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Month: November 2018

Report: Popular ICO Listing Sites Show Massive Inconsistencies in Project Fundraisers

Report: Popular ICO Listing Sites Show Massive Inconsistencies in Project Fundraisers

A Bloomberg report on November 5, 2018, pointed out the vast inconsistencies in the amount of capital raised by Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) raised in 2018, as per data compared on several websites.

Lacking Consistency and Incentives

In an industry that banks on providing transparency and accuracy to every dataset available for public viewing, the verifiable sources of information look bleak. Much of this is attributed to the lack of uniform industry standards available for the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector, while conflicts of interest may come into account to explain the remainder of such instances.

Tokens issuers in 2018 raised $22 billion in 2018 according to CoinSchedule, an ICO listing site, or just $11 billion if data from Autonomous Research is considered. The two figures represent a mammoth difference in the number of funds raised and form a concern for investors, journalists, and academics who look towards researching the cryptocurrency market for making strategic decisions and publishing educational content.

Alex Buelau, the co-founder of CoinSchedule, cites a lack of incentive for information dissemination platforms as a prime reason for listing inconsistent data in the absence of industry-standards. In addition, sites like his make profits based on advertising revenue and sponsored token listings, which may mean displaying inflated fundraisers to attract unassuming investors. For a $200 billion industry banking on a few startups to access information, Buelau’s comments point out a problem larger than the lack of usable applications for cryptocurrencies; the absence of establishing a common truth for dynamic developments in the nascent sector.

The cryptocurrency exchange RubyX, for example, has raised a massive $1.2 billion if CoinSchedule is trusted, a paltry $200 million based on ICO Rating, and is altogether excluded from Autonomous Research due to a lack of “online footprint.” A more extreme instance is of the controversial Venezuelan cryptocurrency Petro, which raised $3.3 billion if President Nicolas Maduro’s statements are to be believed, but only $735 million if ICO Rating and CoinSchedule are assessed.

Elementus’ co-founder Nuria Prunera notes on-chain data must be relied upon to track ICO investments, instead of an online database. But, a major issue with such a method is the inability to capture fiat payments for tokens. Autonomous Research claims it uses 50 trackers to determine token information and manually removes any datasets it deems fraudulent or inflated. However, head of strategy Lex Sokolin ascertains the trackers lose effectiveness over time, especially as the “economics of a database weaken.”

The advent of token “pre-sales,” or making fundraising available to an elite set of investors prior to public offering, also makes ICO data difficult to fully compute. Tokens firms are increasingly offering private deals to venture capitalists, wealthy investors, and crypto hedge funds, without the token’s price, conditions, and lock-in periods available to retail investors.

Meanwhile, crypto-specific funds have been cashing in on similar private deals since inception, which contributes vastly to the disparate funding reports provided by various listing firms. While making huge profits matter to individual investment businesses, it threatens to relegate cryptocurrencies to the very sector it aims to differentiate from: the corrupt world of IPOs, pre-IPO deals, and public misinformation.

Article Produced By
Shaurya Malwa

Shaurya is the Editor at BTCManager. After graduating in business from the University of Wolverhampton, Shaurya ventured straight into the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. He believes decentralizing the world's financial, economic, and political systems is mankind's next giant leap.

https://btcmanager.com/author/shaurya-malwa/

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

14 Types of Backlinks: the Good, the Bad, and the Best

14 Types of Backlinks:
the Good, the Bad, and the Best

Acquiring backlinks is an essential part of an effective SEO plan.

Links tell search engines that a site is recognized, trusted, and, therefore, worthy of a top spot on search engine results pages (SERPs). But it’s not just the number of backlinks that appeals to search engines; it’s also the types of backlinks.

Depending on the link type, backlinks have varying levels of influence on search engine rankings and on the results you can see from acquiring them . The rest of this post will look at the different types of backlinks, explain their value, and offer tips for how you can acquire the most valuable and effective backlinks.

3 Factors That Impact Link Value

Before we review a full list of backlink types, it’s important to understand what makes a link valuable. As mentioned above, backlinks are not all created equal. There are a variety of factors that can make backlinks more valuable than others, and there are also some that make a link very bad for SEO. The 3 main factors that impact link value include the following:

1. The Authority of the Linking Site

The most valuable types of backlinks come from quality websites. Links from sites that are recognized as top authoritative resources will send more positive signals to search engines than links from low-quality, lesser-known sites.The most valuable types of backlinks come from quality websites.

To determine the authority of a site (and the value of a link), look at the linking site’s Alexa Rank. The better (i.e., lower) the Alexa Rank of the linking site, the better the link is for SEO. Sites with a low Alexa Rank are more authoritative than sites with a high Alexa Rank. You can check a site’s Alexa Rank using Alexa’s Site Overview tool.

2. Do Follow vs. No Follow Status

When a publisher adds a link to their website, they can use HTML code to set the link as either “do follow” or “no follow.”

  • Do follow links tell search engines to notice and give SEO value to the links.
  • No follow links tell search engines to ignore the links and give them less SEO value.

Because do follow links send better signals to search engines, they are more valuable than no follow links.  You want links to your site to be coded as do follow. However, a no follow backlink can still drive traffic to your website.Because do follow links send better signals to search engines, they are more valuable than no follow links. To know if a link is a do follow or no follow, you can use the NoFollow Simple Chrome extension to easily check the link’s code. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google LLC, used with permission.

3. On-Site Link Location

Websites are set up in sections, and how valuable a link is may be impacted by the section in which it appears. The most valuable links are placed within the main body content of the site. Links may not receive the same value from search engines when they appear in the header, footer, or sidebar of the page. This is an important factor to keep in mind as you seek to build high-quality backlinks. Look to build links that will be included in the main body content of a site.

The Best Types of Backlinks

Now that you know what makes backlinks valuable, let’s look at a list of the best backlinks for SEO. As you learn how to create backlinks, these are the strategies that will provide the best long-term SEO results.

Editorial Backlinks

The best types of links in SEO come from editorial mentions. An editorial mention is when another website refers and links to your website in a piece of quality content. An editorial backlink may be included as:

  • Citing someone from your company or something from your content as a source of information
  • Referring to your website as a resource for additional information
  • Citing your website as the creator of an infographic
  • Including your website or content in a link roundup
  • Interviewing someone associated with your website

How to Get Editorial Backlinks:

  • Develop a strong content marketing
  • Create high-quality, evergreen content that serves as a go-to resource.
  • Create shareable content that other sites will want to talk about.
  • Publish content that shows your website and brand as a thought leader in your industry so that other sites will want to cite, source, and interview you.

Use Alexa’s Competitor Keyword Matrix to find popular keywords and topics you haven’t written about yet. Consider keyword popularity to find trending topics you can write about on your website.

Guest Blogging Backlinks

Guest blogging is another way to acquire valuable backlinks. When you submit a guest post to a website, you’re often allowed to include an editorial backlink within your content. These types of backlinks are a reliable way to build trust and authority through other influential publications.

How to Get Guest Blogging Backlinks:

Build a list of valuable guest blogging sites and master guest blogging outreach.

Business Profile Backlinks

In most cases, when you create an online profile for a business, you can include a link back to your website. These links on business listings, social media networks, and industry-specific directories show search engines that a website is established and high quality.

How to Get Business Profile Backlinks:

Create profiles on well-known directories or review sites (such as Yellow Pages, Yelp, Foursquare, Capterra, etc.) in your industry. Or consider using a service like Synup or Yext that creates and manages profiles for you.

Webinar Links

Creating a valuable resource on your site often encourages other sites to link back to it. A high-value piece of content that often leads to links is a webinar recording. Other sites frequently link to or even embed other brand’s webinars on their site, leading to both links and brand mentions.

How to Get Webinar Backlinks:

Repurpose your webinars by posting them as recordings on your website so people can visit and link to them. Use blog promotion to attract attention to the webinar recording, and find guest blogging sites that may be interested in using the webinar as resource on their site.

Free Tool Links

Another way to get sites to link back to something valuable on your site is by offering a free tool. A free tool could be a basic tool (like an auto loan calculator) or a scaled down version of a paid tool (like Alexa’s Site Overview and Audience Overlap tools). If the tools are valuable enough, others will link to them in their content. Plus, on free versions of paid tools, you can add call-to-actions to sign up for the full product/service which drives acquisition in addition to awareness.

How to Get Free Tool Backlinks:

Create a simple tool or free version of your paid tool. Use Alexa’s Audience Overlap tool to find sites that have a similar audience who would be interested in using your tool, and use guest blogging outreach to connect with the sites and see if they would like to feature your free tool.

Good Types of Backlinks

There are other types of backlinks that don’t provide as much value as those listed above, but can still support your overall link profile and help boost your SEO.

Acknowledgment Backlinks

An acknowledgment backlink is when a website mentions and links to a website in reference to a relationship or sponsorship. These links typically don’t have much content related to the brand or what they do, and instead, are simple mentions that:

  • Indicate that the brand made a donation
  • Show that someone from the brand is speaking at or sponsoring an event
  • Include a testimonial for the linking website’s brand

How to Get Acknowledgment Backlinks:

Use Alexa’s Competitor Backlink Checker to find backlinks your competitors get traffic from. Identify sites where they acquired acknowledgment backlinks, and look for places in those sites’ content where you can do the same.

Guest Post Bio Backlinks

In some cases, guest blogging sites don’t allow or won’t include a link back to the author’s site within the main body of content. Instead, they allow the author to include a link in the author bio. While not as valuable as a link in the body of the post, bio backlinks can still add value to a website’s link portfolio.

How to Get Guest Bio Backlinks:

Use the same guest posting strategies mentioned above and also perform a backlink analysis on your competitors to see where they have acquired guest post links.

Badge Backlinks

A way to build backlinks by providing value to other sites is through branded badges. A branded badge is an award that a brand creates and gives out to other sites as a status symbol. For example, you could create a list of the top sites or best brands that are published on your site, and then give badges to each brand on the list so that they can show the status on their site. You include a link back to the article on the badge to create the link.

How to Get Badge Backlinks:

Look for a group of sites that you can qualify together and create a badge to identify them. To find similar sites, use Alexa’s Audience Overlap tool to identify groups of sites that share themes and audiences.

Newsworthy Press Release Backlinks

A press release can serve double duty for marketing efforts. It can alert media outlets about your news and also help your website gain backlinks. But it can only build links effectively if executed properly. Only write and distribute press releases when a brand has something newsworthy or interesting to share . This strategy can gain links on the actual press release post as well as on the stories that media outlets write about it.

How to Get Press Release Backlinks:

When your brand has news, write a press release and use a service like PRWeb or Newswire to distribute it to media outlets.

Comment Backlinks

When you comment on a blog post, you are usually allowed to include a link back to your website. This is often abused by spammers and can become a negative link building tool. But if you post genuine comments on high-quality blog posts, there can be some value in sharing links, as it can drive traffic to your site and increase the visibility of your brand.

How to Get Comment Backlinks:

Don’t overdo it with this strategy. Only focus on commenting on relevant, high-quality blogs or forums related to your industry. To find sites relevant to your industry and audience, use Alexa’s Audience Overlap tool to find similar sites your audience uses.

Bad Types of Backlinks

Because high quality backlinks are such an important part of SEO, it’s easy to believe that every link, no matter how valuable, is beneficial. But not all links are valuable. Some links have little to no value, while others can actually negatively impact SEO . As you engage in link building, avoid creating these types of backlinks.

Paid Links

While it can seem like an easy way to acquire links, you should not pay other publishers and websites to link to your site. Google explicitly says that buying or selling links “can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”

Non-Newsworthy Press Releases

As mentioned above, interesting and newsworthy press releases can help a brand gain attention and links. But it can also appear spammy if a brand repeatedly spreads press releases that aren’t newsworthy and are created for the sole intention of gaining links.

General Business and Article Directory Links

Just as you don’t want to overdo it with press releases, you also don’t want to overreach with directory listings. Stick to the most trustworthy, authoritative, and industry-relevant directories and don’t create profiles on spammy directories just for the purpose of generating links.

Forum Links

Joining dozens of forums for the purpose of posting links back to your site is also bad. Only join high-quality forums where authentic discussions are the primary purpose, not spamming a thread with posts about your content and brand.

Build a Better Backlink Strategy

Links are an essential part of any good SEO strategy. But remember, it’s not just about the quantity of links; it’s also about the quality of the links .There are different types of backlinks that come with varying levels of value and importance. Create your link building plans around acquiring top-tier links that will be the most beneficial to your SEO. To find the best backlinks for SEO, sign up for a free trial of Alexa’s Advanced Plan. You’ll get access to all of the audience, industry, and keyword research tools mentioned in this post that can help you build an effective link building plan.

Article Produced By
Jennifer Yesbeck

Jennifer is Marketing Manager at Alexa. With a knack for syntax and passion for building connections, she drives daily content strategy to bring you the latest and greatest happenings within Alexa and the wide world of web analytics and marketing.

https://blog.alexa.com/types-of-backlinks/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=blog-10-30-18-types-of-backlinks&utm_content=bp-types-of-backlinks&utm_campaign=content-visit

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Six Tips To Make Your Airdrop A Success

Six Tips To Make Your Airdrop A Success

Airdrops are becoming increasingly frequent

and are a common trend in the crypto space. With thousands of tokens currently in existence and a constant stream of more in development, the number of scam airdrops is also on the rise, therefore distinguishing between legitimate and fake airdrops is a big issue for potential airdrop participants.

With the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data privacy scandal still fresh in people’s minds, there is a heightened awareness around disclosing personal information and data protection — meaning existing mechanics such as Google forms (which require the input of personal details) may discourage potential involvement. Google form airdrops also require significant time and manpower to cross-reference Telegram users with registrants. Enter the progressive airdrop: by enabling live syncing between platforms, this new kind of technology allows companies to bring more value to their communities, as well as monitor participant engagement.

So what can companies do to ensure a smooth and successful airdrop?

  1. Use Telegram

By conducting everything in one place such as messaging app Telegram, it makes life easier for your users who won’t have to struggle with referral links, switching between multiple apps, or losing friends to drawn-out processes. Instead of copying and pasting, the progressive airdrop model (like the one qiibee uses) will automatically detect when you add a new member to your Telegram group. Having everything and everyone on Telegram also helps to build your community and encourages conversation starters.

  1. Live sync across platforms

By implementing technology that enables live syncing between platforms, this back-end development can help resolve logistical issues, thus eliminating any scope for human error during the process and creating a more seamless system — bringing added value to both your users and your Telegram group.

  1. Make it as user-friendly as possible

Consumers know the value of their data, and with ethics and regulation under the spotlight recently, it’s important to take the privacy of your participants into consideration. Airdrop registration should be a simple task with minimal input needed. While existing mechanics like Google forms require the input of personal details, this can be off-putting to some people and discourages potential involvement. To encourage more involvement, keep things on a need-to-know basis.

  1. Reward engagement

Unique to the progressive airdrop model, participants are provided with the opportunity to access more tokens through engagement. Giving control to participants and acknowledging their interactions and milestones is invaluable in building trust. Recognizing achievements with a badge system or leaderboard can motivate participants to be more active in your community channels. This forms a mutually beneficial relationship and further builds loyalty.

  1. Monitor spam

Managing community channels such as Telegram during the airdrop process often means dealing with increased volumes of spam and trolling. This can be detrimental to your credibility and have a negative impact on engaged participants contributing to the conversation. Using anti-spam and anti-abuse policies in conjunction with sentiment detecting and text recognition technology are simple ways of maintaining high-quality discussions.

  1. Utilize social media

Integrating follow features into your airdrop mechanic invites participants to continue the conversation across different channels. Spreading the word on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube about a system like the progressive airdrop not only helps to reach new audiences, but bolsters your own message on social media.

Article Produced By
Gabriele Giancola

Gabriele Giancola, is Co-founder and CEO of blockchain-powered loyalty ecosystem, qiibee. A serial entrepreneur, Gabriele has co-founded multiple companies including gratis-auto.ch, a start-up focused on mobile outdoor advertising, and a mining farm with around 60 miners. Gabriele holds a Masters in Business Management from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/05/crypto-airdrop-guide/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

How One Project is Fighting Fake ICO Reviews Using AI and Blockchain

How One Project is Fighting Fake ICO Reviews Using AI and Blockchain

 Revain, a service for collecting customer reviews,

released a full-scale working 1.0 version of its Ethereum-based platform. As the project team reported to Cointelegraph, the 1.0 version is completely blockchain-based, containing a veri?cation system and artificial intelligence (AI), among many of its other new features. “Users can see all of the reviews written in the blockchain on a special page,” reads the official press release.The Revain platform was launched in order to change the process of collecting reviews from customers, by means of blockchain technology. The service is aimed to help new projects and startups obtain feedback from users. Specifically, the platform was designed for companies that have concluded their crowdfunding or ICO campaign.

Refining the Dashboard

The basic element of the Revain platform is its Dashboard, which allows startup teams to communicate with users and reward them for high-quality reviews. “We have been actively working on creating the Dashboard. There have been ten releases: versions 0.1 to 1.0 with a number of new features added,” the Revain team reported to Cointelegraph. According to Revain’s previous press release, the Dashboard may be helpful for companies in various ways. Firstly, replying to specific reviews is a great tool for managing negative reviews and encouraging positive ones. Secondly, as the Revain team assures its users, a large number of quality reviews about a company will make it stand out among others in a very positive way.  

Revain is using AI to monitor the quality of reviews, with no third parties involved. The AI moderation system will be able to consider the tone of the reviews, as well as filter them based on certain parameters — such as emotion, language style, and social tendencies. “Revain AI ?lters out low-quality reviews and makes quality ones eligible for rewards,” reads the company’s press release. Users are supposed to benefit from writing reviews on the Revain platform. In order to motivate authors to write reviews, companies can reward users with internal tokens called RVNs.

Revain has recently introduced its first premium service for blockchain projects and crypto exchanges which were designed to help them improve their reputation and perception among the crypto community. A premium subscription was the main part of the latest v0.9 release of the Dashboard. Besides the premium subscription, Revain completely redesigned the complimentary email and added the ability to share a specific review. Due to blockchain technology  and Ethereum platform especially, all of the reviews cannot be deleted or changed, says the company’s website. So far, the platform covers a few kinds of reviews: ICOs and crypto exchanges. In addition to these, the company plans to add other sectors at a later.

Article Produced By
Nick Bakursky

https://cointelegraph.com/news/how-one-project-is-fighting-fake-ico-reviews-using-ai-and-blockchain

 

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden