rad, Author at State of SEO

December 9, 2011

A common misconception amongst businesses is the belief that anyone can perform SEO (search engine optimisation). Of course, injecting popular keywords into your content and linking your pages to appropriate pages will help to raise your rankings; however there is more to SEO than managing the visibility of your content.

There are other elements to take into consideration such as: competition (the more websites competing for one keyword, the harder it will be for you to rank for it) and reputation (top SEO services post relevant articles across directories and appropriate sites, to increase your links and more importantly build up your reputation).

For this reason, we strongly recommend employing the services of an SEO team.

They can help you to ascertain what are the best words to target on your website; manage your content and more importantly help to increase traffic/conversions to your website.

But where do you start?

You want your website to do well, so it only makes sense that you want to employ the best SEO team. And the easiest way we have found to narrow this list, is implementing the following tactics.

Where do they rank?It makes sense that as an SEO company, they should rank well.
Yes, you could argue that there is a lot of competition in this field, meaning a team on page 1 of Google may only be slightly better than one on page 4, and yes, a quality SEO team that is part of a digital design agency may not rank as high as others as their site is targeting other design related phrases. However, the higher they rank for phrases such as ‘SEO services’ or ‘Digital Design Agency’, the more confident you can be that they can offer your website similar results.

So do a search, see how well they rank on search engines and then compare their fees, so you can pick the best company for you.
Have they got certificates?A good thing to look for when comparing SEO companies is whether they have got ‘SEO certification’. These certifications are designed to prove the ability of an SEO team as their skills have been evaluated.
So when you are looking at different SEO teams, look to see if they have been granted these certifications. Find one on their website and you can feel confident that they meet the standard.

Now, these are just 2 of the many tricks you can use to help you find the best SEO companies in the field. And we think you’ll agree that they will certainly make a difference when helping you to narrow down your list.

However, if you are struggling we suggest doing the following:

What is their portfolio of work? What other websites are they working on? How are these websites ranking? Ask for data/references and check to see if they have managed a website in your industry niche before.
Ask for references. If possible try speaking to previous clients to see what they are like to work with; the results they have produced and how their websites are doing now.
What services do they offer? A SEO team that forms part of a digital design agency may not rank as high in Google as independent SEO companies (as they will be targeting a larger range of keywords); however they may be able to offer you a range of other services i.e. web design, email marketing, content etc that can prove beneficial to your business in other ways.
What tactics do they plan to use on your website? Alongside their quote, get them to put together a proposal containing their research, statistics and predicted projections. Essentially get them to outline exactly what they believe they can do for your business.

Finding a quality SEO team is within your research, so try implementing the tips above and make your search even easier.

This article was written by the web design agency, Soula Ltd

Advanced SEO

Search Engine Optimization and Cowboys

December 7, 2011

rad

1 Comment

So many website owners believe Search Engine Optimization is magical, at least that is how they act when the topic of SEO comes up. I almost always hear black hat Search Engine Optimization techniques when people talk about how they get traffic to their Website. When I tell someone that their advertising strategy is black hat, they look at me like I am speaking another language.

What is a black hat?

I always explain that the term black hat originates from Country Westerns where the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black hats. When the term black hat is used in reference to Search Engine Optimization, it means you are doing something very stupid and while it might be helping your site right now, it will destroy your site in the long run.

Some very popular black hat SEO techniques that we will be covering and explaining why they are bad will be keyword stuffing and abusing HTML code.

What is Keyword stuffing?

Keyword stuffing can be done in several ways and all of them are very bad and will get your website removed from search engines, so your site really is invisible. One popular way to stuff keywords is to write the same word or a variation of words over and over on a page to up your SEO traffic. You may see a boost in traffic to your site, but how long do those people stay at your site? Most likely less than 3 seconds, just enough time to hit the back key. Another popular keyword stuffing technique is to do what is listed above, but make the words invisible so people won’t see them. People may not see them, but Search Engines will! If you view the source of the webpage you will see the so called “hidden” text. These techniques are surefire ways to get you banned from search engines like Google.

What is HTML code?

HTML code is the most popular language used to write a website in. HTML is very easy to learn, but also very easy to abuse. People who are desperate for traffic will hear about metadata description tags (that is already out-dated as an on-site optimization source for better rankings) and that search engines use them to help rank a website. Some people will fill the description tag to the brim with words that are irrelevant to their site. People will not want to go to a site that has a description that makes no sense and search engines will remove you for this or at least lower your ranking on their search engine. Another form of abusing the description tag is stuffing it full of words that are relevant to your site, but put together make no sense whatsoever. Sure, you may have a site about electronics and technology, but having your description just full of words that have to do with electronics and technology, well that will get you banned. A well written description uses terms that are searched for a lot and has to do with what your site is about.

Black Hat SEO — Image by Searchenginepeople.com

Another abused tag is H1.
H1 stands for Header 1, which is the biggest font that HTML generates on its own. This tag is used for titles of a blog or the title of a page, but some people decide to use h1 for their entire site. Yup, this will really hurt your sites ranking when the search engines find out and trust me they will find out. two last abused tags are the strong tag and the b tag, they both do the same exact thing, they make the text bold, but to much bold text can be bad for a site. Bold text is used to say something is important. I know your entire site is important, but you have to decide which words or sentences should be in bold. This is very important, because if bold is used properly it will raise your ranking with the search engines, but if used improperly, well the search engines may find it as spam.

In conclusion, if you need your site to show up well on a search engine do a lot of research on SEO, watch videos by Matt Cutts, the lead anti-spam Engineer that works at Google and if you can’t learn SEO, then hire a firm that does it for a living. Be careful when hiring a firm, because there are a lot of firms out there that still practice black hat SEO, so the least you should do is tell them not to do anything that I list as being black hat.

This article has been written by Ryan Satterfield from Planetzuda.com, a game reviews, tech news and reviews website.

Advanced SEO

Effective Web Design Can Boost Your SEO

November 29, 2011

rad

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There is a big debate as to whether good website design and layout can really help search engine optimisation, with many branding it as a trick to convince businesses to get a new website. However, I am going to present the argument that a well thought-out, error-free and well coded website, is easier to rank, than a site that is outdated, slow and poorly structured.

My first piece of evidence is taken from Google AdWords. Quality Score in Google AdWords is worked out partly through click-through rate and keyword relevance but also page relevance. This shows that Google does look at landing pages to determine the quality of a listing in their search network. So why should Google not think to take a look at landing pages in their natural search listings, where competition to appear here is far higher?

Next, the Google Webmaster Central blog continually hands out advice on optimising your site for search – including canonical URLs, duplicate content and redirects. Why would Google give these tips out if it wasn’t looking for sites to be updated with the information?

As competition gets higher and higher to appear on the coveted first page of Google for selected search terms, Google must be looking to always improve the quality of the sites shown. Once all pages on page one have on-page SEO sorted, and a similar number of links built with appropriate anchor text, it will need something else to look at to determine which site should be shown where. Quality websites will most definitely have a lower bounce rate and a better page/view rating. With all that access to Google Analytics data, is it too far-fetched to consider that Google wouldn’t consider these elements in its rankings?

At the end of the day, it is in your interest to have a well-designed site. It will attract more website visitors, and most likely convert more visitors into sales or enquiries. As more and more people visit your site, they are more likely to share it using social media if they have enjoyed using it. People might write reviews, blog posts or simply just social bookmark your site. All of these actions lead to a ‘natural link portfolio’ that hasn’t been ascertained using spam methods, and are therefore likely to help your site rank higher and stay higher.

If you’ve had any experience in ranking high quality sites over poorly designed ones, feel free to let us know by commenting below.
This article has been written on behalf of Bigfork Ltd, a Norwich web design agency.

SEO Tips

Why Quality Content and Relevant Backlinks Still Matter

November 22, 2011

rad

2 Comments

There has been a lot of stir surrounding Google’s latest Panda update. It has severely affected the rankings of some websites leaving them reeling from Google’s latest punches. But even with all these changes two strategies remain to be the pillars of any effective SEO campaign.

Writing high quality content and creating relevant backlinks are two of the most crucial SEO strategies that impact a website’s ranking in major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing. However, despite having a similar purpose, these two SEO strategies differ from each other and are worlds apart when it comes to execution.

Writing high quality content is a skill. It requires the ability to communicate effectively a particular idea or topic through the use of written words. It also necessitates adept knowledge when it comes to the rules of grammar and proper syntax.

On the other hand, creating relevant backlinks involves deep research and analysis regarding the Internet and the websites, directories and forums wherein one can create backlinks. Creating backlinks for your website requires adept marketing skills.

What is the advantage of writing high quality content?

Writing high quality content offers a lot of advantages. When you write high quality content on a particular subject, you start to establish your expertise in that field. The better your explanations, analysis and researches are, the more you’ll be perceived as an expert in the said subject.

Writing high quality content also helps in establishing your website as an authority site. Thus, search engines will most likely put you in a higher search ranking.

Compared to creating relevant backlinks, writing high quality content has a more lasting effect as it will also improve your writing, grammar and communication skills.

What is the advantage of creating relevant backlinks?

Creating relevant backlinks that point directly to your website is actually much easier compared to writing high quality content. For one, creating relevant backlinks doesn’t require that much research on a topic.

Quality backlinks usually consist of 3-4 sentences only as opposed to high quality content that has five or six paragraphs minimum. More so, some backlinks are simply summary of the article or the website being promoted.

Unlike high quality content, backlinks can be created not just in a single domain. Backlinks can be created in article directories like Ezine, Article Base, Article Alley, Article Blasts and Article Trader.

Social media sites like Facebook and the micro-blogging platform Twitter are also great places where bloggers and webmasters can create backlinks for their blogs and websites.

social media messages containing links to content — Image by marketingprofs.com

High quality content versus relevant backlinks

Writing high quality content and creating relevant backlinks are part of a good SEO strategy. Both techniques, if executed properly, can generate heavy amounts of traffic for your website.

When it comes to which one is better, the answer boils down to the old Internet adage that content is king. Creating relevant backlinks is important but high quality content is weighed heavier especially in today’s fast-changing Internet hemisphere.

Another argument for high quality content is that it can actually generate backlinks of its own. Obviously, readers and fellow bloggers will more likely to share, recommend and create backlinks to high quality content compared to junk and duplicate content.

This is a guest post by Suzzane Edwards. She is a financial advisor and currently works as a consultant for small businesses. When she’s not writing for Cash for Gold, she can be found blogging about simple tips on how people could take advantage of the internet’s numerous business opportunities

Advanced SEO

Top 5 Ways to Know the Psyche of Target Audience and Traffic

November 21, 2011

rad

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We generally miss lots of traffic related data. These data are extremely important for us because they help us to analyse the various aspects of viewers’ activity. Once these data are analysed, they can be extremely helpful in planning our online promotion strategies.
Many of the site owners use Google Analytics for analysing traffic behavior. However, many information/data still remain unexplored. By not collecting or exploring traffic related data of a site, the site owners are really leaving huge amount of opportunities. Once you collect these data and analyse them, you can chalk out a better online marketing plan, reach more users and monetise the unexplored traffic.

Many SEO services are helping site owners with these advanced traffic data services so that a comprehensive plan can be chalked out to get more targeted traffic and business. With more data and information you can get better insight and deeper engagement. 5 types of actionable data are given below that can leverage your site’s performance:

1. PollDaddy

It is a site that provides you with quantitative survey solution. This is a paid service, but the charges are less and affordable. In the business world, PollDaddy is considered as one of the most talked about site. It provides you with one-off polls along with survey data. Now, a question may arise that if it provides polling solutions then why not get the same service free of cost from other free polling sites? PollDaddy is not a polling site only. It gives much more information to its customers and some of these survey data include:

Report generation
Exporting of data
Management of Twitter polls

If you opt for its free version then you will get limited survey solution, amounting to 100 responses per month. In case of the Pro version, i.e. the paid version, the price of the service is less than $20 per month.

2. Urtak

This site is a relatively new one. Urtak conducts collaborative polls. It helps bloggers and site owners to know precisely what a community is thinking on a certain topic. Urtak can be placed on a website as a widget. This site is not same as any other polling site because Urtak.com allows its users to frame and place polling questions at the site. Thus, a blogger or website owner can get more customised data on issues concerning its own business.

3. Formspring

Formspring allows anyone to ask questions publicly. This site is a new one in the block and is online for the last 6 months only. However, its popularity is expanding at a rapid pace, which in one word can be regarded as explosive. Within this short span of time, it has recorded a whooping 50 million visitors per month. The most interesting aspect of this site is that it caters to all types of business verticals and topics (musicians, high school kids, rabbis, bloggers, etc.). Now, businesses, celebrities, bloggers or site owners can know for sure what their users, followers or fans want to know about them or their products/services. Formspring gives enhanced interactivity with friends, followers, fans and users and consequently better insight in the business demand, eliminating the guess work.

4. UserVoice

UserVoice is a unique and fast feedback delivery concept. You can now place a feedback form in your blog or site by cutting and pasting the UserVoice script. Installation of this feedback forum allows users of a site or blog to give their suggestions/ideas and also vote on various features that are needed to be included in the design and content. Free as well as paid options are available.

5. Hunch

It not only provides its users with advanced recommendation engine but also provides psycho-graphic and demographic data. A business or blogger or website owner can know about the needs and thinking pattern over a certain spectrum. You can get census data as well as cross blog comparisons from Hunch.com.

About Author: Derick Branson is an experienced writer, SEO analyst, web design expert and online marketer. He has amassed a total experience of more than 10 years. Derick has worked for many leading online marketing companies. Read his articles to know more about SEO services, social media marketing and web designing.

Advanced SEO

The Pitfalls of Guest Blogging for Webmasters

November 10, 2011

rad

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Guest blogging is often ultimately regarded as a controversial technique due to abuse by both bloggers and webmasters. Although many bloggers do take it seriously and many far-reaching relationships have been established thanks to the joy of guest blogging, it is widely known that a dark side also exists (as with pretty much anything). However, in most cases, we talk a lot about the pitfalls for bloggers without stopping to consider how these can also affect webmasters. Thankfully, this article does just that, as it outlines how the act of opening one’s blog to guest writers can often backfire.

The first thing that pops to mind is that guest blogging needs a hefty dose of moderation. Due to the number of people trying to build links en masse with absolutely no regard for the webmaster’s feelings, simply announcing that you are open to guest submissions and allowing posts to be automatically published to your blog is bound to lead to many people adding your blog to their automatic link building software. Unfortunately, automatic link building software is labeled as such for a reason, which means that any articles obtained through these will be of extremely poor quality.

Guest Post — Image by mollermarketing.com

As such, as the webmaster you will find yourself dedicating a lot of time to deleting garbage submissions that relentlessly advertise those high suspicious Viagra and pornographic websites. This may sound manageable for a little website but as the news get out among the black hat community that there is no screening process for a submission, you may suddenly find yourself inundated with guest posts that eventually turn your once cherish blog into an A-level link farm.

Of course, the act of moderating each post before publication can prevent this but as your blog becomes more important and thus more visited, you may find yourself dealing with unmanageable levels of spam submissions. Obviously, there are anti-spam functions to deal with these but spammers are also becoming cleverer, and the ease with which they can change IPs or submit spun versions of the same article 15 times within 10 sections is becoming absurd. Many blogs that used to accept guest authors and were great places to reach out to a new audience have had to shut down their guest blogging option for these simple reasons.

The problem of spam and garbage guest post submissions is still only the one (albeit the biggest) problem from the webmaster’s point of view. There are other pitfalls that most webmasters will need to learn to successfully navigate through once they start accepting guest articles. The first is that they will need to learn how to handle with people from different backgrounds. For example, you may find yourself getting submissions from people who are actually trying to make acceptable submissions but for whom English is not their first language.

Once this happens, you may feel like lashing out, especially after having to wade through two dozen of horrible guest posts on a single day. This would of course be quite unfair on the blogger who is only trying his best and is a far cry from the hordes of spammers you are usually dealing with, and something like this can tarnish your reputation with your existing audience. The bottom line is that once you open your blog to guest authors, you need to be able to cope with several situations that you have probably never encountered before.

Ashvin writes on behalf of the New Emerald Cove Hotel, a Seychelles private island hotel located in Praslin. To find out more, visit the Emerald Cove website at http://www.emerald.sc.

Internet Marketing

B2B Email Marketing Guidelines

November 8, 2011

rad

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B2b email marketing is arguably the most cost-effective platform to share news about your products with other companies in your industry. However, there are a number of guidelines which are essential to follow in order for a b2b email marketing campaign to succeed.

Here we lists some basic b2b email marketing guidelines.

Strong subject line

This is arguably one of the most important elements of any marketing email. Emails with the most engaging, fascinating content in the world are unlikely to be opened unless they have a subject line which encourages consumers to open it. A great subject line should be short, personalised and include a reason why the message should be opened.

Suitable frequency

One of the main reasons customers unsubscribe from b2b marketing emails is because they are contacted either too much or not enough by a brand. One good rule of thumb with regards to frequency is to only send emails if it has an objective. Emails without an objective is just noise to customers, meaning your time and effort would be best spent elsewhere.

Timing

Sending emails at an appropriate time is a key step to improving open, click-through and conversion rates. Marketers should take note of which day their subscribers tend to open and click through the most. Many experts in the field believe that Tuesday is the best day to send b2b marketing emails whilst Friday afternoons are thought to be particularly poor.

Formal Tone

B2B emails should adopt the same tone as face-to-face meeting with potential clients. Some b2c marketing emails may get away with a less formal tones but this is inappropriate in a b2b environment.

Analyse

Using your email marketing software to work out which tactics are working for you and where you need to improve. The definition of a fool is a person who completes the same action twice and expects different results.

Following these guidelines will stand you in good stead for a profitable email marketing campaign.

Advanced SEO

How News Became Central to Content Marketing

November 7, 2011

rad

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Content marketing is one of the fastest-growing forms of online marketing, with more businesses than ever looking for a content strategy in order to give their website more authority with both the users and the search engines.

One of the biggest obstacles facing businesses looking for content, however, is what to write and how often. Sourcing a constant stream of content to publish on a website is more difficult than it sounds, with many writing a great deal of contention the first days and weeks before finding the ideas begin to run dry.
For this reason, news feeds have become more popular for businesses looking at content for their websites.

Content Marketing Cycle — Image by contentmarketinginstitute.com

With it being ever-changing, news provides exactly what marketers could want – authoritative and informed topics that are refreshed extremely regularly. Depending on the business, news stories could create any number of articles; from just a few to many scores each month.

News feeds also provide ways to link in to your website, giving readers an easy way through to the part of your business that deals with the same subject as the news story covers. By linking these “keywords” in the news story, users can read up about the topic, and then click through to the relevant part of your business page.
Not only this, news are highly regarded in the eyes of the search engines, provided that the written content is unique. Simply copying/pasting from news sites is not only plagiarism but publishing duplicate content, something the search engines deem as “spammy” and therefore punish the website with lower rankings as a result. By writing it in a different way, however; it is deemed unique and given more authority.

So content itself may be a struggle to come up with, but seeking a news feed will provide you with an endless, constantly updated stream of topics. This could allow you to publish content regularly to your website; endearing it to both the public and search engines alike.

content marketing usage by tactic — Image by marketingprofs.com

SEO Tips

Tips To Create Attention Grabbing Content

November 1, 2011

rad

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Seth Godin famously quoted, “Attention is a bit like real estate in that they’re not making any more of it. Unlike real estate, though, it keeps going up in value.“
The key to build loyalty and brand around your website or blog is to create attention grabbing content, which can mesmerize the reader, and compel him to comeback for more. By creating such awesome content, you are basically trying to grab the attention of the visitor, which is so important in contemporary online marketing world. For best SEO promotion, it is mandatory that your website should have regular visitors and shoppers: the loyal customers.

Below are some key pointers which can assist any content creator to develop attention grabbing posts:

Is the content solving any particular problem:

Any content which can solve a particular problem of your visitors is good. In fact, being a webmaster and blogger, you should try to understand the common problems faced by your visitors, and produce content which solves them. Such type of content will definitely grab the attention of your targeted audience, and help your SEO promotion activities.

Is the content answering any question:

Be it any niche, there are always questions posted by searchers? You can find such common questions from famous Q&A portals such as Yahoo Answers, Quora and others. Based on those questions, you can formulate your content, thereby making it attention grabber.

Does your content present a unique angle:

The primary objective of creating unique content is not just unique words, but presenting a viewpoint under a different light. The content which is being produced for your website should be able to present a unique angle to an existing theory, thereby grabbing attention all over. Such content can also be a hit by virtue of social sharing and bookmarking.

Targeted content for targeted audience:

Before initiating any SEO related operation, the webmaster should always be clear about its targeted audience. Unless your content is targeted and to the point related to your niche audience, it can not be worthy of attention grabber. Creating targeted content for targeted audience is the key.

Does your content initiate discussions:

Initiating discussions and debate is the most effective way to create buzz and make news. The content should be able to prompt its readers to start debating and discussing. Once such content is produced which can prompt debates, then that content is attention grabber.

Author:
Go4Promotion, which is India’s top rated SEO promotion company specializes in creating such attention grabbing content for an effective SEO strategy. Get in touch with our SEO experts, and give a boost to your online marketing campaign. Log in to Go4Promotion.com now or just buy YouTube views and become a rock star.

SEO News

The Newest Changes of Google's Panda Algorithm

October 28, 2011

rad

4 Comments

Optimizing your website to rank well in Google’s organic search results has always been a cat and mouse game. Marketers attempt to game the system, and eventually Google pushes back by updating their ranking algorithms to reset the clock. Their latest set of algorithm tweaks, codenamed “Panda”, contains some of the most controversial changes the company has ever made. Ultimately, Panda improves the quality of search results delivered to Google’s first page for any given query. However, the fallout from Panda is still being felt across the web months after its release.

Panda In A Nutshell

Introduced earlier this Spring at the end of February, Panda was meant to address a very specific concern for Google: content farms. Content farms like Ehow, Mahalo, and Associated Content serve up “niche” material that’s often of poor quality. The sites themselves rank highly overall for non-niche searches due to this niche exploitation strategy. The net effect is to lower the quality of search results all around. Panda is targeted at removing the “niche loophole” for content providers both large and small. If you want to rank highly for a search term no matter how obscure nowadays, your content must be top-notch.

Google’s Short Term Goals

Google’s primary business model since Day One has been to display the most relevant content to their visitors regardless of what they’re looking for. For the time being, they’ve managed to stymie marketers and content farms like Cha Cha that provide low-quality material in niche fields. Google claims to take into account 200+ factors when ranking sites, so it’s difficult to know exactly what will boost your position in the results. Panda seems to place a higher value on backlinks and website reputation when determining how well a website will rank.

The Fallout

Panda’s effects were felt almost instantly, as numerous “content” farms immediately saw their traffic numbers fall off of a cliff. According to rough estimates, Panda impacted up to 12% of websites in the United States in the first month alone.
Demand Media, a company responsible for a number of notable content farms on the web, has seen its stock price plummet since the Panda changes were rolled out. While some small websites have been negatively impacted by the changes, they’ve recovered a lot faster than Demand Media’s web properties in the past few months.

What It All Means

With Panda, Google is trying to allow the most valuable and useful content to rise to the top and take over the highest search rankings possible. In the long run, this is good for both consumers and producers of digital content. The same basic SEO game plan still applies: create great content, promote it through social media and organic search, and ultimately reap the rewards. At the end of the day, the best way to navigate the choppy seas of SEO is to get a well-respected search engine optimisation company to do the heavy lifting for you. That’s one area of E-commerce where it makes sense to farm out the hard work to the professionals.

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rad

But where do you start?

What is a black hat?

What is Keyword stuffing?

What is HTML code?

What is the advantage of writing high quality content?

What is the advantage of creating relevant backlinks?

High quality content versus relevant backlinks

1. PollDaddy

2. Urtak

3. Formspring

4. UserVoice

5. Hunch

Strong subject line

Suitable frequency

Timing

Formal Tone

Analyse

Is the content solving any particular problem:

Is the content answering any question:

Does your content present a unique angle:

Targeted content for targeted audience:

Does your content initiate discussions:

Panda In A Nutshell

Google’s Short Term Goals

The Fallout

What It All Means

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