You'll need seven month's rent for a flat in this city

For years, Denmark has repeatedly topped surveys as the happiest place on Earth, touted for its positive quality of life, favourable start-up business environment and healthy work-life balance. But now Denmark, and its capital Copenhagen, may have something to cry about: its sky-high rental market.

Popularity, after all, comes at a price. And with Copenhagen’s burgeoning population, the influx of newcomers has led to a housing shortfall, particularly when it comes to rentals, with demand outpacing supply. The City of Copenhagen forecasts that the city will grow by 11,000 people by the end of 2016 and a full 100,000 by 2027.

Affordable flats are hard to find in the happiest country on Earth. (Credit: Alamy)

"We will hit a milestone this year when we pass 600,000 Copenhageners. That means that we will continue to have an enormous need to build housing that Copenhageners with normal incomes can afford to buy,” says the city’s mayor Frank Jensen. The city hopes to earmark 9,000 new residences for lower and middle class workers and has worked to avoid a city of only luxury apartments.

The game changer

There are two main reasons for the rise in housing competition — more Danish couples are staying in the city once they start a family rather than moving to nearby suburbs, plus there are more people moving into the city. City officials say that 45,000 new residences need to be built in the next 10 years to accommodate this rise.

It isn’t uncommon for someone to spend three months trying to find a flat

There is a lot of new development in the city, notably in Nordhavn, Carlsberg Byen and Sluseholmen, all former industrial areas. But Charlotte Larsen, who runs a company called Copenhagen Housing assisting expats in finding places to live in the city, fears these areas are not necessarily going to benefit people seeking rentals.

“Unfortunately most of the newly built apartments in Copenhagen are big, expensive places. We need smaller apartments for less than 10,000 Danish kroner (about $1,500) per month… to meet the demand.” A 97-square-metre apartment in Carlsberg Byen or 70-square-metre one in Nordhavn will set you back 3.4m kroner ($501,422) to buy. By comparison, rental of a 100-square-metre apartment with sea views in Nordhavn is currently at 18,000 kroner ($2,655) a month.

Construction of new flats is full-on in the Carlsberg Byen area of Copenhagen. (Credit: Alamy)

Playing the field

The rental market in the city has become incredibly complex and massively competitive, Larsen says. “The biggest challenge for people hoping to move to the city is that the number of apartments available for rent is so low and demand far exceeds supply,” she says. It isn’t uncommon for someone to spend three months trying to find a flat at their target price.

Landlords keep upping the ante to secure a lease

Trine Lohmann Pedersen who decided to return to Denmark from Portugal in 2015 agrees. “You need to get on the portals first thing in the morning and keep refreshing the page otherwise somewhere can be listed and gone within hours,” she says. A Danish speaker, Pedersen didn’t have the language barrier when searching, but even so, “was a full-time occupation looking for a place”. It took Pedersen two months to find an apartment.

Rent-stabilisation regulations further complicate matters. Similar to New York City, rent-stabilisation regulations in Copenhagen keep a large swathe of the rental apartments in the old buildings in city centre artificially low in rent so they rarely become free. This means those that aren’t rent controlled (for example apartments that are renovated or built after 1991) are expensive to rent, Larsen explains. A 70-square-metre rent-stabilised apartment of could cost as little as 6,400 kroner ($943) per month, whereas the average one-bedroom apartment on the open market in the city centre runs 8,634 kroner ($1,272). Between 1% and 6% of rentals were built after 1991, according to reports from 2015 and 2016.

A100-square-metre apartment with sea views in Nordhavn is currently at 18,000 kroner ($2,655) a month, if you can find an available flat to rent. (Credit: Alamy)

And landlords keep upping the ante to secure a lease. It is not unusual, for example, to be asked for the equivalent of seven months’ rent upfront (three months’ rent as a deposit, three months prepaid rent and then the first month’s rent) to secure a property. Many people take out loans to cover this. 

Looking further afield

As is the case with many popular metropolitan cities around the globe, the prices drop considerably and options increase if you decide to live further out of the city. “It is essential to set expectations right and to be prepared to accept living other places than the city centre,” Larsen says. “With public transport many outlining places are still within a half hour commute of the city.”

Alex Ross, a former teacher from the UK, moved to Copenhagen in March 2016. “It was challenging to find a home within the budget we had, but it was made easier by not being picky about the areas we were looking at.  We wanted to be close to Copenhagen but were happy to live outside of the city, and this allowed us to get more for our money.”

Copenhagen wants to earmark 9,000 new residences for lower and middle class workers. (Credit: Alamy)

Ross was also flexible when he arrived in Copenhagen. “Our first move to Copenhagen was into a shared accommodation.  This had some huge benefits in terms of getting to know the local community and make friends.” 

And before arriving, be sure to do your homework and set realistic budgetary expectations. Kara Wong from San Diego, California, in the US found the prices in the city a lot higher than she expected.

“I ended up having to increase my budget by about 25% in order to find a place in the city. The location I ended up in was not one of the options of neighbourhoods I had originally hoped for,” she says, adding that she loves the city nonetheless. “One must either be prepared for disappointment or increase budget significantly in order to find an accommodation here.”

Our ancestors may have spread anthrax all around the world.

Siberia has become the scene of an anthrax outbreak. Reportedly, a region of permafrost melted in a heatwave, exposing an infected reindeer carcass.

Anthrax has a reputation as a bioweapon, particularly after the infamous 2001 anthrax attacks in the US. But the disease has a surprisingly long history.

Ancient Chinese texts document anthrax-like outbreaks 5,000 years ago. The Roman poet Virgil described an anthrax-like plague in First Century BC Europe that "raged through an animal's veins and shrivelled its flesh" before "virtually dissolv[ing] the bones".

Some historians think the disease was present in pharaonic Egypt, and it may have been behind the fifth of the ten plagues. As the Bible puts it: "Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain [plague]."

But it is actually strange that so many regions of the world experienced anthrax problems in antiquity. Anthrax kills within days, so infected animals fall ill before they can travel far from the source, and this means anthrax should remain localised.

Somehow, a disease that is intrinsically unfit for international travel became a globetrotter thousands of years ago – and there is a good chance humanity is, inadvertently, to blame.

Historical manuscript showing five of the plagues of Egypt (Credit: British Library/Science Photo Library)

Anthrax is a potentially lethal infection caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis.

The anthrax letter attacks really helped spur the development of whole-genome sequencing

The microbes form spores that can survive in soil for several years, although exactly how long is not clear. "The figure I always hear is 10 years," says Talima Pearson at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. "But I don't think that's been rigorously tested."

An animal or human can become infected if they breathe in the spores, eat food tainted by them, or even pick up spores through an open wound. Without prompt treatment, death can come quickly.

B. anthracis bacteria are very similar at the genetic level, which initially thwarted researchers' efforts to study their evolutionary history. However, this changed about 20 years ago when geneticists developed state-of-the-art technology that allowed them to identify the small genetic differences between strains.

"Then the anthrax letter attacks really helped spur the development of whole-genome sequencing," says Pearson.

Bacillus anthracis forms long-lived spores (Credit: Science Source/Science Photo Library)

In a 2004 study, Pearson and his colleagues showed that B. anthracis bacteria fall into three main groups dubbed A, B and C. All three shared a common ancestor, but when and where that first bacterium lived is unclear.

A disease that is intrinsically unfit for international travel became a globetrotter

It probably originated in Africa, argues Martin Hugh-Jones of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In parts of southern Africa the genetic diversity of B. anthracis in soil samples is particularly high, and that is often a good indicator of where a species first appeared.

However, Pearson thinks geneticists need to analyse many more soil samples to be sure. "In terms of diversity I could argue for Africa or Europe," he says.

What is not in doubt is that B. anthracis has come a long way since its point of origin. In particular, the A group strains are now found on almost all of the major continents. They account for about 85% of recent anthrax cases around the world.

It is unlikely that they made it so far on their own.

Pearson once took part in an anthrax study in South Africa. Historically, the region had lots of the large herbivores that are particularly vulnerable to infection. These animals migrate across southern Africa, so in theory anthrax strains could travel with them. But they do not.

As early humans migrated across Eurasia... they unwittingly carried anthrax spores with them in their clothes

"When we looked at the anthrax, the different groups tended to be highly localised," says Pearson.

This initially prompted some head-scratching, he says. But once the researchers considered how rapidly anthrax kills its host, it no longer seemed so unusual. Pathogens often rely on their hosts to spread the infection, but B. anthracis kills its host before it can travel far. Anthrax is a highly localised problem.

Or, at least, it is in southern Africa. However, in Eurasia some strains have a much wider distribution. Somehow they have managed to become long-distance travellers.

Anthrax frequently infects herbivores like zebras (Credit: Richard Du Toit/naturepl.com)

"Why is there this difference in Europe and Asia?" asks Pearson. "We don't really know the answer. But we can speculate."

He suspects human behaviour is the key difference.

The first Americans almost certainly arrived in the New World from north-east Asia

Prehistoric humans were always looking for ways to exploit their environment. When they came across the carcass of a dead animal, they might well have taken its skin and used it for clothing. If some of those animals had died from anthrax, their skins might have contained anthrax spores.

As early humans migrated across Eurasia, Pearson thinks they unwittingly carried anthrax spores with them in their clothes, scattering them in their wake.

Ancient humans were just as active in southern Africa, but the climate here was far more benign than in Eurasia, says Pearson. "They perhaps didn't need to carry animal skins with them for warmth at night," he says. As a result, B. anthracis in southern Africa retained its ancestral localised distribution.

If prehistoric humans did help spread B. anthracis outside Africa, it might help explain the unusual distribution of A group anthrax in North America.

The first Americans likely came from Siberia (Credit: Hanne & Jens Eriksen/naturepl.com)

Until a few years ago most researchers assumed anthrax arrived in the Americas a few hundred years ago, with the first European settlers. But when Pearson and his colleagues looked at the data for a 2009 study, they realised it did not fit that story.

The farming revolution might well have intensified the anthrax problem

The data showed that the earliest forms of B. anthracis are restricted to the north-west of the continent. Later forms are found further south, with some reaching into Texas. This suggests that anthrax arrived in the Americas through Alaska and Canada, then spread south and east.

That pattern of spread is quite unlike the movement of European settlers, who arrived on the eastern seaboard. But it does match the route that the earliest Americans took when they first settled on the continent over 13,000 years ago. These first Americans almost certainly arrived in the New World from north-east Asia, taking advantage of a land bridge that linked Asia and North America during the last Ice Age.

This implies that, by the time people began farming about 10,000 years ago, their hunter-gatherer forerunners had already carried anthrax across Eurasia and into the Americas.

However, the farming revolution might well have intensified the anthrax problem.

Livestock can be a source of anthrax (Credit: Cheryl-Samantha Owen/naturepl.com)

In 2007, researchers including Pearson produced the most comprehensive analysis to date of the global history of B. anthracis. It suggested that the A group went through a dramatic radiation between about 6,500 and 3,300 years ago.

There is no definitive evidence that humans are responsible for the global spread of B. anthracis

This coincides with the dawn of the Bronze Age and the beginning of long-distance trade of commodities – including farming goods – across Eurasia. That long-distance trade, coupled with the fact that livestock farming brought people into closer contact with large herbivores, may well have created the perfect conditions for A group B. anthracis to spread and diversify.

In keeping with this idea, a 2009 study of B. anthracis in China revealed that the microbe is at its most diverse in western China, near to the city of Kashi. This city was a crossroads on the famous Silk Road, which might first have been used as a trade route in the Bronze Age.

As yet there is no definitive evidence that humans are responsible for the global spread of B. anthracis, or of A group strains. But there is a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing that way.

Such a story might even explain why A group B. anthracis in particular became so prevalent.

Jiaohe in China lay on the Silk Road (Credit: Noboru Komine/Science Photo Library)

A study published in 2000 suggested that A group strains are better-adapted to a wider range of environments than B or C group strains. The A group B. anthracis might also have an edge when it comes to surviving in the soil.

"Maybe it has a mutation rate that allows its fast adaptation to whatever soil it finds itself in," says Hugh-Jones.

The A group strains are now found on almost all of the major continents

However, Pearson thinks these biological differences alone cannot really explain why A group strains have so spectacularly outperformed B and C strains. The difference, he says, might simply be that A group strains were swept up by human activity to a far greater extent.

"They were just in the right place at the right time," he says.

Either way, it is looking increasingly likely that anthrax is as common as it is, not because it is good at spreading itself, but because our distant ancestors carried it all over the world – without realising it.

10 Ways to Earn Money from Your Site

When you are running your own site and finally start to see some serious traffic, you’ll probably want to earn some money from it.

In this article we’ll look at 10 of the most popular ways to make money from your site. In each section I’ll list the big players in that specific field, but there are many more opportunities available–Google is your friend.

You’ll find that you can mix and match many of these methods. Just be careful that you don’t overcrowd your site with ads. And of course you’ll need to test to find out what works best for your site.

Let’s get started.

1. Cost-per-Click Ads

Displaying banners based on a cost-per-click basis is the easiest way to make money with a site.

Usually it’s just a matter of creating the ad banners and placing them in visible places and within the guidelines. You then get paid for each click on the ads. CPC ads come in many forms, from the traditional 468×60 banners to in-text advertising.

Google’s AdSense program made this model very popular, and it still offers the highest payouts by far. Google’s guidelines are strict though. It’s tempting to put ads right next to navigation items and gain on accidental clicks, but this can get your account banned.

You are given a percentage of the revenue made on each click, so more popular terms bring in more revenue. Earnings from CPC ads vary from a few cents to several dollars per click.

Popular CPC companies

Google AdSense

Media.net (Yahoo! and Bing ads)

InfoLinks

2. Cost-per-Mille Ads

The counterpart of CPC advertising is cost per mille. Here you are paid for each and every ad displayed, even when no one clicks.

Because advertisers don’t want to pay for ads that are hardly seen, CPM advertising has even stricter requirements than CPC when it comes to placement and site quality.

Most of the time you will also find that you have to meet minimum traffic requirements. Most companies working with publishers require 100,000 impressions a month or even more.

Once you’re accepted into an ad program, you will be getting ads from all of the major advertisers, which has the side effect of enhancing the professionalism of your site.

It’s hard to determine what you potential earnings will be. Expect to earn anywhere from $1 to $4 CPM for general topic sites, and up to $10 CPM for niche-focused sites. (Hint: Sites that are web-related always do well).

Popular CPM companies

Google AdExchange (Works mostly with partners. I recommend MonetizeMore)

BuySellAds

Exponential

3. Affiliate programs

Affiliate programs (or referral programs) are considered to be the most lucrative form of advertising for publishers. If you can match an affiliate deal with your audience, you can easily earn more than any of the other methods.

The concept behind affiliate programs is simple: You get paid for each lead or sale you refer. Some companies offer a fixed fee, while others work with a revenue share.

Affiliate programs are usually offered though huge affiliate networks, which combine offers of thousands of different advertisers. Some companies, though, have their own in-house affiliate program.

How easy it is to get approved depends on the advertisers. Some companies or networks don’t have any requirements, while others want to talk with you in person and want to see a highly professional site. It mostly depends on the commission you get for each sale–higher commissions come with more requirements.

Earnings for affiliate programs are calculated as EPC, which can either be earnings per click or earnings per 100 clicks (you’ll definitely want to find out which a particular company uses when exploring your options). Targeted and well-promoted offers can bring you up to $1 for each visitor you send.

Popular affiliate networks

CJ Affiliate (Formerly known as Commission Junction)

OneNetworkDirect (Digital River)

ClickBank

4. Amazon

While it’s technically an affiliate program, the Amazon Associates program deserves special attention.

It is quite easy to get into Amazon’s program, but setting it up properly requires some time and dedication. Amazon offers many ways of promoting their products, from simple links to fullblown stores that integration via their API, like this).

The commissions Amazon pays are fairly low–they range from 4% to 10%–but the great thing is that they pay you on anything a customer orders after using your affiliate link. This means that you can send a visitor to Amazon for a simple war movie (like I do) and end up earning a commission for a purchased TV as well.

Amazon is also available in multiple countries, but you’ll need to sign up for each country independently.

Amazon Associates (US)

Amazon Associates (UK)

5. Fixed price

If you don’t want to worry too much about how your ads are performing you might want to consider selling them at a fixed price.

With this method you don’t sell clicks or impressions. Instead, you’re basically just renting out ad space on your site for a weekly or monthly fee. The price is determined based on the quality of your site and its traffic, but it doesn’t fluctuate as much as the other methods.

You can sell fixed price advertising directly or use an advertising network to do it. The downside of the latter is that you will be paying a hefty fee on each ad sale.

Revenue with fixed price advertising is generally lower than with the CPM model, since there is less competition. Another downside: If your traffic explodes while a deal is in place, you won’t get paid for the additional impressions.

Fixed price ads are good way of earning a steady recurring income without too much hassle though.

Popular fixed price advertising companies

BuySellAds

iSocket (formerly BuyAds)

AdEngage

6. Pop-ups and pop-unders

Yes, these still work! While most people find popups annoying, they’re still a lucrative way for advertisers to make money. And that means you can use them to make money as a publisher, too.

Pop-ups and pop-unders are perfect for sites with high visitor numbers but low engagement. If your visitors aren’t clicking any of your ads while on your site, you might as well earn on them when they enter or leave.

Revenue from this type of ads is quite low–earnings are often just pennies per thousands impressions. Still, if you got hundreds of thousands visitor per month if could add up to some nice numbers.

Popular pop-up advertising companies

Advertise.com

PopAds

MediaTraffic

7. Sponsored content

Also called advertorials, sponsored content is a great way of adding valuable content to your site while earning some money in the process.

With sponsored content, advertisers write posts on the topic your site covers to show their expertise and build their brand.

It’s also a great way of doing a sponsored giveaway together with an advertiser (so you can feel a bit like Oprah).

Sponsored content is often confused with paid links, where an advertiser is pays solely for link placement. Paid links can get you in trouble with Google, and there’s a fine line between sponsored content and paid links. A good rule of thumb here is that your audience should value the content and learn something from it. It’s the content that matters, not so much the actual link to the paying advertiser.

Selling sponsored content can best be done by yourself, since most networks are easily abused for link building. Depending on your traffic you can charge anywhere from $50 to thousands of dollars per post.

8. Related posts

Selling related posts is a relatively new way of earning money. Instead of linking to related posts within your own site, you can link to paid posts, usually on a CPC basis. In most cases you use a plugin which combines your own related posts with paid ones.

Related posts are usually placed underneath each article, and when a reader gets that far they are usually very much engaged and interested in what you have to offer. Because of this high engagement level, selling related posts can turn into a nice income.

To qualify for related post advertising, you’ll need to have a high quality site and high levels of traffic.

You may still be better off using that space for a higher paying affiliate ad, since the reader’s engagement at this point is worth serious money. Testing is key.

Popular related post advertising companies

Disqus

Outbrain

Taboola

9. Email advertising

When you run a popular newsletter you can sell space in your emails as well as on your website.

You can charge a one-time fee or promote affiliate deals. If you go the affiliate route, make sure the program allows for email advertising, especially when working with networks.

When you have a few thousands targeted subscribers, it is possible to earn a few hundred dollars on each mailing. Professional newsletter tools allow for excellent split-testing so you can easily try out what works best.

Ads in newsletters are mostly sold directly to advertisers, while for affiliate deals you can use the companies listed above.

10. Selling your site

The ultimate form of monetizing of your site is selling it. If you managed to successfully implement one or more of the strategies above, your site might be worth quite a lot of money.

While selling your site puts money in the bank, there are other benefits as well. You can stop worrying about your traffic and ad performance. It also frees up your time which you can use for other projects.

The main problem with selling your site is deciding when to do it. Sell too soon and you might be leaving money on the table, sell too late and you will receive less money than you like. Especially with websites revenue can be very volatile, so it will always be a gamble. General rule is to sell when your website’s income stabilizes for a few months.

You can sell your site directly to a buyer or use a marketplace or agency for it. The latter will charge you a commission but will mostly do all the work for you.

Sale prices vary widely, from a few thousand dollars to well into the six figures and beyond.

Popular places to sell your site

Flippa

EmpireFlippers

DigitalPoint forums

Try everything, but track your results

The best way to earn money from your site depends on your content and design as well as traffic.

I can’t stress enough that you should always test what works best. I personally turned one specific low earning page into a high earner by displaying a very relevant affiliate product instead of regular ads.

Try different ads and ad placements on your site–just be sure to track the results.