Initially, when Henry Kravis and his partner George Roberts launched Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) in the 1970’s with help from the First Chicago Corporation, their main business was in bootstrap buyouts. But they have put together a remarkable green proposal which centers not alone on optimizing ROI, but likewise on how ecologically friendly each of the companies in their portfolio are.
When Henry Kravis from KKR and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) merged just a year ago environmental issues all of a sudden became a mainstream concern. Their objectives include encouraging their affiliated firms to avoid procedures which may endanger the environment like greenhouse gas emissions as well as any unmitigated consumption of water resources. Eco-efficiency (the term was originally advocated by the WBCSD) is the method leveraged to achieve these objectives, utilizing green policies such as reducing the dispersion of toxic chemicals, fuel economy and improving fuel economy through vehicle fleet maintenance. Although the project was a tremendous success, staff simply didn’t realize how significant the effects truly were until Ken Mehlman, the executive responsible for the program, reviewed the figures for the first 12 months.
Ken observed that applying eco-efficiency was not solely helping to preserve the local environment, but it was also helping to save businesses a large sum of money, and so the project turned into virtually an instant success. Nearly all of the commercial organizations affiliated to KKR and Ken Mehlman today use eco-efficiency. And, when you consider that the group has a 2009 business portfolio worth eighty six billion dollars, you can be sure that this wasn’t a simple achievement.
The Green Portfolio project has now expanded to encompass new and groundbreaking enterprises. The Climate Corps Program administrated by the EDF is an example of this, it promotes ecologically friendly business principles to students taking an MBA. KKR and Ken Mehlman have been formulating metrics and analytic tools that can quantify and administer various resources. These systems can measure an organization’s progress and identify any practices which may need improving. Henry Kravis, the KKC, and the Environmental Defense Fund have made reducing their ecological impact less painful for companies in every sector. So, to summarize, these systems have made environmentally friendly business techniques not only viable, but commercially desirable, and their radical ideas are setting a new standard in today’s community.
Over the years there has been lots of discussion in the SEO community regarding building links to a web site. The debate is particularly heated at the moment, as Google rolls out its “Jagger” upgrade.
Let’s start with what we mean by inbound links, also called backlinks. These are links from other sites to your URL, which direct the surfer directly to your site when the link is clicked. The basic premise is that if you have high ranking sites linking to you, then you must yourself be important and have valuable content, and hence you should rank highly. The way in which Google ranks sites is called Pagerank and can be seen as a green line on the Google Toolbar representing ranks 0 to 10. As Google states
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.
So, back to the question “Does having inbound links to your site help your site’s credibility”, and hence visibility when searched. The broad answer to this question is “yes”, but with a number of very important caveats which we will cover in the other sections.
OK, so backlinks are basically good, especially from high ranking sites, so how do we get them? The first way, and best way, is by having such great content on your site that all these high-powered sites want to link to you. Downside to this method is that it is slow and takes lots of time and effort on your part. But don’t worry, when anyone tries to build a level playing field there are always people out there that will provide work-arounds.
The first one was reciprocal links, whereby you say that you will link to a site if they also link to you. That’s stretching the original idea, but it’s not too bad because how many of these sort of links are you going to set up? Well, actually, some people have created thousands of such links between sites, maybe not what Google initially intended!
But then, due to the emphasis Google placed on link popularity, the concept of link farms was born. These are sites that link to other sites purely to increase the links to the site. Pay a few dollars and get thousands of links to your site. Too good to be true - you bet. Google hates link farms and sees these links as spam and will actively penalise sites that use such links. So, the first rule of linking is do not use link farms. The second rule is do not use lots of reciprocal links, Google can easily check this and the “Jagger” update that is currently rolling out seems to be particularly focused on penalising sites with lots of reciprocal links. The jury is still out on whether “themed” links will be treated in the same way. “Themed” links are links to sites that are very closely aligned to the same primary topic as your own site. If you think about this, it makes a lot of sense and is much more likely to be based on real content-based linking.
We believe another area Google is focusing on is how quickly your site gains backlinks. If your site is one month old, it is hardly believable for it to gain 100 real backlinks in that time. So, the third rule of linking is to ensure your links build in a realistic way. In all of these ways, Google is trying to ensure fairness and that’s why new sites are often held back in the results pages.
Finally, we should mention the sites that will improve your ranking - the Directories. There are many of these, but the most important is DMOZ, also known as the ODP. DMOZ is the Open Directory Project and is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. It gets the name DMOZ from the acronym for Directory Mozilla, as it is administered by Netscape Communication Corporation. It’s Pagerank is 9 and hence a link from DMOZ will help your site. We recommend that everyone visits http://dmoz.org and attempts to get listed, it’s free. The Yahoo directory is also important and free for non-commercial sites, but $299 a year for business.
So, in summary, by far the best way of getting links is by having a quality site that other people want to link to. So again, we are back to content. If you provide quality information, over time, more and more sites will link to you, and if they are in the same business sector as you, so much the better.
And now a poem
Written by my partner, reflecting the Jagger update.
Just when you thought it was safe,
To step once more into the water,
Google throws in an undertow,
For doing things you didn’t oughta,
Just when the surfboard is glistening,
And you’re ordering champagne,
Google has been quietly listening,
And feels you need more pain,
Those link farms you visited,
Weren’t health farms after all
Reciprocal now is the term
For what Big G’s doing to you all,
Your trillions of two way linkages
Now millstones to make you stagger,
Your new nightmare shrinkages,
Brought to you today by Jagger,
A strident voice proclaiming links,
Are running quickly out of time,
Under the boardwalk of history,
Lying decimated all down the line,
This will not be the last time,
That your website is torn and frayed,
That Google will paint it black,
Or the devils sympathy card is played,
Just shine a light on your website,
Is it still under your thumb?
Or is it hijacked like flight 505,
By others who would become,
Your link promoting partners,
Who just ask your link return,
And now you owe the reaper,
And your harvest starts to burn,
Simmering in the torrid glare,
Of a Google bent on being cool,
Where everyone should fight fair,
Everyone obey the golden rule,
And slowly and inexorably we move,
Out of shadow and into light,
With every upgrade evening up,
The distance twixt wrong and right,
And every route 66 drives towards,
Eliminating devious spam-like crimes,
And ever inexorably inches forward,
Towards its own stated guidelines.
John Fowler trained as a Mathematician and has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, much of the time in sales related functions. He now spends his time between being a partner in SEO Gurus and as a sales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via www.seo-gurus.co.uk
Different online poker players approach this game in different games. While everyone had their own unique take on when and where they should play, there is one approach to poker online that could signify a very serious problem. If you feel the need to be secretive about your poker playing, you could be on a very dangerous road to poker addiction.
Let’s look at the reasons why a secretive approach to poker online is so detrimental. When you re secretive about an activity, whether it be poker or otherwise, you feel the need to hide this activity from the world. People are often driven to hide their poker playing because they feel ashamed or guilty that they are playing poker instead of focusing on other areas of their life. Guilt is simply an internal compass for right and wrong. If you feel like you are doing something wrong, there is a good chance that you are doing something that you shouldn’t be doing. Secretive poker works like this. If you feel like you need to hide that you are playing poker because you are neglecting other areas of your life, then you need to take a good long look at what you are neglecting. Life style imbalance is the key marker of a poker addict. Are you hiding your playing to hide an imbalance?
Moving to Clifton? Maybe you’re just out of room in your apartment, or maybe your family has moved out and you’re in the market for a smaller home. Perhaps you just need to get out from under the bric-a-brac. Whatever the reason, consider Clifton self storage. If you haven’t become familiar with the area or this is the first time you’ve rented Clifton storage, it can prove tricky to get hold of a quality provider. If you’re in the market for low price Clifton storage facilities, you’ll probably find the simplest way to get what you want is to search the web. You can easily discern listings of Clifton storage companies on a number of web sites. Simply using one such web sites one can peruse testimonials, discover what each firm offers and discover which one offers the best deals. No guessing needed and no reason to leave your chair to conduct your search, let alone to drive the Clifton streets. There’s no more convenient way of choosing the best firm with the lowest prices than from your comfortable chair! Many firms circulate coupons and promote special offers, so to reduce the cost of self storage, shop around for these coupons and be sure you know about their special deals. These may be advertised on the listing website itself. If not, then you can easily ask when you call to make your order or you could check with the firm’s own website. Another benefit to looking for storage in Clifton using the web is the ability to check which units each storage provider offers. As an example, if you want to go for temperature regulated facilities, you can see which providers offer these and what size units are currently available. Storage experts will be available to arrange special care for valuables such as cars, wines, or antiques. Before you compare Clifton storage firms, make sure you find out exactly what accompanies your self storage unit and accompanying features. You’ll require greater security, say, if you want to store something challenging to replace. Do you have access to your belongings whenever you want, or are you restricted to business hours? Location is also important, particularly if you’ll require constant access.
Switch on your laptop and you’ll quickly and easily pick out low cost Clifton self storage. Shop more effectively than you ever have, utilizing listing web sites and other web avenues of research to make sure yours is exactly the right choice for you. Find Clifton storage facilities the quick way: online comparison shopping makes everything so much more effective.