SEO Werkt!

Posted by randfish

If you've used or considered using the Mozscape API to retrieve link metrics data, we've got something unique to share – a brand new beta of a much faster, more robust API. This beta version currently has just a few testers (and we're seeking more), but thus far, we're seeing remarkable results.

Carin, who manages the big data team here at Moz, helped share the story with me last week:

• The current API is not able to support everyone's use case! Some people need to make a lot of calls in a really short period of time – our API currently can't support more than 10 requests/second (even for paid users). Others have a large list of URLs they want to update metrics on every new index release – our current API doesn't support batching very well and will timeout with batch sizes larger than 50 URLs.
• The beta version has made some serious performance improvements with single URL throughput and can handle 200 requests / second – the beta API is seeing a 400% throughput improvement, although response times will still be the same
• To address batching users we've developed a new batching model – online batching (available in the beta API) and offline batching (coming soon to the beta API)
  • Online batching: the maximum amount of results we can process in a POST without a timeout from S3. This has been improved from 50 URLs to 500 URLs in one batch request
  • Offline batching (still in development): for batch sizes larger than 500 URLs, offline batching will process through the entire list (probably up to a certain limit not yet decided) and return a downloadable CSV link to S3 where all the data will be available. Since this is still in development, it is not clear the SLA on offline batching, but this feature will be also be available for beta testing as soon as it is feature complete!

Mozscape's API is pretty big today – we served 154,352,249 (154 million) requests in the first 10 days of August and returned 1,186,736,774 (1.2 billion) rows of link metrics data.

You can still sign up free or try our paid API, but if you have serious demand for high-volume or large batches of link data, we'd love to have you in the beta for the new API. Just contact Andrew Dumont – andrew@seomoz.org – and he'll get you set up!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

Outside Lands may be the only major outdoors music festival in the world where you’ll receive push notifications about your favorite acts from your iPhone, mingle with executives from trendy tech startups, and be offered gigabytes of storage instead of free beer.

It’s San Francisco, so I’d expect that tech companies would dominate the proceedings this year. If you’re headed out to catch the evening shows or you’re simply curious, here are some of the winning music-meets-tech moments of Outside Lands 2012:

SugarSync

In the Bay Area, you’re never quite free of the advertising push for cloud-based computing. SugarSync, a competitor to Google Drive, Sky Drive and others, gets my vote for the best showing at Outside Lands for its handy recharging station near the main stage, and offer to passers-by of 10 gigabytes of free storage.

But most of all, for convincing one its senior-level executives to don a unicorn mask and SugarSync t-shirt (see below). Now that’s dedication.

Outside Lands Mobile Apps

Outside Lands launched its own mobile apps, which are designed to make it easier for festival-goers to get around. If you’re headed to the festival this afternoon, make sure you download either the free iPhone or Android app. The app includes maps, and a list of options for food, beer, and wine. The in-built GroupMe messaging made it far easier for me to connect with friends, and avoid an annoying string of Facebook messages.

If you’re lucky enough to be attending the festival today, I recommend making a list of your favorite acts via the app. You’ll receive a push notification when these artists take the stage.

StubHub

The online ticketing service, where a large portion of the festival-goers purchased their passes, set up an air conditioned tent (not that we needed it, given the icelandic temperatures this year) with live DJs, beer and wine, and a sports bar. The tent was strewn with large-screen TVs, which streamed live sports, including major league baseball.

It was never jam-packed, so proved to be the perfect chill-out spot.

PayPal

PayPal’s tent was absolutely rammed this year. The online payments company set up a tent on the Polo Field for festival-goers to recharge devices and sip Jamba Juice. The juices and smoothies were available to buy via credit card on Here (A PayPal-owned competitor to Square).

PayPal also set up a convenience store for people to pick up sunscreen, mints, and gloves. All the proceeds from the store will be donated to charity: water and the Seva Foundation.

TuneIn

There is still plenty of time to listen in to the live show for free, courtesy of TuneIn. If you’re not familiar with them, TuneIn is a popular radio app for iPhone and Android and is based in Silicon Valley. 

Tune in today via the app, and you’ll still be able to catch some headline acts, including Jack White, Stevie Wonder and Bloc Party. Check out the full line-up here.

Filed under: VentureBeat

Google announced today that they’re updating their search algorithms to account for sites that get a lot of copyright removal notices, moving them further down the list of results. More »

Facebook and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission officially finalized a privacy settlement today after a period of “public comment.”

The two sides reached the terms of the settlement earlier in November. The FTC brought Facebook to court over changes it made to its privacy policy in 2009. In making these changes, the social network switched user information such as name, friends list, gender, profile picture, and location from their set privacy preferences to default. The FTC said Facebook was at fault for not getting explicit permission from users to change this information, which may have originally been set to “friends only.”

In the settlement, Facebook agreed to be audited by an independent contractor, which will look into all of its privacy practices for the next 20 years. Shortly after in December, Facebook hired two new “co-chief privacy officers,” Erin Egan and Michael Richter. Egan oversees privacy policy, and Richter oversees privacy functions in Facebook’s products.

Today’s news comes after a period of public comment that was instated by the FTC in November.

In other news, Google settled its suit with the FTC Thursday. The search giant agreed to pay $22.5 million in fines, the largest fine ever given to a single company by the FTC.

via Nasdaq; Image via Nasdaq live stream

Filed under: social

Amazon has just dropped the price for a Kindle to $269 in a fire-sale “deal of the day.’ Some folks, including us, are taking this as a sign that a new Kindle is on the way.

The usual list price for the Kindle DX, Amazon’s big ol’ 9.7-inch e-ink reader, is $379. Unfortunately, in a world replete with seven-inch e-readers and 10-inch tablets, the Kindle DX was a bit too large to fit in with its own kind and a bit too bare-bones in its feature set and applications to fit in with devices of the same size.

We have also been hearing rumors that Amazon is getting ready to roll out a 10-inch Kindle Fire. Fire is the company’s entry into the world of high-powered, full-featured Android tablets, and it’s been selling like crazy since its launch. With other 10-inch competitors on the market from companies like Samsung, Asus, Sony, and (of course) Apple, it makes total sense for Amazon to kick the Fire’s screen size up a notch.

In fact, the wee, seven-inch model has already played a big role in taking a bite out of Apple’s share of the tablet market. Overall, Android tablets gained 10 percent market share from Q4 2010 to Q4 2011 and now represent 39 percent of the overall tablet market; and Fire, which was first announced just last September already represents 35.7 percent of total Android tablet application sessions.

As revealed in one of Amazon’s recent quarterly earnings calls, the Fire tablet is still Amazon’s best-selling, most gifted, and most wished for product, as it’s been since the day it launched.

Filed under: mobile

HTC smartphone owners, take note. Your Ice Cream Sandwich update is coming this month says HTC on its Facebook page. The company previously released a laundry list detailing the ICS roll-out schedule but failed to meet many of its own target dates. But HTC is now stating all the devices on that list will get Android 4.0 by the end of this month.

If HTC follows through with this plan, Android 4.0 should hit devices like the Droid Incredible 2, Thunderbolt, Rhyme and Desire S. This is especially good news for the latter two, which HTC previously stated would have ICS by the end of July.

Relative to iOS updates, major Android revisions are slow to hit devices. This is for various reasons, too. OEMs and carriers often put the updates through rigorous testing, and furthermore, they have to support a huge number of devices. A Google report released earlier this month notes that 16% of Android devices are now running Android 4.0, up from 10.9% in July. But Gingerbread, released in 2010, is still the dominate Android version and currently powers 60% of the devices on the market.

You’re heading off to college. You have no idea that the next four years of fun will fly by, likely leaving you jobless and in debt. You’re unconcerned with nonsense like that — you’re ready to achieve your dreams! You’re ready to party! You’re ready to meet your mate in life!

But before you pack up the family van full of clothes, collapsible IKEA furniture and school supplies, there’s one thing you can’t forget to pack: your trusty smartphone. It’s the one thing that no college student — not a drama geek nor homecoming queen, not a stoner nor a virgin — can live without.

And as we all know, apps are the life blood of a smartphone (aside from electricity). All that said, these are the ones you’ll come to know, love, and use every day as your pursue your dreams of higher education.

Sparrow

As is the case as you get older, email (and life) only become more difficult. If you’re an incoming college freshman, you probably just got your new .edu email address, which you’ll now add to the list of email addresses you already had like Gmail, Facebook, iCloud, etc.

You need something better than iOS’s default Mail application, and chances are you need something better than Android’s too. That’s where Sparrow comes in. It’s Mail on steroids. It brings all your messages into a unified inbox, lets you swipe to reply, star, forward, delete, etc., and even brings in cute little profile pictures next to conversations (if you use Facebook Connect).

The only caveat is that it doesn’t offer push notifications on iOS, but Sparrow was just recently purchased by Google to improve Gmail so I’d expect the $2.99 app to only get better as time goes on.

App Store Link

Astrid Task/To-Do List

As much fun as the phone can be, it’s also an incredible tool for productivity and efficiency. Apps are what help you make the most of your time and energy, and perhaps the best service to help you stay organized, prioritized, and ready to ace your life is Astrid Task.

The app lets you create tasks, complete with due dates, priority levels, and an add to calendar button. Each task can also be filtered into various lists, including the default Home, Work, Personal, and Shopping.

Even better, you can include other people in on your tasks in case you’re working on a group project for school, have a shared grocery list with your roommate, etc. You can also create reusable checklists for things you do every week or every month, and keep from re-creating them over and over. The app is free, easy, and pretty.

App Store Link
Google Play Link

Grindr/Blendr

College is all about trying new things. Sometimes that means using recreational drugs, and sometimes that means going goth for a month. Frequently, that means hooking up with the same sex. But how does a young, bi-curious new college student find the right “lab” partner for this type of experiment?

Well, if you’re a man, Grindr, and if you’re a brave lady, Blendr. As it stands now, Grindr is for men only while Blendr is for peeps of all genders and orientations. That means that girls seeking girls on Blendr are almost guaranteed to get hit on by men, so if you can shake that off than by all means, install and get your gay on.

The app/s work by pulling in everyone nearby, displaying who is online with a green dot by their profile picture. When you click on someone you can see their distance, a little bio information, and start a chat. With 4 million users globally on Grindr alone, you’re sure to find someone interesting. Plus, it’s free.

(College kids only — you must be 18 to download the app.)

App Store Link
Google Play Link

TheWhoot

Making friends, and even making time to hang out with them, can get difficult in college. On top of classes, you’ll likely involve yourself in other extra-curriculars like clubs, Greek life, sports, etc. Past that, we’ve become a progressively flaky generation, constantly cancelling at the last minute.

TheWhoot helps with these issues quite a bit. It lets you see what your friends are up to tonight as opposed to Facebook Events scheduled for the future (who knows how you’ll feel when the big night rolls around?). You start by giving an idea of what you’ll be up to tonight, within the bounds of four categories: Working, Staying In, Relaxing Out (as in hanging at a bar or something), or Partying.

You can choose to add context, like the location, name of the event, etc., or simply leave it as a category your general mood for the evening. After that, you’re given access to all your friends’ plans for the evening, and you can filter through categories to see whose mood matches yours.

For the new kid at school, this should keep your free nights busy and your busy nights busier, all for free.

App Store Link
Google Play Link

Songza

Music is a part of every college kid’s life. And knowing the coolest, hottest music before it’s played over and over on the radio as the coolest, hottest music definitely wins cool points. There is, therefore, no better app than Songza. You can know everything or nothing about music and I guarantee you’ll love the app.

When you first open up Songza, Concierge (the app’s core feature) serves up various activities you might be doing based on the time, day, what type of device you’re on, and your music preferences. This could be Working Out or Studying on a weekday morning, or Getting High or Getting Naked late at night on a weekend. Once you choose an activity, you choose a filter for that activity, like Hype Rap, Heartfelt, Feel-Good Oldies, etc.

After those two clicks, you have a list of highly curated playlists (assembled by music experts — Rolling Stone authors, DJs, etc.) at your disposal. Click, listen, enjoy. Of course, Songza also lets you get to playlists by choosing an activity, mood or genre.

App Store Link
Google Play Link

Check out the rest of our back to school suggestions here.

Today’s guest post is written by Crosby Noricks.

The fashion PR industry has a pretty interesting story to tell if you can look beyond the Avant-Garde (unwearable) runway creations to the clusters of people backstage, dressed in black, with clipboards, walkie-talkies, and this season’s must-have manicure.

The issue lies in the disconnect between what students are being taught, and where they want to apply their skills.

To the point, the industry is doing innovative things with content, social media, blogging, and more.

While not a complete list, following are six things happening in the industry right now.

1. Mercedes Benz Fashion Week brings in more than $40 million to New York each year.
2. Fashion brands such as Burberry (who recently celebrated 10 million Facebook likes) are becoming storytellers in their own right, producing some of the most innovative and effective digital campaigns reaching a multitude of audiences, such as Art of The Trench.
3. To stay relevant, fashion publications are evolving as well. Lucky released a Spotify playlist and has moved into the daily deal space. Vogue produces digital-only editorial content. They provide opportunities for readers to get closer to the action, such as live streaming the Met Gala and taking reader questions.
4. Fashion blogging is mega-business. Refinery29, a localized, fashion, beauty, and shopping blog is estimated to be worth $20 million after six years in business.
5. Mega-publicist Kelly Cutrone has embraced authorship and reality TV, dispensing her now-signature blend of career advice, spiritual healing, and eff-you attitude to the millennial MTV generation.
6. Aliza Licht’s evolution from the Twitter handle @DKNYPRGirl to simply @DKNY, not to mention 385K Twitter followers demonstrates the PR department can become as much a beacon of the brand as the brand itself.

However, pick up any PR textbook and browse through the case studies, examples, and expert quotes and what are you likely to find? You’ll see the majority of content to cover corporate campaigns specific to a handful of verticals, namely healthcare, technology, and automotive.

The same is true for PR journals and often, trade publications. It’s an unfortunate situation because, for better or worse, there is a consistent interest among today’s current crop of communications undergraduates to pursue public relations careers in distinctly different industries such as entertainment, sports, lifestyle, and fashion.

In the five years since launching PR Couture, I have received countless emails from frustrated, uninspired students who have had little opportunity to put what they are learning in class toward projects and companies they care about.

If you’re hungry for more on the fashion PR industry, add these five additional sites to your reading list.

1. Women’s Wear Daily – the fashion industry trade du-jour.
2. Fashionista –  consumer-friendly fashion news with an industry spin.
3. Fashionably Marketing Me – a treasure trove of fashion marketing campaign examples and tech trends.
4. DKNY PR Blog – If nothing else, you’ll get a kick out of Aliza’s amazing PR 101 posts. We’ve all been there.
5. The High Low – Backed by Liz Claiborne, this industry blog covers retail trends with a focus on e-commerce.

While certainly some are dazzled by the allure of free swag, partying with celebrities, and jet-setting from one fashion week to another, still many more have a true passion, respect, and love for the fashion industry, and want to be a part of it.

By assuming such a narrow definition of what PR is, where it happens, and who the people are doing it, we do undergraduates a disservice.

I’d love to hear from you – agree? disagree?

Crosby Noricks is the founder of PR Couture, a blog that explores public relations, marketing, and social media in the fashion industry. She also is director of social media for Red Door Interactive. And she is author of Ready to Launch: The PR Couture Guide to Breaking into Fashion PR.  She enjoys taking the train, listening to the Vicky Christina Barcelona soundtrack and pretending she is in Europe instead of Southern California, which she did while writing this article. You can get in touch with Crosby on Twitter at PR_Couture or via email. 

In an online shopping frenzy, do you wish you could save all your favorite items into one handy shopping list? Wantworthy, an e-commerce tool to organize, and get feedback on products, launches today with $1 million in backing from Google Ventures, Quotidien Ventures, and RRE Ventures.

Simply sign up to the site and add the Wantworthy bookmarklet by dragging it into your browser’s toolbar. If you’re perusing online stores and you see something you crave, you can add it to your list for later. Wantworthy is integrated with Facebook, which makes it easier to share items with your friends to help you decide what to buy.

The New York-based company was started in 2011 and has grown to a team of five (pictured below). The founders, Lauren McDevitt and Josh Wais, are alumni of TechStars, a startup accelerator often described as a “bootcamp” for tech entrepreneurs.

It’s a potentially useful tool for shoppers, but the startup will have to vie for market share in a space that includes trendy startups like The Fancy and Pinterest. Why bother bookmarking items, when you can pin them? The service probably caters to the same personality type that compulsively make lists of potential purchases and enjoys pinning beautiful things to a virtual dashboard.

McDevitt, CEO, told me that Wantworthy is a practical tool for shoppers who are actually looking to make a purchase, while Pinterest is aspirational and a place to show off your taste. For instance, you might pin a $1,200 Burberry trench that you’ll one day own, but you probably wouldn’t broadcast to the world that you’re considering buying some $4 flip flops. The tool may also work well in collaboration with Pinterest, as users often comment that they “want” an item after they pin it.

McDevitt said the focus on lists is core to the company’s business model. Wantworthy plans to make money by working with retailers to bring offers and promotions to users based on their shopping and browser history. Bookmark a pair of Bloomingdales designer shades, and you might receive a discount on your purchase.

The startup will have to fight several competitors for users, but it will be a useful tool for avid online shoppers. At the very least, seeing all your potential purchases in one place may help you avoid blowing the bank.

Top Image via Shutterstock 

Filed under: VentureBeat