State Schools Are Forfeiting Their Matches Against SJSU

After Wyoming and Utah State, it is now the turn of Boise State women’s volleyball team to forfeit their game against San Jose State University Saturday amid controversy surrounding a transgender member of the San Jose State University (SJSU) Spartans’ roster.

Boise State Athletics released a statement exclusively to OutKick less than 24 hours before the Mountain West Conference match.

In each of those forfeited match, the schools chose not to explain why they weren’t playing. In each instance, the announcements were followed by a social media post from a state governor applauding the decision.

"It is essential that we preserve a space for women to compete fairly and safely," Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox wrote on X after Utah State’s announcement a few days ago. "Our female athletes are left grappling with this difficult issue because the NCAA has failed in its responsibility to protect female athletes and women’s sports. It’s time for the NCAA to take this seriously."

In response to the forfeits, San Jose State released a statement saying, "It is disappointing that our SJSU student athletes, who are in full compliance with NCAA and Mountain West rules and regulations, are being denied opportunities to compete."

The news follows controversy surrounding SJSU’s women’s volleyball team after a current player joined several other female athletes in suing the NCAA for Title IX violations.

Blaire Fleming, a redshirt junior at San Jose State University, plays as an outside and right-side hitter on the women’s volleyball team.

Fleming, a transgender athlete, has played two seasons at SJSU after previously playing at Coastal Carolina.

Earlier this week, Fleming’s teammate, Brooke Slusser, joined former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines and several other female athletes in suing the NCAA over its policies regarding transgender athletes that they claim compromise the fairness and integrity of women’s competitive sports while also putting women at risk.

"I commend Boise State’s athletic department and everyone involved in the decision to forfeit their match against undefeated San Jose State," Gaines said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"Some principles transcend winning on the court, and the safety and well-being of female athletes is one of them. It’s encouraging to witness a growing number of institutions prioritizing fairness and athlete safety over forced inclusion. I hope to see more universities follow the lead of Boise State and Southern Utah, standing up for what’s right and protecting the integrity of women’s sports."

According to the complaint, Slusser claimed she was not aware that Fleming was transgender despite sharing rooms together on team trips.

Slusser also expressed safety concerns for opponents playing against Fleming.

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SEO Can Be Your Friend

Online entrepreneurs who rely on web popularity to attract potential clients will salivate if given a chance to receive a higher rank in the search engines for their site. But how do you do that? It may sound vague for the baby boomers and not a few will have a hard time finding their way towards technological awareness in the web of online terminologies adopted nowadays.

The fact, however, is that high ranking in search engine optimization (SEO) engines is not really rocket science. Some people may want you to remain in the dark ages by making sure that you believe it takes years of dedicated study to understand it, but it is not true. Mastering the technical and subtle nuances may take some time, but the truth is that you can learn the fundamentals in just a few minutes.

I have been blogging for years now and studying the concept and principles of SEO has never been my top priority. However, after getting bits and pieces here and there, I believe that there are only a four basic fundamentals that a newbie blogger or a start-up entrepreneur should know and follow.

First, the Traffic Trap concept. Several online marketers make the mistake of utilizing SEO only as a source of free traffic. It’s true, free traffic is the end result, but it’s not how SEO works. The basic rationale behind SEO is to help people who are looking for you or your products find your site. There is a need to match what you are offering on your site to what people are trying to find on the web.

Second, Research. Research may be tedious, but it is a must. It is an indispensable part of finding the right keywords, especially keywords that have high search volume, have low competition and are supported by contents. I suggest bloggers should familiarize themselves about the concept known as "The Long Tail."

Third, Crafting Your Content. After the right keywords are picked, bloggers should craft their content. Search engines have bots that automatically crawl websites, "reading" it to find out what it’s about and then deciding which keywords each of pages should rank for. Bloggers can influence their "decisions" by strategically optimizing their content for certain keywords.

Lastly, Optimizing Your Code. Search engine bots don’t just read the sites content. They also scan through the sites particular code. With that in mind, there are eight different sections of a code a blogger need to optimize.

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Know More About Online Affiliate Programs

In this day and age, it is really easy to set-up your own Web site. If you have a computer connected to the Internet, you can simply go to a site such as Blogger, GeoCities or AOL and use their ready-made Web design templates to construct a simple personal page. These sites will give you a URL, store the content of your page and slap on some advertisements. Just like that, in an hour or two, your page is on the site on the web!

The more enterprising ones however, will try to take their site to the next level. They discovered that if you have a content-driven Web site, you make money off your traffic. Also, if you are an online merchant, you can actually get people to your site to buy your products. One popular option that serves both of these functions is an affiliate program.

What Are Affiliate Programs?
According to Tom Harris, affiliate programs, also called associate programs, are arrangements in which an online merchant Web site pays affiliate Web sites a commission to send them traffic. These affiliate Web sites post links to the merchant site and are paid according to a particular agreement. This agreement is usually based on the number of people the affiliate sends to the merchant's site, or the number of people they send who buy something or perform some other action. Some arrangements pay according to the number of people who visit the page containing their merchant site's banner advertisement. Basically, if a link on an affiliate site brings the merchant site traffic or money, the merchant site pays the affiliate site according to their agreement. Recruiting affiliates is an excellent way to sell products online, but it can also be a cheap and effective marketing strategy; it's a good way to get the word out about your site.

There are at least three parties in an affiliate program transaction:

1. The customer
2. The affiliate site
3. The merchant site

The idea was first introduced in 1996 by Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com. Bezos used this system as an internet marketing strategy. The system actually tries to atract affiliates to Amazon.com is and encourages them to post links on their site to individual books for sale on Amazon.com, or for Amazon.com in general. In return, Amazon.com promise them a percentage of the profits if someone clicks on the link and then purchases books or other items. The affiliate's site helps make the sale, while Amazon.com takes the order, collects the money and ships the book to the customer. With over 500,000 affiliate Web sites now participating, it cannot be denied that Amazon.com's program is a resounding success.

Since then, the concept behind the affiliate program has grown enormously in popularity, taking many interesting forms. For many Web sites that do not deal much in e-commerce (selling products or services online) themselves, functioning as an affiliate is a good way to participate in e-commerce.

Payment
Tom Harris added that there are basically three (3) types of affiliate program payment arrangements:

Pay-per-sale (also called cost-per-sale): Amazon.com's affiliate program is a good example of a pay-per-sale arrangement. In this arrangement, the merchant site pays an affiliate when the affiliate sends them a customer who purchases something. Some pay the affiliate a percentage of the sale and others pay a fixed amount per sale.

Pay-per-click (cost-per-click): Using this mode, the merchant site pays the affiliate based on the number of visitors who click on the link to come to the merchant's site. They usually do not require the visitor to buy anything. To the affiliate, they also do not care what the visitor does when they are on the merchant's site.

Pay-per-lead (cost-per-lead): Companies with these programs pay their affiliates based on the number of visitors they refer who sign up as leads. This simply means the visitor fills out some requested information at the merchant site, which the merchant site may use as a sales lead or sell to another company as a sales lead.

There are a number of other arrangements as well. Basically, a company could set up an affiliate program based on any action that would benefit them, and then pay their affiliates based on the number of customers the affiliates send them who perform that action.

There are a couple of very popular variations on these basic payment plans:

Two-tier programs: Here, the affiliate programs worked the same way as the multilevel marketing organizations (also known as "network marketing"), such as Amway or Avon. Profit is usually dependent on commission sales and sales recruitment. In addition to receiving commissions based on sales, clicks or leads stemming from their own site, affiliates in these programs also receive a commission based on the activity of affiliate sites they refer to the merchant site.

Residual Programs: Affiliates in these programs can keep making money off a visitor they send to the site if the visitor continues to purchase goods or services from the merchant site. Many online merchants who receive regular payments from their customers (such as monthly service fees) run this sort of affiliate program.

Additionally, there are a few pay-per-impression affiliate programs. Companies running these programs, also called pay-per-view programs, pay affiliates based only on the number of visitors who see their banner ad. Usually, this sort of arrangement is not structured as an affiliate program, but simply as a traditional advertising program. The advantage affiliate programs have over traditional advertising is that in an affiliate program, an online merchant only pays its affiliates when it gets a desired result.

Traditional advertising, such as the ads you see on TV and a lot of the banner ads on the Internet, is relatively risky for the advertiser. They spend money on advertising based on a guess of its effectiveness. When an ad brings the company more money than it spent on that ad, the ad is a success. If the company makes less money than it spent, it has to swallow that loss. With an affiliate program, an online merchant only pays its affiliates when things are working. Because there's much less risk to the merchant, it's a lot easier for Web sites to join affiliate programs than it is for them to attract advertisers.

How Are Affiliate Programs Administered?
Affiliate programs are pretty simple in concept, but a lot of behind-the-scenes work is necessary to make them work properly. In order for the affiliates to be compensated, someone needs to keep track of the actual activity surrounding the affiliate's link to the merchant site.

Depending on the arrangement, someone might need to determine:

• the number of people who click on the merchant site's link on an affiliate site
• the number of people who end up buying something or performing some other predetermined action once the affiliate sends them to the merchant site.
• the number of people who see the merchant site's banner link on an affiliate site

Someone also has to keep track of the original arrangement between the merchant and the affiliate and make sure the affiliate receives whatever money is owed to them.

It is a lot of work for merchant Web sites to actively recruit affiliates, and for affiliates to search for affiliate programs they are interested in. Nonetheless, many companies, such as Amazon.com, deal with their affiliates directly because the administration is well worth their time. Even though they take full control over the process, and so determine themselves what they owe, these companies can attract a lot of affiliates because their offer has no real risk or cost: All an affiliate webmaster has to do is put the link up and hope the checks come rolling in. For a lot of Web sites, however, all the work of recruiting affiliates or merchant Web sites is just too time consuming. And a lot of webmasters would rather not rely on the merchant site to tally their own bill correctly!

How to Get Involved in Affiliate Programs
If you are interested in getting involved in affiliate programs, the first thing you have to do is decide whether you want to become an affiliate, want to acquire affiliates, or both. If you run an e-commerce site and would like to increase your sales, you might want to start your own affiliate program. If you run a small content site as a hobby and would simply like to bring in a little money to cover production costs, joining a few programs as an affiliate would be a good option. Your best option depends on what aspects of affiliate programs could best serve your site and how much you are willing to spend.

Becoming an Affiliate
Becoming an affiliate is relatively easy. Go to an affiliate network site and fill out an online application to become a member. The application will ask for some personal information (name, address, payment method) and information on your site (URL, name, and description of content) and will have you agree to a service agreement. Most affiliate networks are completely free for affiliates.

If the affiliate network approves your application, you can begin picking affiliate programs that interest you. Because so many affiliate programs are free to the affiliate, it's probably in your best interest to steer clear of programs with a charge. Once you've chosen some affiliate programs, the online merchants running these programs will have the opportunity to review your site. If they approve you, the affiliate network will walk you through the process of posting the appropriate links, which come directly from the network's site. They will also establish payment arrangements with you. Because the amount of money you earn per action can be extremely small, most affiliate networks have a set minimum payout amount. This means you won't receive a check until the total money owed you reaches a certain amount. After you have set all this up and the affiliate network has explained its system to you, you can get back to work on your Web site's content and wait for your money to come in.

Acquiring Affiliates
Your best bet is probably joining an affiliate network. An affiliate network will help you set up an affiliate program and work to recruit affiliates for you. You'll have to fill out an application describing the nature of your business and your Web site. You'll also have to agree to the terms of the affiliate network and make a number of deposits. These will probably include a one time charge for becoming a member of the network as well as a deposit to be used to pay your affiliates. Some affiliate networks also charge a yearly fee for their services. To join one of the major affiliate networks you will probably have to put up between US$ 1,000 and US$ 5,000. You will also pay the affiliate network a percentage of every payout to an affiliate. In return, the affiliate network will help you set everything up, keep track of all the activity in your affiliate program, issue your affiliates checks and distribute your links to appropriate affiliates. They will give you the option of reviewing prospective affiliates, or you can choose to accept all interested affiliates automatically.

The alternative to acquiring affiliates, maintaining an affiliate program yourself, is significantly more complicated. Among other things, you would have to screen and recruit all affiliates yourself, purchase and maintain some sort of tracking technology, instruct your affiliates on how to set up links to your site, set up an accounting system for paying all of your affiliates and set up a help line to assist all your affiliates. There are a number of traffic-tracking software applications that will probably cost between US$ 100 and US$ 500, significantly less than joining an affiliate network. Another option is to sign on to a company that keeps track of the traffic involved in your affiliate program by running it through their site on the way to yours. Using one of these companies costs about the same as tracking software, and they also only assist you in tracking. Maintaining the business end of an affiliate program is more than we can explore in this article, which is a good indicator it is also more than most Web sites would want to get into.

What Makes an Affiliate Program Successful?
Amazon.com's affiliate program is so successful because it effectively links commerce and content and takes advantage of the respective strengths of Amazon.com and its affiliates. All kinds of people might buy books online, because there are books on a huge number of subjects. By itself, Amazon.com can attract a lot of these people, but there are many more readers who surf the Internet but wouldn't think to go shopping at Amazon.com. Either they haven't heard of it or the lure of books alone does not entice them. Some other subject, let's say car engine repair, does entice such a reader, however, and so he seeks out Web sites covering that subject. If his favorite engine repair Web site were to recommend and offer a good engine repair book, he would happily purchase it online. If that Web site sends him to Amazon.com to buy the book, Amazon.com gains a customer it may never have had without the referral. If the customer is happy with their purchase and the service they receive, he might also buy more books on the site.

Affiliate programs work best when affiliates choose products, services and companies that match the content of their Web site and would interest their readers. If a content Web site chooses affiliate programs well, everybody involved in the process wins. The affiliate wins because it is able to sell products to its visitors without having to run an e-commerce business, the merchant site wins because the affiliate sends it customers it wouldn't get otherwise, the affiliate network wins because it gets a piece of the profit for setting everything up, and the Web surfer wins because the affiliate Web site directs her to products she would be interested in, which she can then purchase easily.

You probably won't make much money as an affiliate if you choose affiliate programs that don't have much to do with your site. Because it is usually free, a lot of Web sites join a whole bunch of affiliate programs and figure that enough of them will pay off that they'll make some money. Hence, it is important that the affiliate sites will complement each other instead of canceling each other out. The the affiliate Web or Blog site will just look like a huge advertisement if everything is inncluded there.

The main assets of a content Web site are actually the content itself plus the traffic and knowledge of that traffic. Therefore, it will serve the site better to use the information in picking the right affiliate programs that would best serve the site's and supplement the content. If the programs match the content of the site, it should be fairly easy to lead the visitors and encourage them to participate in the programs.

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Pros and Cons of Home-Based Jobs

According to Bayt.Com, as more and more professionals seek a better work-life balance and more companies adopt flexible policies to accommodate shifting workplace priorities and realities, the working-from-home option is becoming increasingly viable.

Employees see this as an ideal means to remain in the workforce and continue to be employed thereby maintaining all the tangible benefits of being part of an established company, while enjoying all the advantages of being based at home. The option has its potential pitfalls however and below are just some of the advantages and disadvantages of working from home.

ADVANTAGES

Savings on Hidden Costs
By working at home you save on many hidden costs associated with going to work. These include costs of commuting, car wear and tear, fuel, road taxes, parking as well as indirect costs such as expensive professional wardrobes and the dry-cleaning of those. Often you can also save on older children’s care arrangements although for younger children it is highly unadvisable to forgo the childcare arrangement and try to balance close care and supervision with the demands of the job.

Flexibility
This doesn’t just relate to timings either although the flexibility to determine your own work hours to some extent is the most important aspect of this. You can also determine your environment, lighting, temperature, setting, mood; basically work in the framework that suits you best and makes you happiest and most productive.

Less Distractions
Coworkers banter and distractions, unnecessary interruptions, unimportant meetings can all be avoided if you are safely at home and sealed off in your own environment which you have barricaded from any possible interruptions.

Proximity to Home and Family
For many, the physical proximity to family and the convenience of being at home are tremendously comforting. For parents it can be especially pacifying to know that they are very near to their children and available should they be needed for any reason. This also applies in the case of elderly care.

Less Stress
The stress of commuting in bumper-to-bumper traffic at rush hour in many countries is extremely counterproductive and can lead to disgruntled workers who are already exhausted and worn before they have even begun their day. This is especially true where the workplace is far from the office. Other stresses often cited include unfriendly coworkers, a suboptimal work environment and constant distractions.

More Productivity
Removed from the stresses and distractions of the workplace and working independently in their own preferred environment at their own pace, professionals are often a lot happier and a lot more productive.

Better Health
Often with long commutes and anywhere from 1 to 3 hours a day spent getting to and from the workplace both physical and mental health are adversely impacted; the former as the gym hours are usually the first to go and the latter due to the stresses associated with both the commute and the workplace itself. By working at home the commuting time saved enables you to resume physical exercise, to go for a long walk for example before and after work or to join a local gym.

Better Work/Life Balance
Work/life balance, the aspiration of the modern professional, is often achieved and tuned to satisfaction through a working at home arrangement, particularly when a professional has the flexibility to report into the office and work from the office partially as an option and can fine-tune the arrangement to achieve the most optimal balance.

DISADVANTAGES

Isolation
Often, professionals working from home complain of isolation and loneliness given their removal from their bosses and coworkers and this can be very depressing to some. Since the workplace provides a location to meet people and make friends for many, professionals working from home have to be more creative and resourceful in getting to know people and in staying in touch with their colleagues.

Distractions
Although office distractions are avoided by working at home, different distractions may arise. Interruptions from children, work, neighbours, friends, family may be very disruptive and special efforts must be made to make it known that you are actually working and unavailable for interruption within work hours despite your physical presence at home.

Difficulty in Separating Home from Work
The temptation to engage in household matters since you are at home is often very strong. Suddenly you may start feeling obliged to clean the home, do the shopping, the childcare, the cooking, the home finances and the socializing all while meeting the full requirements of the job too. It is essential to draw the line between home and work so as to avoid both areas suffering.

Work Does Not End
Since there is no-one looking over your shoulder enforcing strict hours you may feel tempted to work endlessly. This pressure to work endlessly may be compounded by the fact that you feel there are greater expectations made of you as a home-worker or by self-imposed pressures to prove yourself and your abilities in this arrangement. Moreover the lack of physical separation between home and work may add to this pressure to work endlessly.

Alienated from Daily Company Developments
A lot can change from day to day in a company and you may find yourself removed from important developments such as staff changes, new business, changes in company direction, new competitive intelligence etc.

Danger of Being Overlooked for Promotion
The danger of being overlooked for promotions and career development opportunities is quite real when you are away from the office and other more visible employees are actively and aggressively vying for them. An open line of communication with management and regular visits to the office are critical in order to prove your dedication and commitment to your career and to prevent the out-of-sight-out-of-mind syndrome.

Need for High Self-Discipline
Working from home is not for anyone. It takes a lot of dedication, self-control and discipline to motivate yourself to persevere in working at home alone over the long run without succumbing to the distractions and losing drive and momentum. Often a partial arrangement where you report into the office once or twice a week is the optimal arrangement as it allows for close interaction with colleagues and supervisors and ensures you remain in touch with company developments while still permitting you the comfort and convenience of working from home.

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One in Three Children Have No Birth Records

According to Agence France-Presse, one in three children worldwide cannot have their existence legally verified with a birth certificate since their birth was not registered.

UNICEF also warned that almost 230 million youngsters under the age of five have no birth certificate, which puts them at a disadvantage for procedural matters and leaves them more vulnerable to abuse.

"Birth registration is more than just a right. It's how societies first recognize and acknowledge a child's identity and existence," said deputy UNICEF executive director Geeta Rao Gupta.

"Birth registration is also key to guaranteeing that children are not forgotten, denied their rights, or hidden from the progress of their nations," she said.

So "we recommend a registration system that is free, universal in coverage and confidential."

When natural disasters separate parents and children, reuniting families is much tougher when birth certificates are lacking, the UN agency stressed.

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