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Tag: Payday Loans

  • Google Launches New Version Of Payday Loan Algorithm

    Last month, Google rolled out two major updates to its algorithm around the same time – new versions of the famous Panda update and the “Payday Loans” update, which is one of its ways of fighting spam.

    A newer version of the latter began rolling on Thursday afternoon.

    Google’s head of webspam Matt Cutts announced the update at the Search Marketing Expo in front of a packed house.

    “Matt Cutts explained that this goes after different signals,” recounts Barry Schwartz at SMX sister site Search Engine Land, who was in attendance. “The 2.0 version targeted spammy sites, whereas version 3.0 targets spammy queries.”

    It will target queries like “payday loans,” “casinos,” “viagra,” etc., he says.

    According to this recap of Cutts’ announcements (as tweeted by Cutts himself), he referred to the new update as Payday Loan 2.0 with last month’s being 2.0A if that helps you for any reason whatsoever.

    Also according to that recap, Google is working on improving reconsideration requests so web spam analysts can provide additional feedback. Also, Google is close to getting IE 8 referring data back. It will still show mostly as not provided, it says, but will correctly show the visitor as coming from Google search.

    Image via MYA (Twitter)

  • Google Launches Two Algorithm Updates Including New Panda

    Google makes changes to its algorithm every day (sometimes multiple changes in one day).

    When the company actually announces them, you know they’re bigger than the average update, and when one of them is named Panda, it’s going to get a lot of attention.

    Have you been affected either positively or negatively by new Google updates? Let us know in the comments.

    Google’s head of webspam Matt Cutts tweeted about the updates on Tuesday night:

    Panda has been refreshed on a regular basis for quite some time now, and Google has indicated in the past that it no longer requires announcements because of that. At one point, it was actually softened. But now, we have a clear announcement about it, and a new version number (4.0), so it must be significant. For one, this indicates that the algorithm was actually updated as opposed to just refreshed, opening up the possibility for some big shuffling of rankings.

    The company told Search Engine Land that the new Panda affects different languages to different degrees, and impacts roughly 7.5% of queries in English to the degree regular users might notice.

    The other update is the what is a new version of what is sometimes referred to as the “payday loans” update. The first one was launched just a little more than a year ago. Cutts discussed it in this video before launching it:

    “We get a lot of great feedback from outside of Google, so, for example, there were some people complaining about searches like ‘payday loans’ on Google.co.uk,” he said. “So we have two different changes that try to tackle those kinds of queries in a couple different ways. We can’t get into too much detail about exactly how they work, but I’m kind of excited that we’re going from having just general queries be a little more clean to going to some of these areas that have traditionally been a little more spammy, including for example, some more pornographic queries, and some of these changes might have a little bit more of an impact on those kinds of areas that are a little more contested by various spammers and that sort of thing.”

    He also discussed it at SMX Advanced last year. As Barry Schwartz reported at the time:

    Matt Cutts explained this goes after unique link schemes, many of which are illegal. He also added this is a world-wide update and is not just being rolled out in the U.S. but being rolled out globally.

    This update impacted roughly 0.3% of the U.S. queries but Matt said it went as high as 4% for Turkish queries were web spam is typically higher.

    That was then. This time, according to Schwartz, who has spoken with Cutts, it impacts English queries by about 0.2% to a noticeable degree.

    Sites are definitely feeling the impact of Google’s new updates.

    Here are a few comments from the WebmasterWorld forum from various webmasters:

    We’ve seen a nice jump in Google referrals and traffic over the past couple of days, with the biggest increase on Monday (the announced date of the Panda 4.0 rollout). Our Google referrals on Monday were up by 130 percent….

    …

    I am pulling out my hair. I’ve worked hard the past few months to overcome the Panda from March and was hoping to come out of it with the changes I made. Absolutely no change at all in the SERPS. I guess I’ll have to start looking for work once again.

    …

    While I don’t know how updates are rolled out, my site that has had panda problems since April 2011first showed evidence of a traffic increase at 5 p.m. (central, US) on Monday (5/19/2014).

    …

    This is the first time I have seen a couple sites I deal with actually get a nice jump in rankings after a Panda…

    It appears that eBay has taken a hit. Dr. Peter J. Meyers at Moz found that eBay lost rankings on a variety of keywords, and that the main eBay subodmain fell out of Moz’s “Big 10,” which is its metric of the ten domains with the most real estate in the top 10.

    “Over the course of about three days, eBay fell from #6 in our Big 10 to #25,” he writes. “Change is the norm for Google’s SERPs, but this particular change is clearly out of place, historically speaking. eBay has been #6 in our Big 10 since March 1st, and prior to that primarily competed with Twitter.com for either the #6 or #7 place. The drop to #25 is very large. Overall, eBay has gone from right at 1% of the URLs in our data set down to 0.28%, dropping more than two-thirds of the ranking real-estate they previously held.”

    He goes on to highlight specific key phrases where eBay lost rankings. It lost two top ten rankings for three separate phrases: “fiber optic christmas tree,” “tongue rings,” and “vermont castings”. Each of these, according to Meyers, was a category page on eBay.

    eBay also fell out of the top ten, according to this report, for queries like “beats by dr dre,” “honeywell thermostat,” “hooked on phonics,” “batman costume,” “lenovo tablet,” “george foreman grill,” and many others.

    It’s worth noting that eBay tended to be on the lower end of the top ten rankings for these queries. They’re not dropping out of the number one spot, apparently.

    Either way, this is isn’t exactly good news for eBay sellers. Of course, it’s unlikely that Google was specifically targeting eBay with either update, and they could certainly bounce back.

    Have you noticed any specific types of sites (or specific sites) that have taken a noticeable hit? Do Google’s results look better in general? Let us know in the comments.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Payday Loans Could Be Changing Soon

    If you have ever had to use a payday loan to get you from one week to the next, you know how stressful it can be to worry about fees and interest. Although payday loans were designed to be helpful, many people have a hard time paying them back and often suffer from credit problems as a result.

    A recent study shows that the number one reason that many people use payday loans, at 69 percent, was simply to pay regular bills. Another 16 percent used them to pay for emergencies. With interest rates and late fees at extremely high rates, most of these people will find it very difficult to pay back the loans on time or at all.

    When borrowers are unable to pay their payday loans back in time, they often borrow from other payday loan lenders and get the ball rolling on a debt they will never be able to control. People who have defaulted on payday loans in the past are not likely to use them again and for this reason, many payday loan companies lose business.

    In some states, payday loans have been banned and are even considered predatory loans. States that do allow payday loans are now putting caps on the interest rates and amount of interest that can be charged for each loan.

    A new bill that is currently making its way through the Legislature in Utah, will allow borrowers 60 days after reaching the 10-week limit to pay off the debt without lenders taking any further action against them. Giving the borrowers a chance to pay back the loan without added fees may motivate more people to use payday loans and help them pay off their loans and get out of financial trouble.

    The bill also states that if the lender must sue a borrower for nonpayment, they must do so in the borrowers city, instead of making the borrower coming to the lender’s area. The bill also, modifies the reporting requirements for deferred deposit lenders, imposes additional requirements before the extension of a deferred deposit loan, prohibits a deferred deposit contract from modifying statutory venue provisions, requires notice before initiating a civil action, modifies provisions related to extended payment plans, and makes technical and conforming amendments.

    Very few people have opposed this bill and most believe it will help make payday loans more popular. While this bill only applies to the state of Utah, other states will likely follow suit.

    What do you think about this new bill?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Wendy Davis Says Official Should Resign for Lending Views

    On Monday, State Sen. Wendy Davis suggested to Gov. Rick Perry the resignation of William J. White, chairman of the Texas Finance Commission.

    White was appointed by Gov. Perry in 2011 to chair the Office of the Consumer Credit Commissioner, an agency built on the bases of protecting loan borrowers from the rapacious and faulty practices of lenders.

    Oddly enough, White is also vice president of Cash America, a major payday lender accused of making money off the poor.

    Davis’ proposal ironically stems from a statement by White she views to be insensitive towards consumers, revealing a complete contradiction to his leadership role in the Office of the Consumer Credit Commissioner.

    In a past report by El Paso Times, the official said that consumers are responsible for their own debt caused by loan entrapment.

    In response to city Rep. Susie Byrd who believes that Cash America purposely payout out loans to desperate borrowers unable to make consistent repayments, White implies that payday loan consumers are accountable for their own debt.

    “People make decisions. There’s nobody out there that forces anybody to take any kind of loan. People are responsible for their decisions, just like in my life and in your life. When I make a wrong decision, I pay the consequences,” he told El Paso Times.

    Cash America was fined $19 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last month for abusive practices.

    Davis deems that White’s role in both areas is simply a conflict of interest.

    “William White can’t protect Texas consumers while he represents a predatory lending company on the side,” Davis said.

    However, in a statement by Yolanda Walker, vice president of public relations and corporate communications, she defends her fellow Cash America colleague:

    “Bill White is an employee of Cash America and holds the title of vice president of Government Affairs. He came back to work for the company after retiring in 2004. Prior to retirement, Bill lobbied the Texas Legislature for many years, during which time he built a solid reputation in Austin and developed strong relationships with government officials…The Governor’s office recognized him as a good fit for one of the executive seats with the Texas Finance Commission. One of the requirements for that seat states that Bill must be affiliated with a consumer credit organization, which he is through Cash America. Bill does not work with specific lobby teams, but members of the Finance Commission are regularly contacted by bankers, mortgage bankers, savings and loan representatives and consumer credit organizations…Cash America does not see his appointment to the Commission as a conflict of interest.”

    A video recapping the scrutiny Cash America faced in November:

    Image via Facebook Fan Page

  • ‘Multi-Week’ Google Update Happening Now, Says Cutts

    Google is currently running a “multi-week” rollout of an update that will continue until the week after July 4th. Matt Cutts mentioned the update in response to some questions about “car insurance” spam on Twitter.

    The fact that this is in response to “car insurance” seems to indicate that this is part of the “payday loans” initiative Cutts talked about recently. We haven’t confirmed that, but the term seems to fit the bill. As Alex Graves at David Naylor’s Blog, who pointed out Cutts’ tweet earlier this morning, notes, “car insurance” is one of the big competitive niche areas online.

    Cutts said at SMX earlier this month that Google had started the update to help clean up spammy queries. He had warned about the update in a video in May, when he said:

    “We get a lot of great feedback from outside of Google, so, for example, there were some people complaining about searches like ‘payday loans’ on Google.co.uk. So we have two different changes that try to tackle those kinds of queries in a couple different ways. We can’t get into too much detail about exactly how they work, but I’m kind of excited that we’re going from having just general queries be a little more clean to going to some of these areas that have traditionally been a little more spammy, including for example, some more pornographic queries, and some of these changes might have a little bit more of an impact on those kinds of areas that are a little more contested by various spammers and that sort of thing.”

    So if Google had already started one update related to this back during SMX, and another one just started within recent days, that couldd be the “two different changes” Cutts mentioned.

  • Here’s The Matt Cutts Discussion From SMX Advanced

    Matt Cutts participated in a Q&A session with Danny Sullivan at the SMX Advanced conference. SMX has now made the video available to all via its YouTube channel, so if you couldn’t make the conference, here you go:

    Cutts discusses a variety of things during the session, but he also announced that Google is now rolling out a new algorithm update focusing on spammy queries like “payday loans”. More on that here.

  • Payday Loans Reform : ZestCash by Ex CIO Merrill Helps Americans

    Did you know that high interest loans, like payday loans are typically doing more harm than good for American Borrowers? Many of these loans have annual percentage rates equivalent to 350% ! Low income families who don’t meet requirements for a conventionally backed bank loan or home equity line of credit are forced to take these loans when crisis arise. 90% of Payday loans are taken by households averaging five or more of these transactions a year. At these interest rates and these frequencies, people are better off borrowing money from the mob or a loan shark!

    Former Google CIO and VP of engineering Douglas Merrill has been fighting to reform high-cost Payday loans and bring reason to the American borrower. Read this statement from Merrill below and hear what he thinks about the situation:

    “We believe all data should be credit data,” says Douglas Merrill, Founder and CEO of ZestCash. “By using ‘big data’ analytical techniques we are able to offer a fair, lower cost alternative to people who do not have access to traditional credit.”

    The data-based underwriting Merrill refers to above takes more comprehensive factors into account when lending money and these loans actually help consumers credit situation.

    ZestCash is offering Americans better loans based on Merrill’s beliefs. His company is lending borrowers between $300- $800 under more acceptable terms than previously offered to low-credit clients. ZestCash customers pick the amount, then adjust the duration accordingly to what small weekly payments they can afford, rather than lump sum payments like Payday loans requires. The result is more than 2/3 of the customers return to use the service again.

    The company just announced that they have raised another $73 million to keep the ball rolling on these types of ventures. Reports from ZestCash say most customers are using the loans for unplanned auto expenses, medical bills, and other emerging household emergencies.