Last year was the year of search engine marketing and the experts predict the saga is going to continue full swing until at least in 2010. When you set out to work on your site’s visibility, it is useful to know what the professionals that you cannot afford to outsource the whole headache to are up to and beat them at the game. Scanning SEO news, it’s pretty obvious that high search engine rankings still are the be-all-and-end-all of online marketing, but things are beginning to move on from here. The new buzzwords that stand out are accessibility and usability and renewed energy is poured in what are believed to be new opportunities in areas like local marketing. But how much bang for your buck will you get this time?
‘Accessibility!’. ‘Usability!’ Apparently that is what the professional SEO community is focusing on to get traffic numbers up for their clients. Evidence the popularity of these words themselves. A keyword tracking tool like wordtracker shows this in a matter of seconds. Over the last two months ‘accessibility’ has been scoring a count of 158 and usability more than double that number, 308. Not a lot of queries perhaps compared to a word like ’shoes’ or ‘digital cameras’ or any tangible product you might be selling, but then -luckily- there are not as many SEO businesses out there as shoe shops.
So how do accessibility and usability factor in SEO strategies? Is it again more of the same or are you missing out on vital elements if you simply improve on your existing optimising strategies? As your strategy for online marketing is on its way and you are getting the hang of having the right keywords to describe your business, it’s time to integrate everything yet again and focus on your site’s usability and accessibility.
Usability
What is meant by usability is generally how well a site can be navigated through links, graphics and text. All your optimising efforts should have one goal in mind: attracting customers. Does your site still provide valuable information to your human visitors now that the spiders and robots can read it? This is key, say the guys at doubleclick.com, who have got good insights on what’s going on in online marketing in a broad sense. “Personalization is the hot term for relevancy, with the goal being to intertwine search with a consumer’s daily activity. As clients become more sophisticated with increased demands, the marketplace will yield more efficient results. Technology will continue to be created to facilitate the massive amounts of data currently sorted by the engines”, they report. Perhaps it is totally obvious, but you would be surprised how many strategies fail simply on wording and text writing.
It’s no use optimising for search engines if the visitors to your site are not going to be impressed by what they read. Overly-complex phrasing will have to become a thing of the past and using common sense, neutral language will open up the content to a wider audience of search terms. It is best to get a copywriter to do this for you. If you are not sure whether your site needs a professional writer’s touch, there are some tools you can run over it to see if your linked terms actually make sense in the wider context. Throw your pages through this tool (free trial of seven days) and consider contacting a freelance copywriter for a quote if it appears your content is hampered; http://www.ezapplications.com/samples.htm.
There are millions of similar tools out there that can give you quite a good insight into your content. If you think your content is a mess, consider hiring a freelance copywriter to match content and keywords.
Accessibility Accessibility of sites is way more of a technological issue. You will have what is generally considered an ‘accessible’ website if it can be read by all browsers. Providing as much ‘access’ to your site/content as possible perhaps has a number of added dimensions that you are not aware of and it is good to pay notice to every aspect of the matching between your content and the search engines. The various limitations of browsers other than Internet Explorer and Netscape are quite distinct and need paying attention to during this stage of your optimisation efforts. For instance, the Lynx browser is a text-only browser with no support for tables, CSS, images, JavaScript, Flash or audio and video content. There are various tools that replace images in the form of ALT text, JavaScript through the
There are two good ways you can check how accessible your website is. Simply download the Lynx browser to see if you can successfully access all your pages and download the Opera browser and follow their instructions to enhanced accessibility. Good SEOs focus on a few standard setting organisations’ guidelines, which are complex systems of rules on unifying coding. What SEOs make sure of is that users from other languages and cultures, and users of differing age groups are not excluded from your site because of some silly technical hiccups. Where an SEO says he’s making all the difference for his clients is that he has numerous checklists to make sure your business in whatever location or segment it is, is optimised. He likely will market his services saying that he will make your site more localised than your competition.
There is a lot of scepticism on the strategies in use here and it remains to be seen whether better accessible local business site optimisation will actually translate into tangible higher Return on Investment numbers. Local search appears to be performing well for national advertisers seeking to segment markets. The local dry cleaner however doesn’t have (or probably need) a Web site so the lead is not accurately tracked, and the value remains doubtful. Don’t buy into it until you see results from comparable segments to the one you are in!
All lists SEO’s use to make sure your site is technically kosher are likely variations in one form or another of the lengthy, prioritised in-depth checkpoints published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding of the web. It can be found here: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/. It is not deemed 100% fool proof, but it’s said to be Google-proof. The checklist consists of general, common-sense priorities that designers and programmers must take heed of. The bulk of the checkpoints are likely issues you’ve comply with for years already, but it’s always good to see if there’s anything new. It could give you that edge over the competition you need!
Search engines increasingly take their lead from Google and use hyper linked text for relevancy so checking that your links make sense all the time is not a luxury but incremental for your business. Some SEOs will run software that check that if a hyperlink is removed from the text -something that easily happens in forms- and determine whether it still makes sense in the general context of your site. An SEO would replace a simple hyperlinked word like ‘more’, with a more descriptive term such as ‘more news and events’, or similar. You get the idea here.
Source code in general is also quite important. Again, w3 sets the standard and you can run your site through their validator tool (http://validator.w3.org/) to get it analysed to see if search engine spiders/robots have any problems splitting your content/page into sections before indexing it - e.g. header, metadata tags, headings, normal text, etc. If the spider has difficulty in calculating the structure of your code, some of the text could be misclassified or omitted. Find out and optimise!
By general definition a gambling saloon is a building that presents friendly gambling. Paying Customers are expected to gamble by operating slot machines or trying out another pastimes. Gaming hall games ordinarily have transparent probabilities constituting them which safeguard the casino secures a profit versus the betting aficionados. A number of betting house games may cause you to get overly habituated rapidly. Let’s reflect on the standard one-armed bandit, a coin operated appliance with three, occasionally more drums that pirouette if a crank on the side is started. The contraption frequently renders with reference to a combination of glyphs seen on the screen of the appliance. Lamentably, gaming hall games encourage some semblance of influence, conning the gambling buff — the victim is challenged with make a few choice, but they can’t truly compensate for the customer’s statistical negative odds. That is caused by the the gaming establishment never returning the entire wager as expected. This practice is notoriously found in well known casino games such as seven card stud, dice games, roulette or blackjack.
Seven card stud poker is indisputably a highly fashionable casino game. The gambling aficionados, jealously guarding their screened hands, must place bets into a principal pot which is then awarded to the prevailing participant enjoying the leading combination of cards. (Of course, the coolest bluffing hand may well prevail as well!) Comparable to seven card stud, blackjack too is a very trendy casino pastime. A sizeable chunk of its is caused by its particular mix of chance and craft and choice making, not to forget a praxis tagged card counting. This is a skill through which gaming fans can dramatically bend the chances of the game for their own ends both by betting and fundamental opetations in agreement with the cards shown. Craps is a acclaimed casino wagering game involving the roll of a couple of dice. Gamers have to risk their stakes on the result of 1 roll, or on a series of cycles on two dice. Dissimilar to blackjack, there isn’t any realistic bona fide winner tactics people can exploit to boost the chances. Roulette is another notable pastime; a croupier will twist a roulette wheel incorporating exactly 37 (European roulette) or precisely 38 (American or Vegas roulette) distinctively marked compartments in which a white pellet will settle, which determines the final winning number and the other chances that come with it. Whenever the gamester bets on any given number and is successful meaning she is really in luck, the promised dividend is 35 to 1, the bet will be given back. Consequently in total it is multiplied by thirty six.
Do your best to stay very much cautious as well for all of these betting saloon pastimes are deemed decidedly obsessive. Certainly far too many lives may have been spoilt due to inordinate gambling and whereas it surely seems enjoyable, seek to regulate yourself.
Mobile broadband has been advertised as the last discovery in the Web that is more and more looking like it the key to the future of high speed broadband. Until recently, broadband has been supplied through a basic telephone line, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line connection, that connects to a laptop via a modem. Wi-Fi high speed internet will be increasingly famous, whereby the fast internet modem is attached to the terminal thanks to a wireless intranet, and as a consequence internet users are now getting rid of ADSL cables. But mobile broadband is pushing things one step further and offering another innovative idea in the technology of internet connectivity; a broadband connection nearly anywhere without using a traditional landline cable. Compare mobile broadband offers with Compare Broadband UK.
The prospect of having a fast high speed connection connection at home is an attractive concept for many internet users, especially those people who often use their personal computer away from home. Business people for example who regularly travel for business meetings are the obvious target for mobile broad band since they will like the possibility of not having to search for a WiFi spot for a quite good internet connection. Mobile high speed connection will go further than that, and if prices start to be more and more affordable and connection speeds improve soon we will experience a great number of high speed internet potential clients requesting a mobile fast speed connection.
Mobile broad-band works by attaching a portable modem to your PC terminal, also referred to as a ‘dongle’, from which a personal computer is able to browse the internet by using the mobile broadband internet provider the internet users have acquired. Many companies are now marketing mobile broad-band packages and coverage of the networks, which is well known as three G networks, which is now reported to be 90% of the United Kingdom.
Connection speed has been an important factor for any internet line and mobile broadband suppliers at the beginning had some problems to market users that a mobile high speed internet could perform as fast as conventional, ADSL landline high speed broadband. Connection speeds are improving, since Vodafone has announced mobile high speed connection lines as fast as 7.3 mb, as fast as most of the landline internet broadband. Countries like England, are laying plans to invest lot of money in fibre optic cable networks, to improve broad band speeds to up to 100 mb.
In New Zealand an important telecommunications supplier has reported that mobile high speed connection networks will soon improve fast over the coming years and they have announced that mobile broadband will soon deliver speeds of up to 100mb by end of 2011, which is when the United Kingdom’s fibre optic network will be delivered. This will create an important step in industry thinking, with the discovery of a reliable super fast mobile high speed connection network having remarkable advantages over the cabling of thousands of kilometres of fibre optic cables, not least from a practical point of view.
Obesity in children is growing at an alarming rate. Did you know, that according to the American Obesity Association, 30% of children (ages 6-11) are overweight and 15% are obese? Overweight children are at high risk to become overweight adults, so how do we stop this trend?
With the advancement in technology we are living more sedentary lifestyles. Instead of our kids wanting bicycles and baseballs, they are wanting ipods, cell phones, and new computers. It is time now to turn off that television and computer, and put the video games away. Limit your child’s use of television, computers, etc. to no more than 2 hours a day.
You can encourage your children to exercise by setting an example. If your children see you being active, they are more likely to be active. Here are just a few ways to get you and your family off the couch:
1. Get a family membership to your local YMCA. Set aside at least 3 nights a week to workout together for at least one hour per visit.
2. After dinner, take the kids and go for a walk or bike ride around your neighborhood.
3. Do some yard work together. Rake the lawn, pick up brush, plant some flowers, or prune the shrubs.
4. Go to the park and play a game of basketball, volleyball, or go rollerblading.
5. Go trail hiking together at your nearest State Park.
There are lots of ways to be active and have fun. Not only will your family be fit together, but you will also be creating fun memories that will be remembered forever.
Amanda Arnold is a WAHM, and co-owner of Mamma’s Primitive Hut an online candle store.
The blog explosion created a great opportunity for savvy marketers–they could post their URL’s in the comments of blogs and reap the benefits of links back to their sites as the search engines crawled through.
Some undertook blog-marketing responsibly. They found blogs legitimately related to their sites and offered insightful, relevant commentary on issues. In exchange for adding to discussion, they were rewarded with a link.
Others found more nefarious ways to take advantage of the link opportunity, and “blog spam” became a concern. Comment sections of blogs were bombarded with URL’s that were not even tangentially related to their content. Incidents became increasingly common and obvious.
Google and the other major search engines determined this blog spam was undermining their efforts to create search engine rankings that accurately reflected the quality and utility of web sites.
And now, as a result, we have the “nofollow” tag. Inclusion of the tag tells search engine robots to ignore a link, rather than cataloging it. The command will automatically become a part of many blogs, as Blogger (a Google enterprise) and several other major blog hosts have announced their intention to build the feature into their offerings.
There is some question as to the efficacy of “nofollow.” Already, some bloggers who are not enamored with the concept are protesting the move and establishing “nofollow free zones.” A quick look through the forums demonstrates a desire on the part of many to discover workarounds for the tag. Some argue that implementation of the technique will not be universal, and its overall impact will not be quite as severe as some believed.
There is no question, however, that “nofollow” will reduce the effectiveness of link-building strategies utilizing blog commentary. As “nofollow” is implemented, site owners who have relied on these techniques will undoubtedly see a drop in their incoming link totals.
Recent “nofollow” events are another chapter in a growing saga regarding linking tactics and the search engines.
Link free-for-all pages were once the promoter’s way to create traffic. Now they are overlooked by the engines–if not banned outright. Partner pages and other mass link dumps have gradually declined in importance.
Link trading is dying due to its cumbersome nature and limited effectiveness. Totally organic link accumulation is slow and gets even slower as the market crowds.
Cross-linking techniques are risky and are generally only available to those who own a myriad of sites.
Where will new links be found? One option offering serious potential is actually building off-site links in the form of freely distributed content. Authoring a valuable, informative article and distributing it with a byline (resource box) containing a link back to one’s site, offers a splendid opportunity to increase links. The results are tremendous and are generally felt relatively quickly.
Though effective, article authoring and distribution is not a simple process. The supplier must have appropriate information regarding submission locations. The content must be good enough to result in acceptance at those sites. The supplier must be prepared to embark on the tedious process of submitting articles to site after site.
It does require a significant investment of time, energy and expertise and corner-cutting is not a good option. A low-quality article or an ineffective submission plan will produce no tangible result and could actually decrease a site’s credibility and marketability.
Article Staff writes custom content for the internet and the leverages that content to maximize its value through viral marketing distribution tactics. Article Staff provides content solutions of all types, including editing services.
You can maximize your savings by shopping for a lender that can provide you with a combination loan. The combination loan starts as a construction loan. During this phase, your lender cuts checks to your builder and their subcontractors as they successfully reach significant steps in the building process. Once your home nears completion, your lender activates a traditional mortgage.
The new loan pays off your construction loan and rolls the remainder into the assessed value of the new property. The first way a combination loan can save you money is by eliminating a second set of closing costs. By handling both deals simultaneously, you save yourself and your lenders considerable time and money, savings that lenders are happy to pass along in the form of preferred rates.
Many banks let the commercial side of their business handle construction loans, while the consumer division oversees the mortgages. Therefore, the best place for you to start your hunt for the best deal is with the branch manager of the banks with offices in your area. Unlike traditional mortgages that can be handled over the phone or the Internet, construction loans require significant local oversight.
Fortunately, commercial lenders enjoy the opportunity to plant more roots in their communities. In fact, the commercial banker handling your quote for the construction loan may be able to pull strings to get you a more competitive quote for your eventual mortgage.
When shopping for construction loans, understand that the commercial lender will charge a much larger administration fee to compensate for the step-by-step management of your building process. Sometimes, you can expect to pay three, four, or five points (percentage points of your home’s value) as a fee to the bank. Considering the amount of work involved in communicating with builders and subcontractors, most administration fees actually pay for themselves by freeing up your own valuable time. As an incentive to keep all of your business under the same roof, many banks will actually rebate much of your commercial loan’s administration fee when the time comes to roll it over into the mortgage. You may receive a personal mortgage with no points, or you may even receive rebate points that you can apply to the principal.
Throughout your planning process, involve local banking professionals and ask your builder about positive experiences they have enjoyed on past projects with your contender lenders.
Kevin Adelsberg is a writer for FDLoans.com. For additional articles and an extensive resource for everything about loans, please visit us at http://www.FDLoans.com
1. You are a First Time Buyer and cannot Qualify. For the first few years of purchasing a home, most of the mortgage you pay goes towards interest, not principal. With the interest only payment option, the lower payments are more manageable and you can use the money you save to pay off other debts or make investments.
2. Cannot find anything in your price range: An interest only loan can increase your purchasing power.
3. If you are retired or living on a fixed income the interest only home loan can provide extra cash flow for your living needs.
3. If you are a ‘flipper’ and buy or live in an area where home prices are appreciating quickly, it may make sense to get a 1-10 year interest only loan and invest the money elswhere.
The interest only option may increase your interest rate slightly or you may pay a fee of .125% of the loan amount and keep the lower interest rate.
Here is how the difference on the monthly payments with an interest only home loan would look:
Loan amount $180,000/30 Year Fixed Home Loan/ Interest Rate of 7%
Principal and Interest Payment: $1197.54
Interest Only Payment: $1050
Difference of: $147.54
If you were to take that monthly savings and invest it at an annual return of only 8%. By the end of 10 years you would have accumulated a $27,319 investment.
At the same time had you been paying principal and interest you would have only shaved $6,526.19 off the principal. That’s right, you still owe $173,473.81 on your $180,000 mortgage even after 10 years of paying on it.
No wonder more and more people are choosing the interest only home loans.
Here are a few more things to keep in mind about this type of loan.
The interest only option is typically only applied to the first 5 to 10 years of the mortgage term after which the loan has a pay back schedule one third shorter. After year ten the loan is fully amortized for the remaining 20 years. You payment can and will jump significantly.
At this point you can continue paying the higher payment or you could refinance. In fact you could do an Interest Only Refinance if you choose. Keep in mind by the end of ten years your income should have increased significantly and you should be able to make the payments on the increased amount. Or you can sell the home to pick up the profit.
The interest only mortgage is not limited to a 30 year fixed loan. There are many options to choose from: eg. an Interest Only ARM, Interest Only Jumbo Loan Or an Interest Only Home Equity Loan.
Jo Prabhu
ISG Mortgage
Phone: 845-687-7497, 562-234-6585
Fax: 562-684-4894
joprabhu2003@yahoo.com
Jo Prabhu is the Director of ISG (International Services Group) an internet website firm, located in Long Beach CA and upstate NY. ISG has several website divisions including a nationwide site for Mortgage Home Loans, a FREE Mortgage Loan Website Design partnership company, and a website with the ITZ logo: itzjobs.com
If you want to Apply for an interest only home loan or for more information on Equity and other types of loans mentioned here, feel free to give me a call or to get Free pre-qualification Apply here: http://isgmortgage.loweropaymentnow.com/
The changes in financing options available for residential investment properties over the last 5 years are staggering. Lenders have relaxed the credit and income guidelines for qualification that formerly deterred many would-be investors from entering the real estate. In addition, the down payment requirement has been eliminated for borrowers who qualify. This article surveys the landscape for lenders offering residential investment financing products.
Types of Lenders:
The lender landscape can be broken into the following broad categories:
Conforming
Alt-A
Non-Conforming or Sub prime
Hard Money
Each of these offers loans for residential investment properties ( 1-4 unit properties).
Conforming
Conforming lenders are the A-Paper mortgage banks that cater to borrowers with excellent credit history and the ability to document income. Conforming banks offer loan products that can be considered “plain vanilla” in today’s world of interest-only ARMs and low down payment loans. In terms of investor loans, conforming lenders offer full doc and stated loans up to a 90% LTV. A loan from a conforming lender with an LTV greater than 80% will incur private mortgage insurance, or PMI. (Learn more about PMI at: http://www.andersonlendinggroup.com/faq_a16.html ) Conforming lenders always require a minimum of a 620 credit score, and use a computerized underwriting process to determine approval. Besides credit score, other important factors for approval include: payment history for mortgage and revolving accounts over the last 24 months, debt-to-income ratio, employment history, amount of down payment, and the amount of liquid reserves.
Some examples of leading conforming lenders are Countrywide, Wachovia, Suntrust, and Flagstar. While these are national lenders, any local bank or savings and loan would fall into this category.
Alt-A
Alternative “A” credit lenders, or Alt-A, offer aggressive loan financing products catering to borrowers with credit scores from 660 and up. While these lenders offer programs to borrowers with scores down to 620, the aggressive programs are typically not available to borrowers below a 660 middle score. Alt-A banks have driven the creation of innovative loan products over the last few years.
These programs include the many interest-only products, the Option Arm loan, loans requiring as little as 5% and now - no down payment, as well as standard fixed-rate and arm products. The big difference with these lenders is the relaxed debt-to-income ratios available, the reduced income documentations (stated income, no income / no asset, and no doc), and the ability to add interest-only to most products. Alt-A lenders have popularized the use of 80-10 and 80-15 loans for investors to avoid PMI.
Some examples of leading Alt-A lenders are Aurora, GreenPoint, SunTrust, First Horizon, and IndyMac. Besides these, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of lenders that have emerged to fill certain niches.
Non-conforming / Sub prime
Non-conforming or sub prime lenders fill a growing niche - borrowers with past credit problems. These lenders offer fixed and adjustable loan programs for borrowers with bankruptcies, foreclosures, judgments, tax liens, charge-offs, and many other credit blemishes.
These lenders typically price their loans using a matrix that evaluates credit score in relation to loan-to-value. Sub prime lenders will offer financing to borrowers with as low as a 500 middle score, and even have programs that cater to borrowers with excellent 700+ scores. The sweet spot for most of these lenders is a 580 or better middle, as they will provide 100% financing for owner-occupied properties at that score. For investors using sub prime lenders begin to offer products for borrowers with a 550 credit score.
The important thing to understand about these loans is that they are priced much higher than a conforming or even Alt-A loan.
The most popular product with these lenders is a 2-year Arm, with the idea being the borrower will refinance or sell the property in 2 years. Also very common with these lenders is a mandatory 2 or 3 year pre-payment penalty.
Some examples of leading Sub prime lenders are LongBeach Mortgage(division of Washington Mutual), Fremont Investment and Loans, Meritage Mortgage (division of NetBank), and New Century Mortgage. Besides these, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of lenders that have emerged to fill certain various sub prime niches.
Hard Money
Hard money lenders serve a very simple purpose - they allow the purchase of “fixer-upper” or rehab properties with no money down. These lenders offer programs that none of the
Hard money lenders are typically private individuals or small companies that make very high interest rate loans (between 12% and 18%) based on the after repaired value of a property. They will lend the money to both acquire and fix-up the property, up to a LTV of 65% or 70%. The loan term for most hard money lenders is 6-mos.
These lenders are a great, albeit expensive, way to purchase rehab properties. After doing the renovation, one can refinance out of the hard money loan with a conforming/Alt-A/Subprime long-term loan.
Wide Range of Products
Some of the various products that are available today include:
100% investor loan - 1 loan or 80/20
Credit scores begin at 660 - only available from Alt-A lenders
95% investor loan - 1 loan or 80/15
Credit scores begin at 600 - available from Alt-A and Subprime lenders
90% investor loan - 1 loan or 80/10
Credit scores begin at 620 for Conforming and Alt-A lenders and 560 for Subprime lenders
80% investor loan
Credit scores begin at 620 for Conforming and Alt-A lenders and 560 for Subprime lenders
All of the above can be found in either a fixed or ARM, and can usually have an interest-only option added to help maximize cash-flow. While any loan with a LTV above 80% will typically incur PMI, you can avoid this unnecessary expense by “piggy-backing” a first and second mortgage together - eg. 80% first and a 15% second.
The above is a real brief introduction to the residential mortgage landscape, and should help orient new investors to the available lenders and products available.
Author: Brian Anderson, Broker, Anderson Lending Group. You can contact Brian directly at: brian@andersonlendinggroup.com. Learn more about Anderson Lending Group and the wide variety of investor loans available by visiting: http://www.andersonlendinggroup.com . You can apply online and receive a pre-approval within hours.
So often I hear home schooling parents speak of the hardships they encounter when they do not possess the knowledge needed to teach their own children in a given subject. Of course the public school systems is not an option for these parents because they consider it an out of control baby-sitting effort where; No Child is Allowed to Advance. This would include their children who they feel deserve more and by god they intend to see that their children get a real education.
The Public School System argues that with multiple classrooms for Middle School and High School that there are teachers who specialize in the subject matter and can answer all the questions the inquisitive minds will have. You can see the rift as the parents point to the drug abuse, newspaper articles and sexual abuse going on. What is the answer to the best way for the home schooling parents to move their children forward with a good education considering these factors?
Well one answer is for networks of home schooling parents to get together and work in teams as the children get older one parent may be an expert in something and they can teach this to the kids, while another specializes in a different line of endeavor you see. But this also takes teamwork, challenges the home schooling groups and although in the end makes more sense it is a huge burden on the groups. Interesting issues indeed and we must consider this in 2006.
“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
It has the burden to prove that its decision was based on a reasonable factor other than age. The Supreme Court ruled that if an employer seeks to rely on that defense. It then used those totals to decide who to lay off. Thirty of the 49 salaried employees the company laid off were at least 28 years old. In that case Meacham versus Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory the Supreme Court interpreted a provision of the ADEA that permits an employer to take an adverse employment action against an employee. Knolls totaled those scores and gave the employees additional points based on their years of service. The BFOQ defense states that it is not unlawful for an employer to take adverse employment actions otherwise prohibited by the ADEA where age is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business. The company had its supervisors rate their subordinates based on their performance flexibility and critical skills. Specifically the jury found that although the plaintiffs did not prove that Knolls intentionally discriminated against them they did prove that Knolls method of deciding who to lay off disproportionately harmed older workers. Twenty-eight of those 30 employees sued under the ADEA claiming Knolls illegally fired them because of their age. As long as the adverse action is based on reasonable factors other than age. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit initially affirmed the jurys findings but after the United States Supreme Court asked it to reconsider the Second Circuit reversed itself and ruled in favor of Knolls. In Meacham Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory was planning to lay off a number of employees. At the trial a jury found Knolls had violated the ADEA because its layoff procedure had a disparate impact based on age. A lawyer from Sittard won from a lawyer in Lima Ohio For example it would not be illegal to consider criteria for a particular role in a movie that has a disparate impact on age if the part calls for someone of a particular age. In reaching its conclusion that the employer has the burden to prove the reasonable factors other than age defense the Supreme Court looked at another provision of the ADEA the bona fide occupational qualification defense. The Supreme Court has previously recognized that the employer has the burden to establish the BFOQ affirmative defense. The Supreme Court then agreed to hear the case and eventually reversed the Second Circuit and reinstated the jurys finding that Knolls policy unlawfully discriminated because of age. In other words the ADEA permits employers to discriminate based on age considering age is legitimately necessary under the circumstances. Even if the employment action is otherwise prohibited by the ADEA.
