I Just Paid Off My House. Am I Smart or Stupid?

I just paid off the mortgage on my house this week.

My wife and I now own our home free-and-clear.

This is one of those huge life goals I’ve had since long before I even owned real estate, and now that we’ve finally checked this item off our list, it feels pretty great!

The Story

Back when we bought our first house – we got locked into a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage at 4.72% with a local credit union.

At that time… I was well-aware of Dave Ramsey’s advice about how it’s better to get a 15-year fixed mortgage, but we opted for the 30-year plan anyway, to give ourselves a little extra financial breathing room each month.

I was convinced I could easily pay it off in 15 years if I just put a little extra money towards the principal each month?

To nobody’s surprise, I was wrong. I never ended up making ANY of those extra payments. Not once.

Life always got in the way, and there were always other things that seemed more important than throwing hundreds of extra dollars into a seemingly bottomless hole of DEBT each month.

So the years passed, and we found ourselves with very little progress made towards paying off our house.

For a while, I thought we’d end up riding this thing out for the whole 30-year term, paying the smallest possible monthly installment (and the highest amount of interest along the way).

Luckily, our financial lives took several opportune turns in the right direction, with a lot of intentional decisions about how we would use our money.

We’ve been able to create several sources of income that gave us the ability to invest more and pay off debt.

We had the cash, and we had the goal and the timing was right, so we finally decided to pull the trigger to knock this thing out.

Is It Smart to Pay Off Your House?

For the longest time, I would’ve told you this is a stupid question.

OF COURSE, it’s smart to pay off personal debt – right?

If you have the money to eliminate your personal debt and the monthly costs that come with it, why wouldn’t you do that??

Well… this is partially true – but it’s not quite that simple.

When you start looking at your financial life through the lens of a real estate investor, you’ll realize there’s actually a massive opportunity cost at stake here.

Keith Weinhold illustrates this pretty well in his book, 7 Money Myths That Are Killing Your Wealth Potential, where he says,

To be wealthy, control is more important than outright ownership.

One example of how I do this is by minimizing the amount of equity in our family home (primary residence). That way, those equity dollars can instead be invested in more income-producing rental properties.

In fact, I have the ability to pay off our home right now, but I won’t. That would be one of the more reckless financial decisions that I could make!

Instead, I keep the maximum debt on our primary home. This way, I have more dollars available for down payments on income properties, and then I actually take out even more debt to get loans on those income properties.

In the book, he goes on to explain the math behind these statements (and it actually does make sense), but I won’t get into that here.

The point is… if your goal is to create more wealth and financial freedom, you’ll forfeit a lot of earning potential if you choose to plow your dollars in a free-and-clear home, rather than investing those dollars in more income-producing real estate.

On paper, it makes perfect sense – but this idea of “don’t pay off your mortgage, even if you can” has been a difficult idea for me to embrace. It TOTALLY goes against the advice I was given by the personal finance experts and wealthy family members in my life. The conventional wisdom on “bad debt” (i.e. – the kind that doesn’t pay for itself) has always been to get rid of it ASAP.

Why I Paid It Off Anyway

The idea of leveraging every available penny to rack up more “good debt” (i.e. – the kind that pays for itself AND makes me an income) instead of paying off my house seemed to check out… so what did I do?

I paid off my house anyway.

Why would you do that Seth?! You know better than that!

After talking over the issue with several important people in my life, I came to the conclusion that even though investment decisions may seem black and white – there are a lot of decisions in life that have nothing to do with making more money.

Every person needs to look at their personal values and definition of success and make decisions based on what ACTUALLY matters (hint: ‘making money’ isn’t at the top of everyone’s list).

RELATED: Freedom Calculator

When you dig deep and understand what your real priorities are in life… you’ll probably realize the same thing I did – not all decisions are financial.

I’ve always had the personal goal of owning my home, free-and-clear. It’s a huge point of pride for me – and something I’ve dreamt about for years. For all the obvious reasons (e.g. – no mortgage payment and the peace of mind from knowing a bank cannot take my home under any circumstance) I’ve decided that this little piece of security is a goal worth achieving and maintaining. It’s one of the many checkboxes in my personal success formula.

Even if everything else in my financial life turns upside down (say, if there’s an unexpected disability, loss of income, or I just want to take my foot off the gas for a bit), my family will still own the roof over our heads.

As I look around at other wealthy, financially literate people I know, I realize I’m not the only person who values certain things more than making more money.

Some people send their kids to expensive private schools when a public school would’ve done just fine.

Some people buy houses that are WAY bigger than they need. Why? Because they want a nice house.

Some people own an expensive car, even though an economy car will get them from A to B just the same.

Some people go on expensive trips and eat out at expensive restaurants when they could use that money to invest in something.

To me, the value of having ZERO personal debt is something that’s worth the opportunity cost – however much that is.

The value is hard to quantify… because it’s not just about dollars and cash flow, it’s about increased certainty, lowered risk, peace of mind and added happiness.

There’s something about getting this mortgage monkey off our back and having one less thing to worry about each month that goes a long way.

What do you think? Is it better to pay off your home or invest that money into something else?

The post I Just Paid Off My House. Am I Smart or Stupid? appeared first on REtipster.

from Real Estate Tips https://retipster.com/paid-off-house/

  My favorite thing about the PC enthusiast community has to be the customization of one’s personal set up. However, like many other things, customization is very subjective. What I think looks good, the next person may not like it so much. But nothing is more subjective than people’s opinions on peripherals. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I tend to sway away from peripheral reviews. However, I’ve always had good luck with Cougar peripherals. So, when  Cougar reached out asking us to take a look at the Cougar Surpassion RX wireless gaming mouse, I jumped on the opportunity.

The Surpassion RX is the wireless version of the original Surpassion Gaming mouse from Cougar. The Cougar Surpassion RX uses the PixArt PMW3330 sensor and OMRON gaming switches. Its lithium battery is charged via Micro-USB. The Surpassion RX weighs in at only 90 grams. So on paper, the Cougar Surpassion RX looks like a great mouse. In the past, I’ve personally steered clear of wireless mouses. It’s been several years since I’ve even tested a wireless mouse. Whether it was latency issues or just bad wireless communications, I’m not sure. But I seemed to always have bad luck with wireless mice. So, have advances in technology over the years improved wireless mouse technology? We tested the Cougar SurpassionRX for a solid month to answer that question.

[section_title title=Introduction]

Specifications

Product Name COUGAR SURPASSION RX Gaming Mouse Sensor PixArt PMW3330 Optical Gaming Sensor Resolution 50-7200 DPI Polling Rate 125 / 250 / 500 / 1000Hz Switching 50M OMRON Gaming Switches Profile LED Backlight 2 Zone Backlight Maximum Tracking Speed 150 IPS Maximum Acceleration 30 G Lithium Battery 560mAh Cable Length 1.8m Dimension 120(L) x 65(W) x 38(H) mm 4.72(L) X 2.55(W) X 1.49(H) in Weight 98g

[section_title title=Packaging and Unboxing]

Packaging and Unboxing

An oversized image of the Cougar Surpassion RX takes up the majority of the front of the box for the mouse.  The Cougar logo in on the top left-hand corner. At the top right-hand corner, there are badges for the 1000 Hz polling rate, wireless connectivity and 13 million colors RGB lighting. The Surpassion RX branding is printed across the bottom with the words “Wireless Optical Gaming Mouse.”

The front of the box opens up like a book to reveal the Cougar Surpassion RX behind plastic. The inside cover has an image of the Surpassion RX with the product branding just below the image. Also on the inside cover is this quote “With the Surpassion RX, we have done what many thought to be impossible: we have merged a wired gaming mouse’s accuracy and reliability with the freedom of a wireless gaming mouse. See and believe!

The back of the box has both a side vire of the Cougar Surpassion RX, as well as a shot of the underside of the mouse. On the back of the box, Cougar goes into a bit more detail on a few of the key features of the Surpassion RX.

        The mouse comes in a two-piece plastic shell. In the box, you’ll find the Surpassion RX, a USB Type-C cable, an extra pair of feet, a quick start guide and an advertisement for Cougar Products.

  [section_title title=A Closer Look at the Cougar Suprassion RX]

A Closer Look at the Cougar Suprassion RX

At first glance, the Surpassion RX looks identical to the original Surpassion Gaming mouse from Cougar. The Surpassion RX even uses the same PixArt PMW3330 optical sensor that the original Surpassion Gaming mouse used. The main difference being the original Surpassion being wired and the Cougar Surpassion RX being wireless. However, the Cougar Surpassion RX can be used wired by plugging in the included micro-USB cable meant for charging the mouse.

  As mentioned, the Surpassion RX is charged through a micro-USB port on the top side of the mouse. The Micro-USB cable that comes packed with the Surpassion RX is 1.8 meters long. The Surpassion RX also comes with an extra set of glide pads. This is a great added accessory. Several times I’ve worn out the feet on a mouse and its never the same again.

The Cougar Surpassion RX has the traditional features you’d expect to see on a mouse. There are both left and right-click buttons, as well as a scroll wheel. The scroll wheel is RGB backlit. Just below the scroll wheel is a button for switching between different lighting presets. The Surpassion RX allows you to choose one of 13 different backlight modes (11 single-color, 2 multicolor) by simply pressing the button below the scroll wheel. On the palm rest section of the Surpassion RX is a Cougar logo, also illuminated by RGB lighting.

The Cougar Surpassion RX is designed with first-person shooters in mind. The shape of the Surpassion RX is designed to accommodate both claw and palm grip style gamers alike. On the left side of the Surpassion RX, there two buttons placed just above where your thumb rests, pending you’re right-handed. The left side of the mouse is contoured perfectly for a spot to rest your ring and pinky fingers. In fact, the Surpassion RX felt very natural in my hand. Even more comfortable than the G502 that has been my daily driver mouse for several years now.

Being a wireless mouse, the Surpassion RX needs a way to communicate with your computer. The mouse connects to your computer through a USB wireless dongle. This wireless dongle runs on 2.4 GHz wireless. Even running on wireless, the Surpassion RX has an amazing 1 ms response time. So latency with this wireless mouse will not be an issue. When not in use, or running the Surpassion RX in wired mode, the wireless dongle attaches to the mouse through the use of magnets. However, I did notice it’s not the most powerful magnet. When stored in my laptop bag, the dongle often got misplaced. So now, the dongle just lives within my laptop so it doesn’t get lost.

On the underside of the Cougar Surpassion RX. you’ll find the PixArt PMW3330 sensor. To the right of the sensor is an on-off switch. The switch only needs to be on when used in wireless mode. Below the Cougar logo is a small LCD screen. this screen displays the DPI that can be set as high as 7200 DPI, the polling rate and the battery life. On either side of the LCD screen, there is a button. The button on the left adjusts the DPI. The different DPI presets are 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 5600 and 7200 DPI.

However, the Cougar Surpassion RX has many more than six DPI settings. Hold the left button down for a few seconds, and the DPI setting will start to bling. Once the number is blinking, you have the ability to set the DPI to any number between 50 and 7200, in steps of 50. The button on the right adjust the polling rate of the mouse. The settings for the polling rate are 125, 250, 500, and 1000 Hz. However, holding the right button down and you can adjust the lift-off distance. There are two settings for the lift-off distance, L for low and H for high. Lift-off distance is the point in which the sensor stop will tracking the cursor when the mouse is lifted off the surface. Holding down both buttons will allow you to either enable or disable  Angle Snapping on the mouse. What angle snapping does is predicts when you want to draw a straight line and then correct your mouse movements so it goes in a straight line.

[section_title title=Subjective Testing]

Subjective Testing

As I mentioned several times before, as well as in this review, peripherals are the most subjective products we review. So this section is simply my personal experience with the Cougar Surpassion RX. I’m always a bit wary of trying out new peripherals as when I find something I like, I tend to stick with it for a long time. I’ve been using the G502 as my daily driver for several years, through every iteration of the mouse. However, I was very surprised at how comfortable the Cougar Surpassion RX felt in my hand. The Surpassion RX is a light mouse. Weighing in at 98 grams which is about 24 grams lighter than the G502 I’m used to.

The ergonomics of the Surpassion RX feel very natural to me. I have more of a combination palm and fingertip grip. If I’m gaming, I sway more towards a palm grip. But, if I’m editing or doing research on the internet, Its more of a fingertip grip. Either way I go, the Surpassion RX is very comfortable in my hand. Having carpal tunnel in my mouse hand, if I use the wrong mouse for too long, it will bother my hand. This is part of the reason I’ve stuck with the G502 for so long. But I was very pleased when I had no issues with using the Surpassion RX for extended periods of time.

At first, I thought there was an issue with the battery. However, it turned out to be the micro-USB cable I was attempting to charge the mouse with. Once I used a different cable, there was no issues with the battery life. In fact, the mouse will go to sleep when in wireless mode to extend the battery life. To wake it up, simply click any of the buttons on the mouse. Once the battery was fully charged, it lasted well over a week of regular use before it had to be plugged in. a rough estimate would be about 55-60 hours of use over a seven day period. Given I’m not sure how much of that time was in sleep mode.

  The Cougar Surpassion RX has lighting on the scroll wheel and on the palm rest of the mouse in the form of a Cougar logo. One of my biggest issues with RGB lighting is the accompanying software. It’s not that I don’t like RGB lighting and its effects. When done right, it looks pretty cool. But when companies develop software that makes Premier Pro look inviting, I tend to steer clear of the software and usually the lighting as well. However, Cougar made the lighting on the Surpassion RX very easy to use. The mouse has 13 preset backlighting modes. Eleven of these modes are single colors and two are multicolor presets. One of the multicolor presets is like a hard swap between colors where the other is more of a fade effect. The other eleven settings such as red, green and blue to name a few. Full disclosure, I am color blind, so I’m not positive what a couple of the colors are. But I can confirm there is a setting for pink, and that’s a plus in my book.

[section_title title=Final Thoughts and Conclusion]

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Overall, I was very pleased with my experience with the Cougar Surpassion RX. The Surpassion RX very lightweight and comfortable. Although it’s a wireless mouse, I never felt like I was using a wireless mouse. There were never tracking issues nor any erratic behavior with the cursor. Latency was never an issue as even in wireless mode, the Cougar Surpassion RX has a 1 ms response time. I felt as if I were using a wired mouse the entire time. I have grown used to RGB lighting, so the lighting though subtle, was a nice touch. I love that the Surpassion RX is a plug and play mouse. All controls are on the mouse itself. In fact, I can’t ever remember using a mouse with so many options, but no software.

As much as I do like this mouse, there were a couple of things I feel could have worked better. For example, I would have liked the DPI button to be on the side, or even top of the mouse. At least for the presets. For example, between the scroll wheel and the button for changing the lighting. There is room there to add an additional button. If I’m going between gaming and say Photoshop, I’d like to be able to switch my DPI without picking up the mouse. But that is really the only recommendation I would make for this mouse. At the time of this review, the Cougar Surpassion RX can be purchased on Amazon for $64.90 USD. They also offer a pink model for only five dollars more. If I had the option, I would have gone with the pink version as it just looks great. The Cougar Surpassion RX is a great option for gamers who wants a solid mouse, without dropping a hundred plus dollars.

[sc name=”recommended_hardware_award” ]

Cougar Surpassion RX Wireless Mouse Review My favorite thing about the PC enthusiast community has to be the customization of one's personal set up.

The best ways to Say To When Pizza Dough Has Actually Gone Bad.

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Facebook kills off news: Publishers panic, try to remember how to do SEO

By now you’ve no doubt heard the news that’s been shaking up the internet since late last week.

But in case you just came back online after a week-long internet blackout, here’s what’s happening: on Thursday 11th January, Facebook announced a major change to the way posts are ranked in News Feed.

In order to promote more “meaningful” interaction with friends and family, Facebook said that it would “prioritize posts from friends and family over public content … including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses”.

In general, brands have not tended to rely on Facebook for traffic since it dramatically reduced the organic reach of branded content a little over three years ago, forcing brands to pay for reach or go elsewhere for traffic. However, publishers have long been the exception to that rule, with Facebook acting as a huge – and vital – source of referral traffic to publishers’ websites.

This has led many publishers to plan their strategy and output directly around Facebook (see: the much-derided media “pivot to video”, which was driven in large part by Facebook). But Facebook’s announcement of Thursday has put paid to all of that – or at least, put a big dent in the potential traffic that publishers can earn from its platform.

Deprived of referral traffic from Facebook, will publishers be turning en masse back to SEO to restore their fortunes? Let’s look at some of the broader industry shifts underpinning this change, and what it means for the importance of search for publishers.

Trading places: Google is back on top for referral traffic

The truth is that Facebook’s referral traffic to publishers has been in decline for some time now. According to data from digital analytics company Parse.ly, the percentage of external traffic that Facebook provides to publishers decreased from 40% to 26% between January 2017 and January 2018, while Google’s rose from 34% to 44% over the same period.

This means that in a direct reversal of 2015, when Facebook rocked the industry by overtaking Google as a source of referral traffic for publishers, Google is now back in the number one spot. And this all happened before Facebook’s News Feed announcement even took place.

Publishers have also been seeing more traffic from Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) than Facebook equivalent Instant Articles, another situation that reversed itself over the last year. According to Parse.ly, publisher traffic from AMP increased from 4.72% in January 2017 to 11.78% in November 2017, while Instant Articles declined from 10.31% of publisher traffic in January down to 8.54% in November.

When Facebook overtook Google for referral traffic back in 2015, this seemed to herald the dawn – or perhaps the zenith – of a new age of social sharing and publishing, in which social media was the new search.

At a Content Marketing Association Digital Breakfast in June 2016, veteran digital journalist Adam Tinworth remarked that social networks had taken over the search engine’s traditional role of “finding something to read” online. As a result, Google and other search engines moved into more of an “answer engine” role, moving away from search towards a single, definitive answer to users’ queries.

So with Google back on top for referral traffic, are we seeing a return to the status quo?

The Google-Facebook merry-go-round

In fact, Google and Facebook’s continual back-and-forth is the status quo. They have been chasing each other around in circles for years now, each taking it in turns to try their hand at the other’s specialist area.

Google experimented with social networking; Facebook became the go-to place to find content. Both launched lightning-fast takes on the mobile web – Accelerated Mobile Pages and Instant Articles – in 2015 with a global roll-out in 2016. Now, Facebook is returning to its “roots” of showing you what your family and friends are up to, while the latest updates to Google’s smart assistant indicate that Google is moving back into surfacing content.

Google and Facebook: Destined to chase each other in circles for eternity (Image by monstreh, available via CC0)

In other words, this is just the most recent step in a dance that has been going on for more than 10 years. Facebook might have ceded some ground to Google in the realm of referral traffic to publishers, partly in a bid to rid itself of the fake news scandal that has dogged it since mid to late 2016.

However, the two continue to vie for dominance in countless other areas, such as artificial intelligence, smart home hubs, digital assistants, and advertising. Facebook continues to drive its investment in online video, encroaching on Google-owned YouTube’s territory, while Google recently announced a new foray into social publishing with Google Stamp.

At the height of the fake news controversy, Google and Facebook’s names frequently appeared side-by-side, with both companies accused of peddling false information to their users and perpetrating the “filter bubble” that allows fake news to thrive.

As a result, some have speculated that Google might now follow in Facebook’s footsteps and take steps to distance itself from publishers.

However, Google is already taking action – or at least appearing to take action – against fake news on its search engine by implementing ‘fact-checking’ labels, partnering with the International Fact-Checking Network to combat misinformation, and purging questionable overseas websites that mask their country of origin from Google News.

Unless there is another significant wave of backlash over fake news to force Google’s hand, it seems likely that Google will take the “win” over Facebook and avoid jeopardizing its relationship with publishers – particularly given its recent moves to become more publisher-friendly by supporting paywalled content.

Meanwhile, publishers need to work out how to reconfigure their online strategy with Facebook much less in the picture. Will we be seeing a newfound reliance on SEO and search marketing?

Publishers: time to learn from SEO

Publishers are about to find themselves in the very same position that brand marketers found themselves at the end of 2014, when Facebook announced that it was killing off organic reach for brand Pages. Just like publisher referral traffic now, brand Page reach had been in steady decline for some time, and the Facebook announcement only confirmed what many already suspected was coming.

At the time, brands were forced to abandon a marketing model that relied on free promotion from Facebook pages with hundreds of thousands of Likes, and instead pay for advertising or go elsewhere for their traffic. Sound familiar?

The situation with publishers is therefore nothing new, but is still a huge blow for media organizations who have developed a “social-first” strategy over the years and rely on Facebook as a primary source of traffic.

Following the news that Google had overtaken Facebook as a source of referral traffic, Adam Tinworth blogged: “Business models dependent on Facebook growth are dead in the water, unless you can afford to buy that growth.

“Publishers will need a renewed focus on SEO — especially those that have been social-first.”

Writing for The Drum, founder and managing director of 93digital, Alex Price, observed that Facebook was following Google in “placing its long-term bet on quality [content]”, singling out Facebook-driven publications like 9GAG, Unilad and The Lad Bible as most likely to suffer from the change.

“If I were them, I would be thinking hard about the teams of people I employ to churn out social media content and how sustainable that now is.”

He added that publishers would need to focus on retention and repeat visits to drive long-term value, and optimize the experience of their website, particularly on mobile, in order to build a sustainable source of revenue in the post-Facebook age.

Publish quality content, increase engagement, optimize for mobile… if you’re in SEO, this list will be starting to sound very familiar. It’s a mantra that the search industry has been repeating for years.

High-quality publishers are likely doing most of these things already, so their task will be to ramp up those efforts while diversifying their sources of traffic beyond Facebook. This will stand them in good stead on the search engine results page and beyond.

For lower-quality social publishers, things might not be so easy. After all, these publications evolved specifically to cater to a social sharing environment, which will soon no longer exist.

Much like the brand Pages of yore with hugely inflated Like counts, publishers will need to figure out how to deliver a message of real value to consumers, or risk disappearing altogether.

from IM Tips And Tricks https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/01/17/facebook-kills-off-news-publishers-panic-try-to-remember-how-to-do-seo/ from Rising Phoenix SEO https://risingphxseo.tumblr.com/post/169809957615

Facebook kills off news: Publishers panic, try to remember how to do SEO

By now you’ve no doubt heard the news that’s been shaking up the internet since late last week.

But in case you just came back online after a week-long internet blackout, here’s what’s happening: on Thursday 11th January, Facebook announced a major change to the way posts are ranked in News Feed.

In order to promote more “meaningful” interaction with friends and family, Facebook said that it would “prioritize posts from friends and family over public content … including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses”.

In general, brands have not tended to rely on Facebook for traffic since it dramatically reduced the organic reach of branded content a little over three years ago, forcing brands to pay for reach or go elsewhere for traffic. However, publishers have long been the exception to that rule, with Facebook acting as a huge – and vital – source of referral traffic to publishers’ websites.

This has led many publishers to plan their strategy and output directly around Facebook (see: the much-derided media “pivot to video”, which was driven in large part by Facebook). But Facebook’s announcement of Thursday has put paid to all of that – or at least, put a big dent in the potential traffic that publishers can earn from its platform.

Deprived of referral traffic from Facebook, will publishers be turning en masse back to SEO to restore their fortunes? Let’s look at some of the broader industry shifts underpinning this change, and what it means for the importance of search for publishers.

Trading places: Google is back on top for referral traffic

The truth is that Facebook’s referral traffic to publishers has been in decline for some time now. According to data from digital analytics company Parse.ly, the percentage of external traffic that Facebook provides to publishers decreased from 40% to 26% between January 2017 and January 2018, while Google’s rose from 34% to 44% over the same period.

This means that in a direct reversal of 2015, when Facebook rocked the industry by overtaking Google as a source of referral traffic for publishers, Google is now back in the number one spot. And this all happened before Facebook’s News Feed announcement even took place.

Publishers have also been seeing more traffic from Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) than Facebook equivalent Instant Articles, another situation that reversed itself over the last year. According to Parse.ly, publisher traffic from AMP increased from 4.72% in January 2017 to 11.78% in November 2017, while Instant Articles declined from 10.31% of publisher traffic in January down to 8.54% in November.

When Facebook overtook Google for referral traffic back in 2015, this seemed to herald the dawn – or perhaps the zenith – of a new age of social sharing and publishing, in which social media was the new search.

At a Content Marketing Association Digital Breakfast in June 2016, veteran digital journalist Adam Tinworth remarked that social networks had taken over the search engine’s traditional role of “finding something to read” online. As a result, Google and other search engines moved into more of an “answer engine” role, moving away from search towards a single, definitive answer to users’ queries.

So with Google back on top for referral traffic, are we seeing a return to the status quo?

The Google-Facebook merry-go-round

In fact, Google and Facebook’s continual back-and-forth is the status quo. They have been chasing each other around in circles for years now, each taking it in turns to try their hand at the other’s specialist area.

Google experimented with social networking; Facebook became the go-to place to find content. Both launched lightning-fast takes on the mobile web – Accelerated Mobile Pages and Instant Articles – in 2015 with a global roll-out in 2016. Now, Facebook is returning to its “roots” of showing you what your family and friends are up to, while the latest updates to Google’s smart assistant indicate that Google is moving back into surfacing content.

Google and Facebook: Destined to chase each other in circles for eternity (Image by monstreh, available via CC0)

In other words, this is just the most recent step in a dance that has been going on for more than 10 years. Facebook might have ceded some ground to Google in the realm of referral traffic to publishers, partly in a bid to rid itself of the fake news scandal that has dogged it since mid to late 2016.

However, the two continue to vie for dominance in countless other areas, such as artificial intelligence, smart home hubs, digital assistants, and advertising. Facebook continues to drive its investment in online video, encroaching on Google-owned YouTube’s territory, while Google recently announced a new foray into social publishing with Google Stamp.

At the height of the fake news controversy, Google and Facebook’s names frequently appeared side-by-side, with both companies accused of peddling false information to their users and perpetrating the “filter bubble” that allows fake news to thrive.

As a result, some have speculated that Google might now follow in Facebook’s footsteps and take steps to distance itself from publishers.

However, Google is already taking action – or at least appearing to take action – against fake news on its search engine by implementing ‘fact-checking’ labels, partnering with the International Fact-Checking Network to combat misinformation, and purging questionable overseas websites that mask their country of origin from Google News.

Unless there is another significant wave of backlash over fake news to force Google’s hand, it seems likely that Google will take the “win” over Facebook and avoid jeopardizing its relationship with publishers – particularly given its recent moves to become more publisher-friendly by supporting paywalled content.

Meanwhile, publishers need to work out how to reconfigure their online strategy with Facebook much less in the picture. Will we be seeing a newfound reliance on SEO and search marketing?

Publishers: time to learn from SEO

Publishers are about to find themselves in the very same position that brand marketers found themselves at the end of 2014, when Facebook announced that it was killing off organic reach for brand Pages. Just like publisher referral traffic now, brand Page reach had been in steady decline for some time, and the Facebook announcement only confirmed what many already suspected was coming.

At the time, brands were forced to abandon a marketing model that relied on free promotion from Facebook pages with hundreds of thousands of Likes, and instead pay for advertising or go elsewhere for their traffic. Sound familiar?

The situation with publishers is therefore nothing new, but is still a huge blow for media organizations who have developed a “social-first” strategy over the years and rely on Facebook as a primary source of traffic.

Following the news that Google had overtaken Facebook as a source of referral traffic, Adam Tinworth blogged: “Business models dependent on Facebook growth are dead in the water, unless you can afford to buy that growth.

“Publishers will need a renewed focus on SEO — especially those that have been social-first.”

Writing for The Drum, founder and managing director of 93digital, Alex Price, observed that Facebook was following Google in “placing its long-term bet on quality [content]”, singling out Facebook-driven publications like 9GAG, Unilad and The Lad Bible as most likely to suffer from the change.

“If I were them, I would be thinking hard about the teams of people I employ to churn out social media content and how sustainable that now is.”

He added that publishers would need to focus on retention and repeat visits to drive long-term value, and optimize the experience of their website, particularly on mobile, in order to build a sustainable source of revenue in the post-Facebook age.

Publish quality content, increase engagement, optimize for mobile… if you’re in SEO, this list will be starting to sound very familiar. It’s a mantra that the search industry has been repeating for years.

High-quality publishers are likely doing most of these things already, so their task will be to ramp up those efforts while diversifying their sources of traffic beyond Facebook. This will stand them in good stead on the search engine results page and beyond.

For lower-quality social publishers, things might not be so easy. After all, these publications evolved specifically to cater to a social sharing environment, which will soon no longer exist.

Much like the brand Pages of yore with hugely inflated Like counts, publishers will need to figure out how to deliver a message of real value to consumers, or risk disappearing altogether.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/01/17/facebook-kills-off-news-publishers-panic-try-to-remember-how-to-do-seo/ from Rising Phoenix SEO http://risingphoenixseo.blogspot.com/2018/01/facebook-kills-off-news-publishers.html

Facebook kills off news: Publishers panic, try to remember how to do SEO

By now you’ve no doubt heard the news that’s been shaking up the internet since late last week.

But in case you just came back online after a week-long internet blackout, here’s what’s happening: on Thursday 11th January, Facebook announced a major change to the way posts are ranked in News Feed.

In order to promote more “meaningful” interaction with friends and family, Facebook said that it would “prioritize posts from friends and family over public content … including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses”.

In general, brands have not tended to rely on Facebook for traffic since it dramatically reduced the organic reach of branded content a little over three years ago, forcing brands to pay for reach or go elsewhere for traffic. However, publishers have long been the exception to that rule, with Facebook acting as a huge – and vital – source of referral traffic to publishers’ websites.

This has led many publishers to plan their strategy and output directly around Facebook (see: the much-derided media “pivot to video”, which was driven in large part by Facebook). But Facebook’s announcement of Thursday has put paid to all of that – or at least, put a big dent in the potential traffic that publishers can earn from its platform.

Deprived of referral traffic from Facebook, will publishers be turning en masse back to SEO to restore their fortunes? Let’s look at some of the broader industry shifts underpinning this change, and what it means for the importance of search for publishers.

Trading places: Google is back on top for referral traffic

The truth is that Facebook’s referral traffic to publishers has been in decline for some time now. According to data from digital analytics company Parse.ly, the percentage of external traffic that Facebook provides to publishers decreased from 40% to 26% between January 2017 and January 2018, while Google’s rose from 34% to 44% over the same period.

This means that in a direct reversal of 2015, when Facebook rocked the industry by overtaking Google as a source of referral traffic for publishers, Google is now back in the number one spot. And this all happened before Facebook’s News Feed announcement even took place.

Publishers have also been seeing more traffic from Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) than Facebook equivalent Instant Articles, another situation that reversed itself over the last year. According to Parse.ly, publisher traffic from AMP increased from 4.72% in January 2017 to 11.78% in November 2017, while Instant Articles declined from 10.31% of publisher traffic in January down to 8.54% in November.

When Facebook overtook Google for referral traffic back in 2015, this seemed to herald the dawn – or perhaps the zenith – of a new age of social sharing and publishing, in which social media was the new search.

At a Content Marketing Association Digital Breakfast in June 2016, veteran digital journalist Adam Tinworth remarked that social networks had taken over the search engine’s traditional role of “finding something to read” online. As a result, Google and other search engines moved into more of an “answer engine” role, moving away from search towards a single, definitive answer to users’ queries.

So with Google back on top for referral traffic, are we seeing a return to the status quo?

The Google-Facebook merry-go-round

In fact, Google and Facebook’s continual back-and-forth is the status quo. They have been chasing each other around in circles for years now, each taking it in turns to try their hand at the other’s specialist area.

Google experimented with social networking; Facebook became the go-to place to find content. Both launched lightning-fast takes on the mobile web – Accelerated Mobile Pages and Instant Articles – in 2015 with a global roll-out in 2016. Now, Facebook is returning to its “roots” of showing you what your family and friends are up to, while the latest updates to Google’s smart assistant indicate that Google is moving back into surfacing content.

Google and Facebook: Destined to chase each other in circles for eternity (Image by monstreh, available via CC0)

In other words, this is just the most recent step in a dance that has been going on for more than 10 years. Facebook might have ceded some ground to Google in the realm of referral traffic to publishers, partly in a bid to rid itself of the fake news scandal that has dogged it since mid to late 2016.

However, the two continue to vie for dominance in countless other areas, such as artificial intelligence, smart home hubs, digital assistants, and advertising. Facebook continues to drive its investment in online video, encroaching on Google-owned YouTube’s territory, while Google recently announced a new foray into social publishing with Google Stamp.

At the height of the fake news controversy, Google and Facebook’s names frequently appeared side-by-side, with both companies accused of peddling false information to their users and perpetrating the “filter bubble” that allows fake news to thrive.

As a result, some have speculated that Google might now follow in Facebook’s footsteps and take steps to distance itself from publishers.

However, Google is already taking action – or at least appearing to take action – against fake news on its search engine by implementing ‘fact-checking’ labels, partnering with the International Fact-Checking Network to combat misinformation, and purging questionable overseas websites that mask their country of origin from Google News.

Unless there is another significant wave of backlash over fake news to force Google’s hand, it seems likely that Google will take the “win” over Facebook and avoid jeopardizing its relationship with publishers – particularly given its recent moves to become more publisher-friendly by supporting paywalled content.

Meanwhile, publishers need to work out how to reconfigure their online strategy with Facebook much less in the picture. Will we be seeing a newfound reliance on SEO and search marketing?

Publishers: time to learn from SEO

Publishers are about to find themselves in the very same position that brand marketers found themselves at the end of 2014, when Facebook announced that it was killing off organic reach for brand Pages. Just like publisher referral traffic now, brand Page reach had been in steady decline for some time, and the Facebook announcement only confirmed what many already suspected was coming.

At the time, brands were forced to abandon a marketing model that relied on free promotion from Facebook pages with hundreds of thousands of Likes, and instead pay for advertising or go elsewhere for their traffic. Sound familiar?

The situation with publishers is therefore nothing new, but is still a huge blow for media organizations who have developed a “social-first” strategy over the years and rely on Facebook as a primary source of traffic.

Following the news that Google had overtaken Facebook as a source of referral traffic, Adam Tinworth blogged: “Business models dependent on Facebook growth are dead in the water, unless you can afford to buy that growth.

“Publishers will need a renewed focus on SEO — especially those that have been social-first.”

Writing for The Drum, founder and managing director of 93digital, Alex Price, observed that Facebook was following Google in “placing its long-term bet on quality [content]”, singling out Facebook-driven publications like 9GAG, Unilad and The Lad Bible as most likely to suffer from the change.

“If I were them, I would be thinking hard about the teams of people I employ to churn out social media content and how sustainable that now is.”

He added that publishers would need to focus on retention and repeat visits to drive long-term value, and optimize the experience of their website, particularly on mobile, in order to build a sustainable source of revenue in the post-Facebook age.

Publish quality content, increase engagement, optimize for mobile… if you’re in SEO, this list will be starting to sound very familiar. It’s a mantra that the search industry has been repeating for years.

High-quality publishers are likely doing most of these things already, so their task will be to ramp up those efforts while diversifying their sources of traffic beyond Facebook. This will stand them in good stead on the search engine results page and beyond.

For lower-quality social publishers, things might not be so easy. After all, these publications evolved specifically to cater to a social sharing environment, which will soon no longer exist.

Much like the brand Pages of yore with hugely inflated Like counts, publishers will need to figure out how to deliver a message of real value to consumers, or risk disappearing altogether.

from Search Engine Watch https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/01/17/facebook-kills-off-news-publishers-panic-try-to-remember-how-to-do-seo/