Navigating the complexities of managing projects, especially those inherited with little documentation on API keys and secrets, presents a formidable challenge. My journey began with an urgent need to identify and securely document the secrets dispersed across repositories—a challenge compounded by frequent personnel changes and a lack of previous accountability. To tackle these issues and avert potential downtime risks associated with indiscriminately replacing tokens, I devised two GitHub Actions:

1. Download Secret Text
2. Mystery Token Explorer

Initially born out of necessity, these tools have evolved to assist developers facing similar challenges more broadly.

Download Secret Text

(Encrypted Documentation & Secure Sharing)

Download Secret Text offers a secure method for encrypting and documenting sensitive information. By using a GPG public key for encryption, it enables the safe sharing of secrets among team members or for archival purposes. This action stands as a testament to the critical importance of maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of project secrets.

Using the action is quite intuitive:

    steps:
    - uses: vosos/download-secret-text@v1
      with:
        gpg_public_key: ${{ vars.GPG_PUBLIC_KEY }}
      # gpg_public_key: ${{ secrets.GPG_PUBLIC_KEY }}
        plain_text: |
            SOME_API_KEY=${{ secrets.SOME_API_KEY }}
            FYE_SECRET_ONE=${{ secrets.FYE_SECRET_ONE }}
            FYE_SECRET_TWO=${{ secrets.FYE_SECRET_TWO }}
            SOME_TOKEN=${{ secrets.SOME_TOKEN }}

such a step in your workflow will produce this kind of result in your run summary:

For setting up a GPG key pair, GitHub’s own TUTORIAL provides an excellent starting point. The tutorial walks you through generating the necessary public and private keys—the former for this action and the latter, combined with your passphrase, for decryption.

Mystery Token Explorer

(Shedding Light on the Shadows)

Mystery Token Explorer illuminates the obscured tokens within a project by leveraging the GitHub API to fetch information about their ownership. This insight is invaluable for developers tasked with navigating projects riddled with undocumented secrets. Plans for future enhancements include expanding the use of the GitHub API to uncover additional token details (I’ll get around to this soon—meanwhile, contributions via PRs and issues are encouraged).

Using this action is also intuitive:

    - name: Identify GitHub User
      uses: vosos/mystery-token-explorer@v1
      with:
        token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        jq_filter: '{name: .name, login: .login, id: .id}'

such a step in your workflow will produce this kind of result in your run summary:

Bridging GitHub’s Secret Management Gap

GitHub’s “write-only” policy for secrets safeguards security by preventing direct viewing or retrieval post-addition. Download Secret Text cleverly circumvents this limitation, providing a “read” capability akin to GitLab’s more flexible secret management approach. This functionality is particularly beneficial for teams migrating to GitHub or managing projects across different platforms, offering a unified and secure secret management solution.

Expanding Utility Beyond Initial Needs

Though these GitHub Actions were created to ease project transitions, their utility extends into broader contexts:

Streamlining Security Audits & CI/CD Pipelines

Incorporating Mystery Token Explorer into security audits or CI/CD pipelines facilitates the automated identification and cataloging of tokens. Used alongside Download Secret Text, it ensures secure updates to secrets, minimizing exposure risks and maintaining uninterrupted operations.

Advancing Secure Documentation Practices

Download Secret Text is invaluable for teams committed to securely documenting their infrastructure, ensuring sensitive details remain accessible only to those authorized.

In Closing

Inheriting projects laden with undocumented secrets need not be overwhelming. Mystery Token Explorer and Download Secret Text equip developers with robust tools for discovering, understanding, and securely managing digital secrets. These GitHub Actions smooth project transitions and bolster security and operational efficiency, demonstrating a proactive secret management strategy that maximizes GitHub’s strengths while mitigating its constraints. As these tools progress, they highlight the potential for community-driven enhancements to forge more secure and efficient development workflows.

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We know the CSS but what’s this Hardware acceleration ?

**Hardware* acceleration is a technique used by modern web browsers to leverage the graphical processing unit (GPU) on a user’s computer to accelerate rendering and improve performance, especially for graphics-intensive tasks like CSS animations and transitions.

Hardware acceleration offloads certain computations from the computer’s central processing unit (CPU) to the GPU. The GPU is designed specifically for rendering graphics and is highly parallelized, making it well-suited for tasks that involve manipulating and displaying visual elements, such as animations, transitions, and graphics.

=> How Hardware Acceleration Works in Browsers?
^Graphics API:
Browsers use graphics APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to communicate with the GPU. Common graphics APIs include OpenGL, WebGL, and Direct3D.

^Offloading to GPU:
When a web page contains graphical elements, such as CSS animations or transitions, the browser can offload the rendering calculations to the GPU through the graphics API.

^Parallel Processing:
The GPU can process multiple tasks simultaneously (parallel processing), which is advantageous for rendering graphics quickly. This is in contrast to the more sequential processing typically performed by the CPU.

^Smooth Animations:
By utilizing hardware acceleration, browsers can achieve smoother animations and transitions. The GPU’s parallel processing power allows for more efficient handling of graphical operations, resulting in improved frame rates and responsiveness.

=> Advantages of Hardware Acceleration:
^Performance:
Hardware acceleration improves the performance of graphics-intensive tasks, leading to smoother animations and a more responsive user experience.

^Efficiency:
By offloading graphical computations to the GPU, the CPU is free to handle other tasks, contributing to overall system efficiency.

So, never underestimate the OG CSS and learn advance CSS, so that for animations and all (not advanced animations) avoid JS and write CSS for that, from scratch.

Get your hands dirty on css here :
https://cssbattle.dev/

Checkout my profile:
https://cssbattle.dev/player/rounit08

Get your hands dirty on css here :
https://cssbattle.dev/

Checkout my profile:
https://cssbattle.dev/player/rounit08

Follow #rounitsinha for more

The post CSS and the Browser’s Hardware acceleration appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Without exception, all the SaaS businesses I’ve ever spoken with want to keep their churn rate down.

That’s because retention and activation, not acquisition, are the main drivers of profitability in the SaaS world.

It stands to reason when you think about how much time and money you spent building your product. You’re not going to recoup all that investment with just one round of monthly payments per customer.

That all sounds well and good in theory… but how do you reduce churn in practice?

Allow us to walk you through some churn-reducing strategies that are actually actionable!

TL;DR

• The churn rate is the percentage of customers that leave your business over a given time period.

• It’s an essential metric for SaaS businesses because profitability correlates with retention and activation.

• To prevent churn in onboarding, use a welcome screen, an interactive walkthrough, and tooltips. Remember that onboarding is a never-ending process.

• To prevent churn after receiving negative customer feedback, be sure to categorize the feedback and follow up on it.

• To address churn pre-emptively, creating helpful blog content and a knowledge base are essential activities if you can make the knowledge base accessible in-app via a help center, even better.

• Many of these anti-churn strategies are in-built features of Userpilot.

  

  Reduce customer churn rate with Userpilot

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  What is customer churn?

  Customer churn (also called customer attrition) refers to the rate at which customers discontinue their usage or subscription to your product or service.

  Why does customer churn matter?

  Churn is one of the key growth metrics for SaaS companies because they depend on customer retention to make profits.

  Customer acquisition costs are more expensive than customer retention, making it essential to track churn regularly.

  Analyzing customer churn enables you to identify critical stages in the user journey where users are dropping off. This lets you develop specific strategies to induce more positive user interactions with your brand, improve customer loyalty, increase customer lifetime value, and prevent customer churn.

  Furthermore, you can learn why your users are leaving and where in the funnel it’s happening so that you can create meaningful product experiences to increase your customer retention rates.

  How to calculate customer churn rate

  Before we get into the ways you can reduce churn rate, first a quick word on how to measure it.

  A customer is said to “churn” when they stop doing business with your company. The churn rate is therefore the percentage of customers who churn over a given time period.

  To calculate churn, identify:

  • The period of time you’re measuring churn over.

  • The number of customers you had at the beginning of that period (A)

  • How many customers you’ve lost during that period (B)

  Now divide B by A, and multiply the result by 100 to get a percentage.

  

  How to calculate customer churn rate

  If company XYZ had 1000 customers at the start of 2023 and lost 50 of those by the end of the year, you could say they had a churn rate of 5%.

  Now, if that same company had a churn rate of 1% instead, that’s 40 extra customers over the whole year.

  What’s more, those are customers who pay them money on month-to-month contracts, so the effects of reduced churn compound over time!

  No wonder a famous study by Bain found that improving the customer retention rate by just 5% can improve profitability by up to 95%!

  The same study found that it’s five times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.

  So keeping churn to a minimum is essential. Let’s look at some no-fluff ways of doing that.

  What is a good customer churn rate?

  While the average revenue churn rate for SaaS companies is around 5%, a good churn rate is 3% or less.

  The benchmarks for customer churn rate are:

  • Monthly churn rate: The average for SaaS companies is approximately 1%. However, it may be up to 5% for small and medium SaaS businesses.

  • Annual churn rate: The average for large companies is around 1-2%, while smaller ones may have up to 10-15%.

  Effective customer retention strategies to reduce customer churn rate

  Now that you know what causes product churn and its impacts on your business, let’s dive into strategies that would help you get more revenue and prevent customer churn.

  Personalize the onboarding process to increase the customer lifetime value

  Nailing the onboarding process is a crucial customer retention strategy. Personalized onboarding ensures each user learns how your SaaS product serves their unique, individual needs.

  For example, a UX designer may have a different set of goals for an onboarding tool than a product manager using the same tool.

  To successfully personalize each user’s onboarding flow and customer experience, you must first understand their needs. Use a welcome survey to learn about your users and their JTBD and place them in the appropriate segment.

Segment new users with Userpilot.

Finally, display the onboarding flow specific to their JTBD segment. This personalized onboarding flow should showcase features necessary for the user to achieve their goals with your product.

Use tooltips to drive feature adoption and customer engagement

Day 1 retention is a big problem in SaaS businesses. Many users churn before really being able to experience that “Aha Moment” and the value of the product.

Well-placed tooltips can improve your user onboarding process and help customers settle nicely into your product. Your tooltip should be placed near the object of interest, usually at the pointer’s tail or head if possible; never put it in a way that interferes with what the user is doing.

Use tooltips to drive feature adoption.

Ideally, your onboarding tooltips should only appear when the user is using the tool for the first time. However, you can have persistent tooltips for features that could be confusing. This category of tooltips is mostly unobtrusive, only showing when the user moves their cursor over the element.

Use an interactive product walkthrough to show new customers how to use product features

A common experience when you start using a new product is to be given a product tour. Sounds reasonable, right?

But have you experienced product tours that show you a bunch of features that you don’t actually need? Frequently we end up pressing the “Next” button rapidly, in the hope that we’ll finally be able to use the product we came to use!

Traditional product tours often lead to churn because they serve generic product features in the same generic way to each user. The product tour is wholly pre-determined by the business; there’s no interaction with the user.

This is a tedious experience and I have a lot of sympathy for people who rage-quit during tours like this.

By contrast, an interactive walkthrough is more like a back-and-forth dialogue with the user.

Use an interactive product walkthrough to show new customers how to use product features

It begins with a welcome screen that gauges who the user is and what their use case looks like.

Then, on the basis of the user’s answers, they are shown only the handful of features that they actually need. All the advanced or more nuanced features can wait for now.

A user who has experienced the value of your product quickly and interactively is much less likely to churn.

Prioritize proactive customer service with self-service usage

It’s a cliche in the SaaS world that most users who churn do so because of poor customer service.

But hiring salaried customer support agents gets expensive quickly, especially in the early stages of a SaaS company’s life.

That’s why the concept of a knowledge base exists. The knowledge base is a section of your website that contains solutions to common customer problems, allowing the customer to self-diagnose and fix problems without needing a support agent. This can provide excellent customer service for your existing customers.

But even this is insufficient in an age of impatient customers who expect instant gratification. Some customers will still churn because they get frustrated that they can’t find your knowledge base within 10 seconds of having a problem.

A help center is a small widget inside your product that pulls up articles from your knowledge base. This allows users to access self-service support without the friction of having to leave your app.

A good help center will generally contain:

• FAQs

• Best practices

• Video guides

• Bug fixes

• Troubleshooting

• How-tos

• And more!

Build a resource-center code-free with Userpilot. Book a demo to learn more!

From a user’s point of view, a help center translates into a quicker answer to their question. This means less frustration and happy users are not known for churning.

As a bonus, a help center is also great for user engagement, since it keeps them in-app and focused on your product. Engagement and retention are also strongly correlated.

You can even collect feedback to measure customer satisfaction after they engage with your resource center to improve customer experience.

Prevent customer attrition with in-app messaging

Picture the scene: you sign up for an online product. You’re excited and ready to get into using it every day for your work.

After registration and the welcome screen, you see an empty dashboard. There’s nothing there, just white space.

It’s a rather depressing feeling, isn’t it? Much like the feeling of staring at a blank piece of paper before writing an essay at school.

There’s an interesting concept in habit psychology called “activation energy.” The higher the activation energy, the more willpower it takes to start doing a new activity. That’s why going to a gym that’s 50 miles away requires more willpower than using a home gym.

In the SaaS world, empty states require a lot of activation energy to fill in. Sometimes this energy requirement is so high that a user would rather churn than keep using your product.

To solve this problem, replace any empty states in your product with templates, case studies, dummy users, and other placeholder data.

Including a warm message is a nice way to offer a personalized welcome and get your customers happy and started with one simple button.

Slack’s use of in-app messaging.

Tag your NPS responses to identify at-risk customers

The larger your SaaS business becomes, the more user feedback you will necessarily have to juggle. If you don’t have a system for organizing that feedback, you’ll be that much slower to respond to users, thereby risking them churning.

NPS responses can help identify common customer pain points by grouping feedback into theme buckets (tags), allowing you to understand how to improve and avoid losing valuable customers.

To do this, manually go through open-ended responses and categorize each one into predefined topics such as Functionality, Usability, and Reliability.

NPS response tagging in Userpilot

Follow up on negative NPS scores to improve customer satisfaction

Here’s a sobering thought: if a customer gives you a negative NPS score, the score in itself doesn’t provide you with that much useful customer data anyway.

A negative NPS score just means that a customer is unlikely to refer you to their friends and family.

It says nothing at all about WHY the customer has this opinion.

To prevent this customer from churning, what you really need to do is follow up on that NPS score. (Hopefully, you’ve categorized your customer feedback by sentiment to make this easy to do!)

Here comes the follow-up question in NPS surveys, which gathers qualitative feedback to help you understand why users gave you a particular rating.

NPS follow-up question

When you know what engages promoters, you can build on your strengths to create loyal customers for the long term. You can also get some insights into passives to decide how you can improve your product or onboarding experiences to encourage customers and turn them into promoters.

Moreover, you can even turn detractors into promoters by learning about their pain points and addressing them. Take their negative feedback as constructive criticism to improve your product and user experiences. This would help you reduce product churn and boost revenue.

Retain customers with secondary onboarding

It’s a common misconception in the SaaS world that onboarding ends after a user has activated.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: you’ve activated and enjoyed using a given product, and then suddenly a new feature is launched that you’ve never seen before.

The worst thing you could do as a business in that situation is just leave the customer to sink or swim. There’s a good chance that the customer will just get frustrated and churn.

Instead, think of onboarding as educating the customer at every stage of the product adoption journey — something that never ends.

We can therefore speak not only of secondary onboarding but tertiary onboarding — even “evergreen onboarding.”

Secondary onboarding seeks to drive product stickiness – and, thus, customer retention – by showing customers features they are yet to use.

The next onboarding phase, tertiary onboarding, aims to drive even further engagement. It involves onboarding current customers when new features are released and collecting feedback to ensure their needs are met.

Drive consistent value by educating your existing customers

SaaS products can sometimes be complicated and counter-intuitive for users to understand. The more complex your product is, the more of a risk you have that customers will churn due to feeling confused.

Companies can create two types of content to mitigate this problem:

• Knowledge base content

• Blog content

Let’s look at each one of these in turn.

We mentioned the knowledge base earlier in this article as a separate part of your website where users can self-diagnose and fix issues they run into.

The knowledge base is a great place to answer questions that your customer success team is receiving all the time. This is what the Userpilot knowledge base looks like:

Userpilot knowledge base

A knowledge base is a great defender against churn because customers will appreciate being able to get a quick answer on their own schedule.

And your customer success team is probably sick of answering the same questions every day. Rather than type a new answer each time, it’s much more efficient to just point users to an article.

If you need inspiration in this area, feel free to look at the Userpilot blog. We practice what we preach, and we try to make our articles as helpful as possible.

Frequently, we hear from our customers that we provide actionable content that has screenshots and examples. This is a far cry from most blog content, which is fluffy and superficial.

The hundreds of hours of work we put into this blog each month mean that our most loyal customers are constantly educating themselves without coming to us with direct questions.

This builds trust and customer relationships over time and aids in preventing churn.

Use email marketing to win back churned customers

Win-back campaigns help you reach out to such inactive customers to discover why they churned and allow you to re-introduce how customers feel your product and its value to them.

Conclusion

We hope you got lots of value out of reading this article about reducing churn. It’s a huge topic, so we encourage you to read through some of the other posts we linked to if you want to learn more about a particular strategy.

Something you will have noticed is that Userpilot has a lot of these strategies built into its product as features. This makes it a versatile tool for reducing churn.

If you want to give Userpilot a spin, click the banner below to book a demo.

Reduce churn rate with Userpilot

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• 14 Day Trial
• No Credit Card Required

The post 10 Effective Strategies to Reduce Churn Rate in SaaS appeared first on Thoughts about Product Adoption, User Onboarding and Good UX | Userpilot Blog.

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The term OAuth is likely a term on every developer’s mind. But how do you break down this concept to someone just starting their coding journey, or even to someone who isn’t involved in development at all? Here’s my attempt to explain it

What is OAuth?

OAuth, which stands for Open Authorization, is a standard protocol that allows third-party applications to access user data without exposing their password. Imagine using your university ID to check out a library book. You’re not giving the librarian your login details, just proof that you’re a student. The librarian doesn’t see your grades or tuition details, just confirms you’re allowed to borrow books.

How Does OAuth Work?

Think of when you log into a new app, and it asks if you want to log in using your Google account. Once you click ‘yes’, you’re redirected to a Google sign-in page. Here’s where OAuth comes into play.

You input your Google credentials (this is authentication, proving who you are), but instead of giving these credentials back to the original app, Google sends back a token. This token is like a temporary key, giving the app permission to access specific information from your Google account for a set amount of time.

For a visual explanation I’ve found the following diagram particularly helpful:

Why is OAuth Important?

OAuth plays an essential role in enhancing user experience and security. By using OAuth, users don’t have to remember another set of credentials, and the application doesn’t have to manage secure storage of user passwords. Plus, users can control which information they want to share and can revoke access at any time.

OAuth in a Nutshell

To put it simply, OAuth is like a digital passport. In the realm of web security, it serves as a safe and efficient way to give applications the ability to communicate with each other using tokens, instead of sharing sensitive information, like passwords.

Remember, OAuth isn’t about gaining access but about giving limited access to third-party services without exposing user credentials. It’s like giving the keys to your car but not your house!

Summing Up

Grasping the concept of OAuth is crucial in the modern landscape of web development and security. It’s all about protecting user data while providing the flexibility of interconnected services. By understanding and implementing OAuth, we can offer a secure and streamlined user experience.

As with any security strategy, the way you implement OAuth will depend on your specific application’s needs and the level of security it requires.

As always you are welcome to share your thoughts

The post Understand OAuth in 3 minutes appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Introduction:

In today’s digital landscape, seamless database connectivity and compatibility are crucial for organizations. EDB Postgres Advanced Server v15 emerges as a comprehensive solution that simplifies the process of connecting to databases and achieving Oracle compatibility. This article explores the key aspects of database connectivity and highlights how EDB Postgres Advanced Server v15 streamlines the process while ensuring compatibility with Oracle databases.

Enhanced Components for Seamless Database Connectivity:

EDB Postgres Advanced Server v15 provides a diverse range of specialized components that enhance database connectivity. These components, such as the EDB JDBC Connector, the EDB .NET Connector, the EDB OCL Connector, and the EDB ODBC Connector, establish reliable communication channels between applications and the Postgres database server.
For instance, the EDB JDBC Connector empowers Java applications to seamlessly connect to Postgres databases, while the EDB .NET Connector simplifies connectivity for .NET client applications. The EDB OCL Connector offers Oracle developers a familiar API similar to the Oracle Call Interface, enabling smooth interaction with Postgres databases. Additionally, the EDB ODBC Connector facilitates connectivity for ODBC-compliant client applications. By leveraging these enhanced components, organizations can establish efficient and dependable connections with EDB Postgres Advanced Server.

Integration with External Data Sources:

EDB Postgres Advanced Server v15 goes beyond traditional connectivity by offering specialized components for integrating external data sources.
The EDB Hadoop Foreign Data Wrapper allows the Postgres database server to seamlessly access and interact with data residing on Hadoop file systems. This feature opens up opportunities for organizations to leverage the power of Big Data stored in Hadoop clusters. Furthermore, the MongoDB Foreign Data Wrapper facilitates seamless integration with MongoDB databases, enabling organizations to combine and analyze data from both Postgres and MongoDB sources within a single database environment. Additionally, the MySQL Foreign Data Wrapper enables easy retrieval of data from MySQL databases, providing a unified view of data across different platforms. These components expand the capabilities of EDB Postgres Advanced Server, empowering organizations to integrate and analyze diverse data sources efficiently.

Oracle Compatibility for Smooth Migration:

Migrating from Oracle databases to EDB Postgres Advanced Server is a seamless process with EDB Postgres Advanced Server v15. It offers a comprehensive set of Oracle compatibility features that minimize code rewriting and disruption.

Developers can leverage Oracle-compatible system and built-in functions, enabling the use of familiar SQL statements and procedural logic in EDB Postgres Advanced Server. The stored procedure language (SPL) supports the creation of server-side application logic, including stored procedures, functions, triggers, and packages, facilitating a smooth transition for Oracle developers.

EDB Postgres Advanced Server v15 also ensures compatibility with Oracle data types, enabling organizations to migrate their data seamlessly. SQL statements in EDB Postgres Advanced Server are fully compatible with Oracle SQL, allowing organizations to execute their existing SQL code without extensive modifications. Moreover, EDB provides system catalog views that align with Oracle’s data dictionary, making it easier for Oracle developers to access and query database metadata within the Postgres environment.

Conclusion:

EDB Postgres Advanced Server simplifies database connectivity, enhances compatibility, and enables seamless integration with external data sources. Its enhanced components facilitate reliable connections with the Postgres database server, while specialized components extend data analysis capabilities. With comprehensive Oracle compatibility, organizations can smoothly migrate and leverage familiar SQL and procedural logic. By leveraging EDB Postgres Advanced Server, organizations optimize connectivity, enhance productivity, and unlock new data integration opportunities, gaining a competitive edge.

The post Streamlining Database Connectivity and Oracle Compatibility with EDB Postgres Advanced Server appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Introduction

Dynamic programming is a technique that allows us to break down complex problems into smaller, more manageable subproblems. It involves solving subproblems only once and storing the results in memory for future use, instead of solving them repeatedly. This technique is widely used in computer science and can be applied to a wide range of problems, including optimization, scheduling, string, and graph problems.

In this article, we’ll explore some of the essential dynamic programming algorithms that every programmer should know, with examples and code snippets.

What is Dynamic Programming?

Dynamic programming is an algorithmic technique that involves solving a problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable subproblems. It’s similar to divide-and-conquer, but with a crucial difference: dynamic programming solves subproblems only once and stores their solutions in memory for future use, instead of solving them repeatedly.

Overlapping Subproblems

One of the key characteristics of dynamic programming is overlapping subproblems. This means that the same subproblem can occur multiple times in the course of solving a larger problem. For example, in the Fibonacci sequence, calculating the nth Fibonacci number involves calculating the (n-1)th and (n-2)th Fibonacci numbers, which themselves require calculating the (n-2)th and (n-3)th Fibonacci numbers, and so on.

Optimal Substructure

Another key characteristic of dynamic programming is optimal substructure. This means that the optimal solution to a larger problem can be constructed from the optimal solutions to its subproblems. For example, in the knapsack problem, the optimal solution for a knapsack of size S and a set of items with weights and values can be constructed from the optimal solutions for knapsacks of size S-1 and the same set of items.

Memoization

Memoization is a technique used to implement dynamic programming by storing the results of expensive function calls and returning the cached result when the same inputs occur again. In other words, memoization is caching the results of expensive function calls so that we can avoid repeated computations.

Here’s an example of memoization in action, using the Fibonacci sequence:

pythonCopy codefib_cache = {}

def fib(n):
    if n in fib_cache:
        return fib_cache[n]
    if n <= 1:
        return n
    fib_cache[n] = fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)
    return fib_cache[n]

Tabulation

Tabulation is another technique used to implement dynamic programming, which involves filling up a table with the results of subproblems in a bottom-up manner. In other words, instead of recursively solving subproblems and storing the results in memory, we solve them iteratively and store the results in a table.

Here’s an example of tabulation in action, using the Fibonacci sequence:

Copy code
def fib(n):
    if n <= 1
    # Initialize the table
    fib_table = [0, 1]

    # Fill up the table in a bottom-up manner
    for i in range(2, n+1):
        fib_table.append(fib_table[i-1] + fib_table[i-2])

    # Return the nth Fibonacci number
    return fib_table[n]

Fibonacci Sequence

The Fibonacci sequence is a classic example of a problem that can be solved using dynamic programming. The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers, starting from 0 and 1. The sequence goes like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on.

Here’s an example of solving the Fibonacci sequence using dynamic programming, with tabulation:

pythonCopy codedef fib(n):
    if n <= 1:
        return n

    # Initialize the table
    fib_table = [0, 1]

    # Fill up the table in a bottom-up manner
    for i in range(2, n+1):
        fib_table.append(fib_table[i-1] + fib_table[i-2])

    # Return the nth Fibonacci number
    return fib_table[n]

Knapsack Problem

The knapsack problem is another classic example of a problem that can be solved using dynamic programming. The knapsack problem is a problem in combinatorial optimization, where given a set of items, each with a weight and a value, we must determine the items to include in a collection so that the total weight is less than or equal to a given limit, and the total value is maximized.

Here’s an example of solving the knapsack problem using dynamic programming, with tabulation:

pythonCopy codedef knapsack(W, wt, val, n):
    # Initialize the table
    K = [[0 for x in range(W+1)] for x in range(n+1)]

    # Build the table in a bottom-up manner
    for i in range(n+1):
        for w in range(W+1):
            if i == 0 or w == 0:
                K[i][w] = 0
            elif wt[i-1] <= w:
                K[i][w] = max(val[i-1] + K[i-1][w-wt[i-1]], K[i-1][w])
            else:
                K[i][w] = K[i-1][w]

    # Return the maximum value
    return K[n][W]

Longest Common Subsequence

The longest common subsequence problem is a problem in computer science, where given two sequences, we must find the longest subsequence present in both of them. A subsequence is a sequence that can be derived from another sequence by deleting some or no elements without changing the order of the remaining elements.

Here’s an example of solving the longest common subsequence problem using dynamic programming, with tabulation:

pythonCopy codedef lcs(X, Y):
    m = len(X)
    n = len(Y)

    # Initialize the table
    L = [[0 for x in range(n+1)] for x in range(m+1)]

    # Build the table in a bottom-up manner
    for i in range(m+1):
        for j in range(n+1):
            if i == 0 or j == 0:
                L[i][j] = 0
            elif X[i-1] == Y[j-1]:
                L
                L[i][j] = L[i-1][j-1] + 1
            else:
                L[i][j] = max(L[i-1][j], L[i][j-1])

    # Return the length of the longest common subsequence
    return L[m][n]

Conclusion

Dynamic programming is a powerful technique that can be used to solve a wide range of problems in computer science and beyond. By breaking down complex problems into smaller subproblems and solving them in a systematic manner, we can arrive at an optimal solution that might not be achievable by other methods.

In this article, we covered three classic examples of dynamic programming algorithms: the Fibonacci sequence, the knapsack problem, and the longest common subsequence problem. We showed how each of these problems can be solved using dynamic programming with tabulation.

Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced programmer, understanding dynamic programming can help you become a more efficient problem solver. So the next time you’re faced with a challenging problem, try applying dynamic programming to see if you can find an optimal solution.

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Online reputation management can be daunting – but advantageous – for brands or individuals that are seeing their search engine displays implicated by third-party content, and want to take the reins. When the media controls the narrative, it can lead to untrue perceptions and a more biased sentiment down the line. 

At Go Fish Digital, our team works closely with our clients to understand the sensitive issue they’re facing so we can meet their goals and rectify their online reputations.

The situation

We would not perform reputation management services for any company that was a scam or has participated in fraudulent or misleading activities. Prior to taking on a client, we fully research the business and ensure we are 100% comfortable in helping them with their problem.

When big brands come to us communicating their search results complications, our team thoroughly reviews the situation before we decide to take it on. Our vetting process includes doing due diligence on each client to be sure we can validate the issue. Most of the time, a brand has a controversial topic or story in the current news cycle that is populating their search results. In such cases, the project goals usually include two things: changing the sentiment of the narrative and getting any negative articles off of the page one search results for their brand.

To give you a better idea of how our team would approach a situation like this let’s take a look at the semi-current SERP complication we’re seeing for LuLaRoe, a multi-level marketing company that sells women’s clothing. 

Back in September 2021, a couple very authoritative news sites, Forbes and The Guardian, published stories about the “downfall of the company” based on the documentary The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe, which came out that December. While this is not necessarily a company we would take on as a client, we are using them as an example as there are specific ORM strategies that we could identify to help improve the SERPs for their brand name. 

Our research

When researching LuLaRoe, we saw that both the Forbes and The Guardian articles were ranking at the bottom of their page one search results, just below their Facebook page and just above their Amazon Storefront profile listing. We recorded what each link was, the position it was ranking in, and the sentiment of each for the first 30 results we found. 

As part of our process, it’s important we research and consider all the variables before putting together our plan of improvement. As mentioned above, we begin by gathering the search results rankings and assessing each URL we see in the first 30 positions. Our team tracks all of the factors and signals Google will look at when determining which URLs they rank for a keyword. Some of these factors include the relevance of the page, the keyword itself, backlink data, click-through rate, and social engagement. Gathering this data can be done by using tools like MozBar or Moz Keyword Explorer. Once we gather the important data points from every link on the first three pages or 30 positions using infinite scroll for our keyword, it’s time to put together our approach. 

For LuLaRoe’s case specifically, here’s some of the data we found from the  SERPs:

Our approach

The ORM goal remained to control as much of the first 30 results as we could, as well as move the negative articles off the page one results. After doing the data collection as shown above, we took note of the areas that we could influence. For example, you can see that the Amazon link ranking in position eight has zero backlinks, so building new quality backlinks here is a strategy we would recommend to increase the quality of this signal to Google.

In addition to launching our best ORM strategies, we decided that we would identify many new pieces of content, as well as update as much existing content as we could. The action plan for each business situation is specific to what we see ranking for that brand. 

Below, you can see our ORM strategies, broken down into three different categories, including pre-existing content, existing content, and engagement tactics.

Pre-existing content strategies

Setting up subdomains on the client’s website  

In some cases, we recommend setting up subdomains that specifically address the controversy. For LuLaRoe, we would help them build out a subdomain on their website.

Identifying news articles 

A benefit of a business being in the spotlight is that they may already have plenty of mainstream press. We can identify any positive articles from high Domain Authority (DA) news sites and other industry publications to promote. 

For LuLaRoe, we would not recommend this strategy, as there’s an overwhelming amount of negative press out there. They could potentially work with an authoritative news site to publish a piece detailing their side of the story or where the business is now, but we would suggest doing so down the road,after the dust settles from the bad press. This could produce ranking potential because it could be something unique to the results of the brand.

Reviewing Wikis & other profile pages

We recommend taking stock of any Wikis and existing profile pages a brand already has out there. For example, LuLaRoe could update its Crunchbase profile regularly. Doing so may have the potential to move the profile upward in the brand’s SERP.

In LuLaRoe’s case, we would also recommend taking full advantage of its YouTube presence by adding new videos with a “new light” sentiment, and turning off all comments on each video. Since we see their YouTube profile ranking highly on their page two search results, this is a domain that has the potential to move above the negative stories ranking on page one.

New content strategies

Post on sites you have relationships with (or own)

This could be a partner that has a completely different domain than you, or another brand that you have worked with in the past and have a good relationship with. Reaching out to these confidants to create new positive press surrounding the topic could help to get something new in the SERPs. 

Leveraging any existing relationships, or forging new ones, is a strategy that could potentially work for LuLaRoe.   

Research article directories

Random directory sites are not to be forgotten. In doing research on the specific industry you’re looking to influence, you can suss out directory listings to expand your presence on. 

That said, this isn’t a strategy that would make much of a difference for a huge brand like LuLaRoe, but it could be used to make their n overall reputation look cleaner and more put together. 

Establish mini blogs

We would recommend setting up a number of mini blogs on WordPress, Blogger, Posterous, and Tumblr, as well as  a few other WordPress MU sites we have identified with high ranking potential. 

But again, these mini blogs may not have the high-ranking potential to make a significant difference for a bigger brand like LuLaRoe 

Take ownership of other domains

We would recommend purchasing the .com, .net, and .org versions of the exact match domains for the search phrase –including the brandnamecharity.com. The general content we would recommend adding to these pages would include customer testimonials, positive stories, general information about the company, satisfaction guarantees, posts that debunk misinformation, and other stories that either didn’t pertain to the issue at all or show positive aspects about our client. 

Also, creating new profiles on sites like Medium, or doing an IdeaMensch interview, could help positive controlled content to rank highly in your results.

Engagement strategies

Link building

We highly recommend the link building tactic for all brands, especially LuLaRoe. When it comes to positive sentiment that has a low backlink data number, building links can help to increase that number. To do this, we would work with niche bloggers to build new links to the URLs that are ranking below the negative links on page one. The goal is to build backlinks to more than one target so these blog posts aren’t all about a specific brand as the topic, but rather, mention the brand in passing. 

Interlinking

Another helpful tactic involves taking advantage of interlinking opportunities from the brand’s main website to the positive URLs we see ranking within the first 30 results for the brand. This will help to show Google that they’re relevant, important, and should be associated with the brand.  

Click-through rate (CTR) search team

The goal here is to send clicks to certain positive targets in the SERPs to help move them above the negative. Like other tactics, this is about sending signals to Google that the target is a valuable piece of content to put on the first page of the SERPs. We would recommend sending high-value, US or local, clicks to the target URLs you identify. For LuLaRoe these include the Amazon Storefront, thredUP, Poshmark, LuLaRoe Bless, Twitter, YouTube, eBay, and Pinterest URLs.

Competitor research  

Another tactic we would recommend is to take a look at competitors in your industry. Gathering a bigger picture of what’s ranking in a similar brands’ SERP could give you ideas of what to replicate. Sometimes, you may even find a random profile ranking for a competitor that you don’t have a profile on. LuLaRoe should take a look at other big brands facing similar controversies to gain knowledge on where and how they responded and moved forward. 

Influencer engagement 

Working with influencers and other social media engagers in the space is so important. Not only does it bring awareness to the ideas you’re trying to promote, but it helps to increase engagement to articles that your brand would like to see higher in the search results. LuLaRoe could really benefit from working with any influencers who support their new business direction and are willing to help clean up their reputation.

Case study & tracking progress 

Without giving away any of our past client’s project details, we wanted to give you an idea of some of the results we’ve seen after applying our tactics. The questionable situation was surrounding a commercial about a controversial topic at that time. After getting negative news coverage, we saw a few negative articles “stick” on the page one results for their brand. Using our proprietary technology for reputation management tracking, we calculated what’s called the “Sentiment Score” of the search result to be a 91. 

Our team took the time to thoughtfully review all aspects of the brand’s search results, as I detailed above. From there we applied the tactics we thought would make a difference and made sense considering the industry. The strategies that were successful in this case included increasing click-through rate, link building, and social engagements. Other strategies that helped to move the negative links on to page two included new profile creation and updating pre-existing content that was dated. 

It was great to see the positive results of our work, although it did take time due to the relevance of the article. The client also took part in charitable events that helped to create new press to surround the brand, which helped to meet their end goal even. 

These initiatives resulted in a Sentiment Score of a perfect 100 with no negatives on page one. You can read more about how we calculate the overall sentiment score for a query here. 

Conclusion

The results from implementing the ORM strategies above vary from brand to brand. It all depends on how each ranking factor is determined by Google. The authority and relevance of an article also make a huge difference in how it’s placed. Our team has seen a ton of success utilizing and being strategic when implementing many of them, but some of our techniques work better than others because of the industry. This proves the importance of doing research to find out what tactics are best suited — and will be most beneficial — to a given brand of business.

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