies, I recommend goldsilver.com.

Active Method 4: Invest in Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs)

Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs) were invented to build more trust with investors after many shady Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) failed. I worked on a few ICO projects as a consultant, and I can say that the vast majority of them, >95%, turned out to be scams or just had wrong business models or tokenomics. ICOs did, however, open up suitable investments to small investors. Traditionally, only affluent investors were able to partake in top tier investments. For example, say you wanted to buy some Apple or Amazon stock, this would cost you thousands of dollars to buy one share. Using ICOs allowed small-time investors to invest even a few dollars into top tier investments. IEOs differ from ICOs because they occur on an officially trusted exchange itself, so the investment offer is better vetted. Again proper fundamental analysis aids when deciding to invest in an IEO.

Tip: Binance Launchpad is a good example of a platform used by IEOs.

Active Method 5: Invest in Security Token Offerings (STOs)

Security Token Offerings (STOs) are the most regulated cryptocurrency token offerings. The security is backed by actual collateral: assets, equity, commodities, land, real estate, etc. Therefore, STOs are subjected, protected, and regulated by some national-based authority. However, due to the different definitions of securities and varying classification of cryptocurrencies as a financial asset class concerning each country, the definition of what exactly constitutes a “Security Token” is still debatable.

Tip: For a listing of upcoming STOs, visit https://tokenmarket.net/security-token-calendar/.

Active Method 6: Cryptocurrency Education

Figure 5: Many online and offline courses now offered about cryptocurrency.

Many websites now offer cryptocurrency education for a fee. There are courses on Udemy.com and Lynda.com on investing and trading cryptocurrencies. Once you gain knowledge and experience, you can teach people about cryptocurrencies yourself by using books, e-books, webinars, seminars, etc. However, there are still many free ways to learn about cryptocurrencies, especially on YouTube.

Tip: I recommend the YouTube channels, Data Dash and Ready Set Crypto for free learning and the AMTV Bitcoin academy, a paid service.

Active Method 7: Cryptocurrency News & Trends Subscriptions

Figure 6: Trends in the cryptocurrency industry are popular subscriptions.

Professional crypto traders and investors are interested in the latest news & trends to make informed decisions. Many online venues offer up to date news and trends, usually for a monthly based subscription. In return, you get daily or weekly newsletters and membership to some online community with live training and chat available. If you like to do market research, like social media and are a talented technical writer, then this might be a sufficient income option for you.

Tip: For subscription-based services, I recommend Ready Set Crypto and The Dollar Vigilante.

Active Method 8: Forming an Inner Circle / Joining a Signals Group

Figure 7: Buy the rumor and sell the news.

Another good strategy that you can employ is to form an inner circle or join a signals group. You can join a private WeChat, WhatsApp, Telegram Group, etc. Some of these groups are free, and some require payment. Usually, in these types of groups, you get what you pay for in terms of price. In joining these types of groups, your goal is to hear rumors before the rest of the retail traders do. In this way, you can buy the rumor when the prices are still very low and then sell the news when the prices are at a peak. You can start your private chat group with your most informed and connected contacts that can give you buy and sell signals.

Tip: A strategy that I like to use is following different channels on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Telegram on investments and topics that I’m most interested in learning. I then view the posts that generate the most buzz.

Active Method 9: Bounty / Rewards Programs

Figure 8: Coinbase Earn allows you to earn crypto while watching educational videos.

You can also earn crypto by performing specific tasks. For example, you might write a positive review, create a cool logo, answer trivia questions, etc. You might also be able to receive free crypto by participating in token airdrop campaigns.

Tip: My favorite cryptocurrency reward program now is on Coinbase Earn. You watch videos on various cryptocurrency projects, answer questions, and then receive free coins in return.

Recommendations:

The Brave browser lets you effortlessly earn cryptocurrency just by surfing the net and joining reward programs too!

Crowd Holding, which is currently in Beta as of this writing, is an open innovation platform empowering anyone to earn rewards, and entrepreneurs to get insights from key stakeholders, employees, and consumers.

PublishOx is a great way to get paid in crypto for reading and writing blog articles!

Active Method 10: Playing Games!

Figure 9: Minecraft was one of the first games to use BTC as an in-game currency.

Last but certainly not least, you can earn cryptocurrency by playing games! Now here is a real story; I once met a guy who became a Bitcoin millionaire by playing Minecraft. The story goes is that he was playing the game a lot during his college days and accumulated a lot of Bitcoin as the in-game currency. Then he got a serious girlfriend, so he didn’t play the game for a long time. Many years later, he logged in and found out that he still had all those Bitcoins, but they were worth tremendously much more, so he was now a Bitcoin millionaire!

There are many games now that use cryptocurrency as the in-game currency. For example, in Ether Quest, you compete with other players for Ethereum. As of this writing, on the Apple store, good games for earning crypto are Alien Run, Storm Play, Free Bitcoin, Bitcoin Aliens, and Blockchain.

Tip: Have your little cousins or kids use your game account to earn you crypto! It’s the best of both worlds; they are kept busy and enjoy while you make some crypto on the side!

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musicsubmitpromo · 6 years ago

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A music “company” just asked YOU for money...is it a Scam?

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”

This famous iconic quote about the music business, most often attributed to legendary novelist Hunter S. Thompson, is widely known even to those just starting their music careers. Whether the quote actually came from Thomson is debatable. Less controversial is the notion that most people in the music business actually agree with the premise, no matter who may have come up with it. And while those who choose to venture into the music industry are regarded as quite the cynical lot, most of us would agree that there are plenty of shady characters to watch out for, especially if you’re a DIY artist with a tight budget. Consequently, if you’re an artist and a so-called music executive asks YOU for money, like say $500 or more, read these guidelines below before forking over your hard-earned cash..

Yes - It’s Definitely It’s a Scam

Mike Myers in “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Not quite a scam artist but sure does look pretty shady, doesn’t he?

Record Labels

Any huckster in possession of a business card with “(FiLLInTheBlank) Records” on it can claim to be a “record label”. Fact is, most of these claims are pure bunk. So how does an artist determine which “record label’ is legit, and which are scammers? Easy - if the so-called record label asks YOU for money upfront, they’re not for real.

Here’s the basic business model for a legitimate record label: Labels make an investment in you (the band) in the form of an advanced payment, or covering your costs and/or living expenses. In return, you (the band) offer the label your rights to your songs’ or albums’ master recordings. It’s that simple. Now, whether a band wants to accept these terms is another matter. But if a guy is telling you he owns or represents a record label, then turns around and asks YOU for money, say, to cover expenses or for other “services”, then he’s not really a label. And the fact he’s representing himself as a “record label” makes him a scammer.

Managers

Timothy Spall as Mats, band manager for fictional rock group Steel Dragon in movie “Rock Star”. Scoundrel - yes; scammer - debatable.

Music Managers are among the shadiest scoundrels in the music industry. Under no circumstances does a legitimate music manager collect upfront “fees for services” from a band. No way. Never. Legitimate Managers make their money as a percentage of what the band makes - usually between 10-20% of everything. Some “super-Managers” may charge more, perhaps up to 25% - expensive, yes, but probably still legit. However, if a so-called Manager is asking you for money, run. And, don’t sign any contracts where the Manager is raking in 50% or more of your money, like Justin Timberlake did. Unfortunately, this happens all the time in the music business.

Booking Agents

A real Booking Agent, like Music Managers, earn their money as a percentage of what the band makes. The only relevant difference is, while a Manager usually earns a percentage on all income from the band, a Booking Agent earns a fee from touring only. The Agent books a show, gets roughly 10% of the gross, paid by the venue and/or promoter. Booking Agent then pays the band. Pretty simple. If a “booking agent” is asking you for money to cover costs or fees, they are not for real. Chances are, it’s just a guy with no connections and needs a job.

Publishers

Music Publishers work for artists in a similar fashion as do Record Labels. The Publisher advances you money; in return, you share the songwriting rights with the publisher. At most, it’s a 50/50 split. There are many types of publishing deals, but any deal that requires an artist to invest upfront fees is not legitimate.

Might Not Be A Scam - But Watch Out

Alec Baldwin plays Dennis Dupree, owner of fictional venue the Bourbon Club in “Rock Of Ages”

“Pay-to-Play” Venues

For the “pay-to-play” Venues that ask bands for money upfront before taking the stage, most music industry experts will advise you to stay away. Perhaps as a result, most of these types of deals have been slowly phased out. Still, there are still some “brand name” Venues, namely on L.A.’s Sunset Strip, that require bands to attract a minimum number of fans, or else pay the difference. If you don’t draw enough warm bodies to your show, you can probably still get out of paying the Venue. Just don’t expect to be invited back anytime soon. In any case, you don’t have to take the gig, and that’s probably a good idea. This deal is just not good.

Radio Promoters

True, Radio Promoters take no back-end or share in the band’s success, as do managers and record labels. But Radio Promoters need to get paid somehow. Just don’t let that “somehow” be you. Most legit Radio Promoters charge fees well out of reach for a typical band’s budget. In other words, legit Radio Promoters usually work for major labels and not DIY bands. If a guy says he’s a “radio promoter” and asks you for a large sum of money, and to justify this arrangement he’s guaranteeing your song will receive heavy airplay on major FM radio stations, this is your red flag. Run for the hills.

Music Producers

Most music producers require upfront fees to work on your record - this is normal. Many will take back-end point along with fees, reducing the amount of scratch you need to come up with upfront. This should be a negotiation, so if a producer asks for fees before you start, don’t be alarmed. You can reduce this fee by offering more points on your record. It could be a “scam” if the producer is asking for an obscene amount of money for your acoustic record. It just doesn’t cost that much to record a an album these days.

Music Publicists

Yes, you’ll need to budget and pay upfront before a music publicist lifts a finger. Usually you can spread payments for a campaign over a few months, but it’s not cheap, and the minute your check is late, work stops. Music publicists don’t guaranteed results - also normal - but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shop around. Get a referral from a band you trust before working with a publicist.

**Probably Not A Scam**

Digital Distributors

Most digital distributors will charge bands modest upfront “set-up” costs and maybe a percentage of your sales. This is standard practice. There are many players crowding this space these days, so shop around and get the best deal for your music and strategy.

Recording Studios

Yes, recording your record in a place other than a basement is something you need to budget for. Even basement studios are pretty nice these days. Be prepared to come out of your pocket before setting foot inside any studio, or you could run into problems.

Final Word of Caution:

There are plenty of music companies not listed above for which bands may have questions regarding the legitimacy of services offered, especially if it’s a relatively small amount of money, say $100 or less. This doesn’t mean some vulture isn’t scamming you, even if you won’t exactly lose your shirt. As always, write or forward any deal you’ve come across to [email protected] and I’ll be glad to offer my take. This offer goes to any “label”, “manager” or other music industry scoundrel who believes this article is way off base and you’d like to tell me off. I’m all ears.

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thelmasirby32 · 4 years ago

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What are PBNs and should you use them?

30-second summary:

Private Blog Networks (PBNs) are a huge part of the SEO industry and whilst getting backlinks is still a key driver in the Google search algorithm, PBNs will always be the source of debate and interest amongst SEO practitioners.

PBNs have different uses and interpretations but can be used to point links to your site, sell links, or just simply add your home page links on them.

Will you get penalized if you use PBNs? Should you consider using it? Read on to find out what experts and Tudor Lodge Consultants say.

If you have ever bought a domain or run a website that ranks on Google, you are probably accustomed to getting emails from PBNs on a daily basis and they will tend to offer you a list of links that you can buy. The emails you receive will typically be called:

“High Quality Guest Posting”

“Guest Posting Service”

“High DA Quality Sites”

But should you be paying to add these links to your website? And what is the damage?

Content created in collaboration with Tudor Lodge Consultants.

What Are PBNs?

PBNs are very simply blogs or old websites with domains that have expired, but still, have a lot of value due to gaining thousands of historical backlinks.

Anyone can buy these domains once they expire or sometimes they are bought via an online auction.

But it is the ability to use this expired site, maybe re-design it, add some fresh content, and then start adding or selling links from this site to boost your SEO rankings or for commercial gain.

Example

XYZ.com suddenly expires but has generated thousands of backlinks over the years. Now the site is available to buy, I will redesign it, add some new content, and start pointing links to my own sites and then start selling the links to other people too.

Source: Growtraffic.com

People will sell links on PBNs anywhere from $10 to $1,000 per link and when you are looking to justify or scale your SEO spend, it is easily measurable to know what you get for $1,000, $5,000 or $10,000.

Equally, a PBN can just be a news site or blog that purposely sells links for income.

Prior to 2014, buying links from PBNs was a quick and highly successful way to rank any website, in any industry across finance, money, fashion, insurance – you name it.

However, over the last few years, Google has started to penalize any PBN site and who they link to, considering this a quick gaming of the system and anti-Google guidelines. Get on the wrong side of Google and you are looking at a serious penalty in your rankings or total blacklisting altogether. Wake up one morning with a penalty and your business model changes overnight.

Different uses of PBNs

PBNs have different uses and interpretations, but can be used in the following ways:

1. Point links to your site

Take an expired domain, set up a new website and start writing articles and include links to your own websites.

2. Sell links

You can sell links to other SEO companies or practitioners – however, this is considered malpractice and anti-Google guidelines.

3. Just add them to your homepage

You can purchase multiple PBN sites, re-design them and just add your links on every homepage (which is considered the highest trust flow).

Will my website improve if I use PBNs?

In the world of grey hat or black hat SEO, using PBNs can theoretically improve your website’s search results.

Certainly in the short-term, an influx of links from websites with high DAs will give you an instant boost.

For many SEO businesses and online companies, PBNs is the way they conduct an SEO strategy and essentially do business.

If they can stay clear of penalties, PBNs are attributed to ranking some of the top search positions on Google – certainly for industries that attract shady techniques such as loans, web hosting, casinos and pornography.

Will I get penalized if I use PBNs?

If you are using PBNs to acquire links, you are walking on a constant tightrope and risk of getting penalized by Google. You may not be automatically downgraded – but all it takes is one Google update or algorithm shift for this to change overnight.

Presumably, if you did nothing but by links from PBNs for years and years, at some point, you will face a penalty and then need to look at removing them to restore your rankings.

In some respect, more experienced SEOs are able to balance PBNs with a clean approach – and this might include creating natural content, a strong user experience, generating clean and natural links and also doing regular link disavows.

Source: DP TECH Group

What the experts say

Seb Atkinson, Head of SEO at Know Your Money explains,

“PBNs are seen as a quickfire way to buy links and boost your rankings – but this is very much an old technique and today is likely to attract penalization. Your best approach is to create unique, interesting content that provides real insight into a topic, making it genuinely link-worthy so people can naturally link back to it.”

Ian Sims, Director of Badger Loans commented,

“Working in the payday and short term loan space, I am inundated daily by emails with people offering me links from PBNs. I tend to stay clear of this because although it might give me a quick boost in rankings, a potential penalty could be very costly for our business. I get annoyed when I see other sites ranking on page 1 and they have clearly used this approach – but I know that their success may be short-lived.”

Andrew Speer, Consultant for Fund Ourselves explains,

“I have worked in SEO for almost a decade and originally PBNs were a proven source of link-building and the status quo. It wasn’t until algorithm updates like Panda and Penguin that started to reward clean content and link-building and with this PBNs have gone out of favour with Google, despite still being used by tonnes of people across the US and the world. But if you were to start learning about SEO today, this is something that you would stay clear of for sure.”

Conclusion?

There is an argument that using PBNs as part of your link building strategy could be successful for more experienced SEOs.

But in reality, Google is known to changing their goalposts and revelling in such a high-risk strategy is unlikely to go down well with investors, clients and business partners.

It may not be if you get a Google penalty, but when.

Our conclusion? Stay away from PBNs.

 The “will I get penalized” section suggests PBNs could be used by experienced SEOs but the conclusion doesn’t really support this.

Maybe the main downside of PBNs could be highlighted more, for example, you will always have a risk of a penalty on your site as Google is known to move the goalposts over time. This could be a risk that your investors/clients/business partners are not comfortable with.

The post What are PBNs and should you use them? appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Digital Marketing News https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2020/05/21/what-are-pbns-and-should-you-use-them/

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digital-strategy · 5 years ago

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For all the talk of trusted marketplaces and supply-path optimization, buyers still struggle to know who they��re actually buying impressions from. While adoption of the IAB Tech Lab’s sellers.json tool is making it easier to spot some of those intermediaries, it’s not fully possible to view all the players involved without the OpenRTB SupplyChain Object tool.

Like the sellers.json tool, SupplyChain Object is all about demystifying how impressions are sold to them. But while sellers.json reveals information about the final seller of an impression, SupplyChain Object as it makes its way through complicated digital ad systems. What buyers know less about is how to use all that information to distinguish between those ad tech middlemen that deserve a share of their budget.

Here’s a primer on what to watch out for.

WTF is SupplyChain Object? Launched alongside sellers.json, SupplyChain Object is pitched as a way to help buyers to remove anonymity in the supply chain. In a nutshell, the tool shows all intermediaries involved in the sale of a particular impression. This trail is mapped across a chain of nodes that represents all the sellers who were paid in an individual bid request, using information including the URL of the seller and the publisher ID. For the tool to work, it has to be included in the bid request for an impression.

“Using both SupplyChain Object and sellers.json in tandem with each other can be eye-opening for buyers,” said Chris Kane, founder of programmatic consultancy Jounce Media. “Rather than make decisions on how to buy impressions based on relationships and intuition, buyers can use both sellers.json and eventually SupplyChain Object to make data-driven decisions on supply-path optimization.”

What does SupplyChain Object tell me that sellers.json won’t? Sellers.json shows a buyer the first two payment hops in a transaction. Sellers.json shows that demand-side platform X paid supply-side platform Y which paid publisher Z. Or it might show how the payment went from DSP to SSP to reseller. But who does the reseller pay? The publisher? Another intermediary? That’s where SupplyChain Object comes in. If the tool is included in the bid request, then that request would show the full chain of payment all the way back to the publisher. That’s the theory at least, as the adoption of the tool is still a work in progress.

Why aren’t more ad tech players adopting SupplyChain Object? SupplyChain Object’s role in reconciling ad tech’s issues is debatable. For the tool to leave its mark on ad tech, vendors on both the buy and sell sides must be on the latest OpenRTB protocol — a set of procedures from the IAB Tech Lab to bring more clarity to the digital ad supply chain. The protocol poses a technical issue in that it could severely limit the use of SupplyChain Object given the majority of ad tech vendors won’t be on the latest version of OpenRTB, said Dan Larden, managing partner of product and partnerships at programmatic agency Infectious Media. There’s also the lack of commitment to SupplyChain Object from Google’s SSP to consider. For any buyers already struggling to implement a strategy consistently across digital channels, this SupplyChain Object initiative is only going to add to their list of headaches, said Larden.

How do I get the most from SupplyChain Object? Buyers that are already using sellers.json and ads.txt will get the most from SupplyChain Object. Insights taken from each node tracked by SupplyChain Object can be cross-referenced against the end seller in the sellers.json file and the names of the ad tech vendors (listed in the ads.txt file) cleared to sell a given publisher’s inventory. Armed with that information, buyers can start to consolidate their spending away from shady sellers peddling fraudulent traffic as well those vendors who are simply reselling impressions to duplicate the number of auctions for the same impression. When that auction duplication happens, buyers can bid multiple times for the same impression, and inadvertently drive up the cost of it.

Wasn’t it already possible to get that clarity in the auction without these tools? Prior to the arrival of the IAB’s transparency tools, finding out all the players involved in a single bid request was a manual process. A buyer would need to put an identifier into the bid stream, and then ask every SSP to map the ID to the seller to understand which intermediaries received money for the impression. Tools like SupplyChain Object and sellers.json automate that process when it comes to understanding the names and numbers of ad tech vendors taking fees in the supply chain. Nevertheless, the challenge will be how to implement these findings into a successful supply chain strategy as the majority of DSPs still do not allow for any seller ID optimization, said Larden.

The post WTF is SupplyChain Object? appeared first on Digiday.

via Digiday

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wholesalestore-blog · 5 years ago

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krisggordon · 6 years ago

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8 Common Link-Building Myths That Are Holding Back Your Website

Link-building is a noisy environment. Lots of opinions and free pieces of advice with no foundation are chocking the internet. Looking at the link-building myths, we discover an unsettled ground with messy directions and scary ideas that can bite, scratch and eat your website alive.

There are a lot of SEO myths, but today we’ll talk about the most damaging ones.

All Links on a Page Pass Equal Ranking Value

Image Links Are Bad for SEO

All Links Should Be Nofollow

Links Are Case Sensitive

Links from Wikipedia Guarantee Top Rankings

External Links Matter More Than Internal Ones

Links Are the Most Important Google Ranking Factor

Links from Other Niches Than Yours Don’t Help You Rank

A link-building strategy must focus on earning links naturally by following white hat SEO practices and taking into consideration Google’s quality guidelines.

Note to self: make sure you value the accuracy of information when it comes to link-building and basically everything related to your digital marketing strategies. It is important to make a difference between facts and myths.

1. All Links on a Page Pass Equal Ranking Value

First and foremost is the distributed value of links on a page. Lots of people say that all the links from a page pass the same value, regardless of whether they are positioned higher or lower in your article. While you might think this is true, try and look at the differences between footer links and body links. Only by comparing these two types of links can we see that link position matters.

This particular matter fits very well under the Google patent application – “Ranking documents based on user behavior and/or feature data”, which points out numerous factors which influence the value of a link:

the font size of the anchor text associated with the link;

the position of the link (measured, for example, in an HTML list, in running text, above or below the first screenful viewed on an 800×600 browser display);

if the link is in a list, the position of the link in the list;

font color and/or attributes of the link (e.g., italics, gray, same color as the background, etc.);

type of the link (e.g., image link);

the context of a few words before and/or after the link;

Plus lots of other factors.

A debated ranking factor is the link position and whether a link that is positioned higher in content weighs more. According to Bill Slawski, Rand Fishkin and lots of other SEO experts, those links may determine a significant value passed on to the pages to which they link.

Source; moz.com

On the same notice, we must remember that lots of other signals are important for passing ranking value. If a link appears on a related page, with related anchor text that would be more valuable, than it is higher in the HTML code. In case we have two links and all the elements are similar and in favor, then the position might carry some value.

On a final note, we can say with certainty that links on a page cast different ranking values.

2. Image Links Are Bad for SEO

Another myth about link-building regards image SEO. If abused, every aspect of SEO might be bad. Such as image SEO – where a lot of spammers cluttered keywords in alt descriptions to get higher rankings and cheat Google’s system. That period is long gone, but some people still consider that image links are bad.

Another issue that feeds this link-building myth is the possibility of reading images by crawlers. A few years ago, Google’s bots couldn’t read the alt attribute from an image very weel to parse it and it was easier to understand the HTML text instead. That’s why Google’s Guidelines are saying:

Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. If you must use images for textual content, use the alt attribute to include a few words of descriptive text. google guidelines

Adam Powell, founder of Abacus, explained how search engines see images:

Actual <img /> images are considered content (unless quite small) and therefore should have alt text, they are also given higher priority in loading and rendering than CSS background images so there are accessibility and (contradictory) performance considerations. Adam Powell Founder of Abacus

The differences arise when that image appears on the page multiples times, or when the page has only images and not so much content (except for the niche photography websites), and alt texts are filled with rich keyword descriptions.

Since things have changed so fast the past few years, with the evolution of AI, the human interaction with technology and computer science integration in our lives, it was only natural for Google to step up into the game. That’s how Google is able to read images and understand the elements that compose it through the Object Detection in images.

If we were to think about images as alt text and text as anchor text when they carry a link, then images shouldn’t be any different than text. Basically, both are translated into the same language, in coding.

John Mueller said always have alt text descriptions and anchor texts when the need arises, never leave them blank. They are equally important and carry value for SEO.

Yes, but anchor text (and image alt text) helps us quite a bit in understanding context, so I wouldn’t leave it out if you can avoid it.

— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) May 15, 2017

While Google is making big efforts to enable even better image understanding on our side, we can say with certainty that image links aren’t bad for SEO if they are used in context with appropriate alt text description.

3. All Links Should Be Nofollow

Some time ago I heard or read someone saying that all links should be tagged as nofollow, which I thought was funny at first. But there I saw that some people actually believed it and it wasn’t funny anymore.

In reality, most of the links are dofollow. On the whole world wide web nofollow links represent a very small percentage.

On a similar note, we saw that websites that had a natural backlink profile had more nofollow links than dofollow. Chances were that websites with spammy links had more dofollow links. In particular, there were pages with dolfollow links only. And that triggered our attention. We discovered lots of them were shady. Take a look at the example below:

The cluster below has only blue lines, which means that page has only dofollow links. It looks a little bit too … “perfect”? No. Shady. Shady is the word that fits the description. The example we used is from an analysis we made on the spammy links.

Google says that in general, nofollow links don’t pass value:

In general, we don’t follow them. This means that Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. Essentially, using nofollow causes us to drop the target links from our overall graph of the web. However, the target pages may still appear in our index if other sites link to them without using nofollow, or if the URLs are submitted to Google in a Sitemap. Also, it’s important to note that other search engines may handle nofollow in slightly different ways. Search Console Help

If we were to say that all outbound links should be nofollow, then imagine the next situation. Nofollow links don’t pass any value, no authority, no influence. What would happen with the domains? How would they be evaluated? All will have the same link quality. That means they will be equal. And that doesn’t make any sense, because domain authority wouldn’t exist and it is an important metric in the ranking evolution.

It is irrelevant and damaging to have only links with the no-follow tag.

4. Links Are Case Sensitive

It is a little bit too much to say that capital letters affect SEO. Google clearly states that capitalization doesn’t affect search.

A search for New York Times is the same as a search for new york times.

We wanted to test it to see if that’s really the case. Should you use big letters in the title or not? To check this dilemma, we looked at both text content and video content, because the last one is becoming more and more popular nowadays.

In all of our examples, we noticed that the only difference between the two types of content is the number of Google results. If you take a look at the next two screenshots you can see that the query “Empire State Building” has 240M search results and “empire state building” has fewer results – 207M.

I didn’t put all words in the upper case, because it is treated as spammy by several spiders in search engines.

When we searched for the same query on video content, we saw the same number of results with no difference whatsoever.

We had a big surprise when we tried this on YouTube, because while some keywords haven’t registered any differences on capital letters, some others have did, but only a few.

In the end, we’ve seen a few to no changes (within the same page) regarding the effect of capital letters on SEO. As Google mentioned, they don’t influence rankings so it’s all just a myth.

5. Links from Wikipedia Guarantee Top Rankings

Another myth that breaks the glass: links from Wikipedia and other similar websites with high authority can guarantee top rankings. It has been a misconception for a long time with Wikipedia links.

Gary Illyes, Google representative, answered to this issue on Twitter saying that Google ranks Wikipedia just like other websites on the web.

Wikipedia is ranked just like any other website.

— Gary “鯨理” Illyes (@methode) December 16, 2016

Leaving other opinions aside, this information comes directly from Google and has maybe more truth than we can find on the whole internet. So, we can see written in black and white that links from sites such as Wikipedia and other highly influencing websites do not receive any special treatment from Google. It rather works on getting internal links to achieve more success.

So, don’t trust everything you hear. There are lots of rumors and you better test and see for yourself.

6. External Links Matter More Than Internal Ones

Well, after all the talk we had on Wikipedia, this link myth comes just like a supplement to the value of links (be them external or internal).

Internal links, besides the other on-page factors, are maybe more important than inbound links:

Source: netregistry.com.au

Internal links can help your lazy pages rank better by inter-linking (creating connections) with high ranking pages. The procedure is simple. Take some pages that have potential but don’t rank very well and place their links on the most appreciated pages (with lots of traffic) from your website to pull the lazy pages on SERP.

By linking them this way, lots of link power from one page is transferred to the deep pages of your website. We all know how important is for a website that the visitors spend more time on site. Dwell time is a long debated subject along the ranking factors and Google always tries to tell us how important user experience is. So internal linking can help a website very much and value sometimes even more than external links.

Saying that external links are more important would be wrong. Google’s uses lots of ranking signals and links is just one of them.

7. Links Are the Most Important Google Ranking Factor

Going further with the explanation of links, we had to debunk another myth, such as that inbound links are the most important ranking factor in Google search. Nope, not true. No, no, no!

Google Search Quality Senior Strategist Andrey Lipattsev said, during a Google Q&A, that content, links and RankBrain are the top three ranking factors, besides other over 200 raking factors, which should not be forgotten. They are related to user experience, dwell time, mobile usability, content quality, on-page SEO, link performance, organic results and so on.

Google’s ranking signals are dynamic and are created in a way to offer accurate and contextual results by evaluating the searches performed by each user so that every person might see different results.

So to say it out loud, inbound links are not the most important ranking factor, but equally valuable to content and RankBrain.

8. Links from Other Niches Than Yours Don’t Help You Rank

Another myth about link-building is the belief that links from irrelevant sites are useless and don’t help you rank and they are basically low-quality links. I can understand that it can be a little doubt in this because we were taught that you need relevant links, authority links to rank high, and so on and so forth. But don’t fall into that trap.

I think people might be confusing relevant links with authority links. A relevant link means a link in the same niche, an authority link comes from websites with a high domain authority. The SEO advantage comes from the lasts ones, and never because the link is niched.

But not only DA is important to define a high-influence website, but rather Trust Flow, the number of links, the places they are on, the anchor text, the amount of quality traffic received by that domain and a lot more. So being attentive to the keyword linking back to your site is highly valuable. Make sure they’re not keyword rich anchor text, though.

It often happened that out of niche links might be very helpful. Usually, they are hard to get, and the competition is very high on those. They tend to be editorially given.

Conclusion

You shouldn’t believe everything that’s written on the web, take information with a grain of salt. There might be some common link-building myths that, at certain times, fall into the black hat SEO techniques. Don’t get fooled by some common link building myths such as these ones.

All of the above misconceptions and misinterpreted pieces of information will do a lot of harm to a website. People often think that Google favors specific sites, and they are keen on securing links on such sites to boost rankings. My advice to you is not be one of that crowd. It’s just another myth about link building. Don’t follow all the shady linking strategies you hear that might work. An earned link will be always more valuable than anything.

The post 8 Common Link-Building Myths That Are Holding Back Your Website appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

from Marketing https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/20141/link-building-myths/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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wjwilliams29 · 6 years ago

Text

8 Common Link-Building Myths That Are Holding Back Your Website

There are a lot of SEO myths, but today we’ll talk about the most damaging ones.

All Links on a Page Pass Equal Ranking Value

Image Links Are Bad for SEO

All Links Should Be Nofollow

Links Are Case Sensitive

Links from Wikipedia Guarantee Top Rankings

External Links Matter More Than Internal Ones

Links Are the Most Important Google Ranking Factor

Links from Other Niches Than Yours Don’t Help You Rank

A link-building strategy must focus on earning links naturally by following white hat SEO practices and taking into consideration Google’s quality guidelines.

1. All Links on a Page Pass Equal Ranking Value

the font size of the anchor text associated with the link;

the position of the link (measured, for example, in an HTML list, in running text, above or below the first screenful viewed on an 800×600 browser display);

if the link is in a list, the position of the link in the list;

font color and/or attributes of the link (e.g., italics, gray, same color as the background, etc.);

type of the link (e.g., image link);

the context of a few words before and/or after the link;

Plus lots of other factors.

Source; moz.com

On a final note, we can say with certainty that links on a page cast different ranking values.

2. Image Links Are Bad for SEO

Adam Powell, founder of Abacus, explained how search engines see images:

John Mueller said always have alt text descriptions and anchor texts when the need arises, never leave them blank. They are equally important and carry value for SEO.

Yes, but anchor text (and image alt text) helps us quite a bit in understanding context, so I wouldn’t leave it out if you can avoid it.

— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) May 15, 2017

3. All Links Should Be Nofollow

In reality, most of the links are dofollow. On the whole world wide web nofollow links represent a very small percentage.

Google says that in general, nofollow links don’t pass value:

It is irrelevant and damaging to have only links with the no-follow tag.

4. Links Are Case Sensitive

It is a little bit too much to say that capital letters affect SEO. Google clearly states that capitalization doesn’t affect search.

A search for New York Times is the same as a search for new york times.

I didn’t put all words in the upper case, because it is treated as spammy by several spiders in search engines.

When we searched for the same query on video content, we saw the same number of results with no difference whatsoever.

We had a big surprise when we tried this on YouTube, because while some keywords haven’t registered any differences on capital letters, some others have did, but only a few.

In the end, we’ve seen a few to no changes (within the same page) regarding the effect of capital letters on SEO. As Google mentioned, they don’t influence rankings so it’s all just a myth.

5. Links from Wikipedia Guarantee Top Rankings

Another myth that breaks the glass: links from Wikipedia and other similar websites with high authority can guarantee top rankings. It has been a misconception for a long time with Wikipedia links.

Gary Illyes, Google representative, answered to this issue on Twitter saying that Google ranks Wikipedia just like other websites on the web.

Wikipedia is ranked just like any other website.

— Gary “鯨理” Illyes (@methode) December 16, 2016

So, don’t trust everything you hear. There are lots of rumors and you better test and see for yourself.

6. External Links Matter More Than Internal Ones

Well, after all the talk we had on Wikipedia, this link myth comes just like a supplement to the value of links (be them external or internal).

Internal links, besides the other on-page factors, are maybe more important than inbound links:

Source: netregistry.com.au

Saying that external links are more important would be wrong. Google’s uses lots of ranking signals and links is just one of them.

7. Links Are the Most Important Google Ranking Factor

Going further with the explanation of links, we had to debunk another myth, such as that inbound links are the most important ranking factor in Google search. Nope, not true. No, no, no!

So to say it out loud, inbound links are not the most important ranking factor, but equally valuable to content and RankBrain.

8. Links from Other Niches Than Yours Don’t Help You Rank

It often happened that out of niche links might be very helpful. Usually, they are hard to get, and the competition is very high on those. They tend to be editorially given.

Conclusion

The post 8 Common Link-Building Myths That Are Holding Back Your Website appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

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theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

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Michael Cohen’s confession in open court that he violated campaign finance law to cover-up an affair between Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels — and that he did so at Trump’s direction — is a stunning moment in American politics.

It’s also a reminder that while the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and possible involvement in said meddling by Trump or members of his circle is important, it’s hardly the only line of inquiry into Trump’s conduct for which there’s a legitimate basis.

The Cohen case arose in a peripheral kind of way as a result of Robert Mueller’s investigation but he, not wanting to be seen as conducting a fishing investigation, handed it off to the regular United States Attorney’s office in New York. That office conducted an investigation that did, in fact, end up looping back onto Trump and implicating him in a crime. It just happens to be a crime that doesn’t involve Russia.

The situation arguably calls for the appointment of a second special counsel or perhaps for the sake of economy, for an expansion of Mueller’s mandate. But if we’re going to start asking Mueller to take a wider look at things, he could get very busy very quickly.

After all, the Mueller investigation exists fundamentally not because Trump/Russia is the only thing worth investigating but because it happens to be the only thing that a handful of congressional Republicans wanted to see an investigation of. They’ve been comfortable sweeping everything else under the rug — Trump’s shady business dealings, post-election financial conflicts of interest, and alleged sexual assaults.

A fluky confluence of circumstances elicited Cohen’s confession and now it’s not clear what the system can or will do with the evidence he’s provided. But what’s abundantly clear is that the essentially uniform unwillingness of House and Senate Republicans to undertake any kind of meaningful oversight of the executive branch has left the country teetering in a state of perpetual crisis.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has a broad but still finite mandate to investigate matters related to Russia’s intervention in the 2016 campaign, Trumpworld figures’ possible involvement in the meddling, and the circumstances surrounding former FBI Director James Comey’s firing.

Mueller used that mandate to successfully prosecute Paul Manafort for crimes that, though related to work for Russia, do not appear to directly relate to the 2016 campaign. The strategy, evidently, is to try to create pressure on Manafort to cooperate with the investigation and implicate others — potentially including Trump.

But unlike former Independent Counsel Ken Starr (or his former lieutenant and current Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh), Mueller is not operating as an all-purpose roving anti-Trump ombudsman who just looks under random rocks and tries to find dirt on Trump. Consequently, when he uncovered evidence that looked bad for Cohen but had nothing to do with Russia, he passed it off to ordinary prosecutors. And though those prosecutors have uncovered serious evidence that Trump himself broke the law, they also may be at a dead end.

As Vox’s Dylan Matthews explains, if anyone other than the president were implicated in this way he’d be indicted. Indeed, just to underscore the point on the very same day of Cohen’s guilty plea Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) was indicted for campaign finance law violations. But there’s a robust debate as to whether a sitting president can be indicted at all and it seems highly unlikely that a US Attorney (who, after all, Trump can fire) would try to push the envelope in this way. A special counsel would write a report to Congress with findings and recommendations, but the Southern District of New York has no mandate to do that. We are, in effect, stuck.

Or, rather, we are in a situation where the constitutional responsibility of Congress is to step up to the plate and do something — either launching its own investigation or moving for the appointment of a new special counsel or expanding Mueller’s mandate or some other step to ascertain whether or not it’s true that Trump was the architect of a criminal scheme for which his former fixer and personal attorney is headed to jail.

But congressional Republicans don’t care — just one more item in a long list of things they don’t care about.

The key thing to remember about the Russia investigation is it exists not because it’s the only aspect of Trump’s conduct worth investigating, but because it’s the only worthwhile investigation that congressional Republicans were willing to pursue.

There’s a small clutch of devoted GOP Russia hawks, and though party leadership doesn’t share their passion on the issue it does share their policy preference. And the Russia investigation has been a semi-successful way of bludgeoning the president into, against his clear personal desires, mostly following an orthodox conservative approach to the US-Russia relationship.

But there’s plenty of other stuff they could be looking into.

After all, the president is openly using his hotel in downtown Washington to accept direct payments from people, corporations, and foreign states with lobbying interests before the United States government. Meanwhile, he’s doing the same thing with more secrecy at his golf clubs in New Jersey, Virginia, and Florida. And we really have no idea what’s happening with the rest of the sprawling network of shell companies he and his family control. Nor have we taken a good look at the very real possibility that his fake charitable foundation was a form of illegal tax evasion or that he bribed the attorney general of Florida to prevent scrutiny of his fake university or the women who’ve accused him of sexual assault.

And it’s not as if Trump’s track-record places him above suspicion. Very early on in his casino career he avoided bankruptcy only with the help of an illegal loan from his father. And from his empty-box tax scam to money laundering at his casinos to racial discrimination in his apartments to Federal Trade Commission violations for his stock purchases to Securities and Exchange Commission violations for his financial reporting, Trump has spent his entire career breaking various laws, getting caught, and then essentially plowing ahead unharmed. When he was caught engaging in illegal racial discrimination to please a mob boss, he paid a fine. There was no sense that this was a repeated pattern of violating racial discrimination law, and certainly no desire to take a closer look at his various personal and professional connections to the mafia.

Trump even paid out a $25 million civil settlement to make fraud claims against his fake university go away. And, remarkably, the fact that his university was fake wasn’t even the fraudulent part.

Rather than look into any of this, congressional Republicans are whistling past the graveyard and have plunged the country into a constant state of constitutional crisis.

The sophisticated thing to say about this is we are witnessing the poisonous fruit of partisan polarization.

When the founders envisioned a constitutional system based on the separation of powers in which ambition would check ambition, they failed to foresee the central role of political parties in mass democracies. The American system worked tolerably well as long as elites maintained a tight grip on party nominations and ideological incoherence left American parties weakly disciplined. Today, however, we have sharply polarized parties organized around systematic ideological conflict and so the system doesn’t work.

It’s a pretty good explanation, but I’m honestly not entirely sure I buy it. Senators like Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are clearly willing to defy party leadership on high-profile issues like Affordable Care Act repeal when they want to. And Senators like John McCain (R-AZ), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Bob Corker (R-TN) aren’t running for reelection, have nothing to fear from the party, and have been very clear in their statements that they believe Trump’s presence in office is a serious problem for the country. Beyond that list of usual suspects, even orthodox conservatives like Ben Sasse (R-NE) and Mike Lee (R-UT) were able to see far enough past polarization to decline to endorse Trump during the 2016 campaign. And though primary season rivals like Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) did ultimately endorse Trump, they also pegged him correctly as “completely immoral” (Cruz) and “a con artist” (Rubio) and they’ve never recanted.

Meanwhile, having Trump in office has not exactly been a smooth ride for the GOP. From day one he’s been unpopular, and Republicans candidates have massively underperformed in special elections including one that cost them a Senate seat in Alabama and another that cost them a deep-red House seat in western Pennsylvania. They appear more likely than not to lose their House majority and a passel of midwestern governorships, and Trump’s unpopularity is the only reason Democrats have any hope of defending their vulnerable Senate seats.

It seems very plausible that both the country and the Republican Party would be in better shape today if they’d taken a stronger line against presidential misbehavior. But at this point, the congressional GOP has clearly made its bed — nobody bats an eye anymore at obviously abusive rescissions of former officials’ security clearances, tossing pardons around without a hint of process or constraint, or open slanders of Justice Department and FBI personnel.

The midterms are about three months away, and at this point, that’s really all that matters.

Original Source -> Michael Cohen’s guilty plea underscores congressional Republicans’ total abdication of responsibility

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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thelmasirby32 · 5 years ago

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Is SEO dead in 2020?

The death of SEO is a topic that’s been batted around for years but is 2020 the year SEO, an industry with a history dating back more than 25 years, finally kicks the bucket?

TikTok, digital PR, voice search – new terms have been coined and new social networks have popped up in the past few years. As industry experts take a look back over the past year and forecast trends for the coming year, the inevitable question comes up time and time again: “Is SEO dead this year?”

The answer, of course, is no. SEO is not dead.

If you’re a business reading this article because you’re wondering whether to invest your hard-earned cash in SEO, is it still a viable marketing strategy for 2020, or whether to spend it more wisely elsewhere, read on.

Why do people say SEO is dead?

So if SEO is as wildly successful as we’re proclaiming, then why do people claim SEO dead?

Put yourself into the shoes of a site owner whose whole experience of SEO is those shady emails that manage to avoid your inbox’s spam filter: “Dear Sir, you must be curious to know, in spite of having popular keywords and many backlinks why your website is not visible on the first page of major search engines.”

Or think of those in traditional marketing who work outside of SEO. According to a study, 61% of business owners cited that “increasing brand awareness” is important to them – how many of these understand that SEO is one of the most effective ways to organically increase awareness of your brand? While we know that the number one position on Google is reported to capture up to 31.7% of search traffic, according to one study, as compared to around 17% in the number two position, all the way down to just two percent in position 10, they may not.

Let’s consider those stats in real terms, think of a sector with a highly competitive high search volume keyword, for example, “cheap flights”. This has 550,000 average monthly searches. If you’re in position one in Google for that search term, that’s a potential of 176,000 people reaching your site through that search result alone every single month.

But to mix things up, add to this the fact that position number one in Google’s search results doesn’t mean exactly what it says it does all the time nowadays. Users will be first confronted with a (debatably) clearly labeled “Ad”, served by Google Ads based on a combination of what that site has bid for them and their quality score.

So some think that SEO is dead because paid media is the top dog

But we can counter this with the fact that position one in Google isn’t everything it says it is anymore. While there will, of course, be an ad at the top of the search results, this is often also followed up by a “Google Answer Box” and/or a knowledge panel. These are our zero-click searches and these don’t come easily. Google doesn’t just hand them out to anyone. It takes a combination of elements to make sure that you secure those placements:

Excellent on-page content

High-value links off the page

A good dash of the best technical SEO thrown

And a good deal, more hard work ensuring that you keep on top of all of this to remain in that position.

Even within the digital industry, people proclaim SEO is dying. Google’s algorithm gets ever-more vicious with every update. Sites can disappear from search results without a warning, and tactics that worked yesterday can cause penalties the very next. In order to sidestep this risk altogether, some will avoid investing time, effort, and money into SEO, but that means potentially missing out on those hundreds of thousands of Google referrals every single day.

But we also need to consider social media referrals, brand mentions in industry publications, influencer marketing, traditional offline marketing, and even word of mouth.

Let’s delve a little further.

SEO’s past, present, and future

Just imagine a world without SEO, where would we be? That’s something impossible to even consider nowadays, in a time where the term “to Google” has entered the Oxford English Dictionary.

In 1995, the internet had only two billion users, today it is over four billion. To put this better into perspective, Facebook is now 15 times larger than the entire internet was in 1995. And at that time in SEO’s history, search engines such as Archie, VLib, and Veronica were simply virtual libraries with little to no ability to search. They were merely considered indices of web servers. Links didn’t pass any equity as to ranking in these engines simply because they didn’t offer any sort of ranking.

The digital world began to evolve quickly though, search engines started to rank pages based on OPIC (on page importance criteria) scores. And even then, SEO techniques were already evolving – keywords were key but discoveries such as secondary title tag manipulation causing immediate first position rankings were revealed by webmasters like Dave Naylor in forums like WebmasterWorld.

Understanding how the digital world and SEO have evolved is key to understanding how it works today. On the surface, SEO appears to be something simple – search engine optimization – what more could there be than making sure your website works well, looks good, has a few good keywords, and a few good links, right?

In reality, there is far more to consider – RankBrain, E-A-T, and BERT are just a few updates that Google has introduced to their algorithm in the past few years that have changed everything. The world of search engines is ever-evolving, and SEO’s future looks bright.

SEO is just one part of a larger machine at work

While TikTok, digital PR, voice search and others, even traditional marketing, seem to be a threat to SEO as an industry, in reality, they’re all the cogs in one big marketing machine – and SEO is one of the biggest.

The question really should be – “Is SEO really still worth it in 2020?”

As the internet continues to grow at an ever-increasing pace, search engines that work effectively and efficiently become increasingly more important. Users now need search engines more than ever. It’s key to not forget that, at their heart, they’re simply a tool to help users find the best answer to their question as quickly as possible.

Even though at times, it seems like Google is personally victimizing your clients, they’re really refining their algorithms so that spammy sites that have no use to their users are less likely to break through into their search results.

Avoid defunct SEO tactics

Rather than thinking that SEO as a whole is dead in 2020, we need to be reframing it. If it feels like your SEO techniques aren’t working, there’s probably a reason Google just doesn’t have the time to pick out individual websites it takes a dislike to, and stop them from appearing in SERPS for no reason.

In reality, it’s more likely that your techniques are outdated and thus ineffective. In fact, outdated techniques may be harming your brand more than helping it. Think strong, relevant content over keyword-stuffed pages. Aim for naturally earned backlinks rather than paid ones for exact match anchor text links. Spend time on the “behind the scenes” parts of your website – the technical SEO that an everyday user will never notice but will feel the benefits of every time they use your site.

All Google wants when displaying search results is something that genuinely answers users’ queries and works well – and if your site does that then you’ll reap the rewards.

Is SEO worth the time and effort in 2020?

There’s only one answer to this big question, the stats speak for themselves – with over 40,000 search queries every second and an estimated 62.19 billion visitors annually, Google is the behemoth that rules the internet. Without it, or indeed any other well-functioning search engine, how would we find the content we need?

In addition to this, usability is becoming far more important. With Google’s semantic technology that understands the intent behind longtail searches and allows users to have a “conversation” with technology, and recent reports that over half of Google’s searches result in zero clicks thanks to the Google Answer Boxes, Google Images, Google Maps, and other Google-owned properties. Never before has a search engine ruled so well.

Diversifying and refining SEO techniques is key to getting customers in a world where they don’t even need to leave a search engine to get what they need.

SEO is not dead in 2020, nor will SEO ever be dead, as long as the internet continues to exist.

Sian Thomas is a digital media executive at Bronco, a full-service digital agency based in North Yorkshire.

The post Is SEO dead in 2020? appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Digital Marketing News https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2020/02/27/is-seo-dead-in-2020/

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