Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
I ran across the most amazing niche website yesterday - dedicated to the possibility of a crash in house prices in the UK. The sector where we do the most work is real estate.
The crash has already started in the United States, where no down payment financing is now disappearing as the rats lenders flee to shore.
Canada, in particular Toronto, seems to be holding out okay.
In any case, the chart of people's forecasts for property prices at housepricecrash.co.uk is awesome.
Highlights include predictions from The Economist of a 20-25% fall:
Pam Woodall, Economics Editor at The Economist thinks the kind of irrational exuberance that gripped stock markets during the tech boom is alive and well in the housing market and there could be a severe correction around the globe.
and a notable fund manager who foresees a 30 to 40% fall on its way:
Neil Woodford, who manages £12 billion at Invesco Perpetual, is positioning his funds for a sharp decrease in property prices. His forecast for house prices is for "a 30 to 40 per cent fall over the next three to four years", a fall he describes as "a healthy correction". That would bring the average property price from £153,700 today to between £92,200 and £107,600.
There is an issue with all of these predictions which is that many of them were made several years ago. House prices have continued to rise.
Is a correction on its way?
I think finally yes.
By Alec
Business |
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007
Great guidance on how to anonymise your surfing via proxies:
Hiding Your IP Address, Anonymous Internet Surfing HOWTO.
The danger is that unless you do it just right you risk more than you gain. Specifically that the proxy holder can grab all your unencrypted passwords (email, site logins).
Read the rest of this entry »
By Alec
Internet Marketing, SEO |
Monday, March 19th, 2007
Our clients are ready for another round of SEO.
One component we will be doing more of in this round is directories. It's too tedious and slow to have someone senior do it.
There are lots of directory submission services.
But you want to be sure to be applying to directories worth being listed in.
Here is a very good list of directories which are mainly pay for play.
Here is another list of quality directories which are mainly free.
For project preparation, you should fill in the data in the form at addurl.nu for each site for which you are creating a directory campaign.
Another huge concern with a directory campaign is having too many links come online at the same time. One can count on the search engines not to index all the directories at the same time so that the new links will appear more gradually, especially on the more obscure regional categories.
On the other hand, it would make sense to go through a hundred directories per month to avoid any sudden surge.
Even with these vetted lists, I worry that too many of them wouldn't pass my own bad neighbourhood test.
By Alec
SEO |
