Written on 6:10 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Blogs for Advertising?
Yes! Blogs and RSS boost your online business, rankings, traffic and sales. We all sometimes ignore the trends in advertising on the internet until the masses are allready doing it. That is why I felt compelled to right this article and hopefully help others to understand that Blogs are a very powerful advertising method and you do not want to ignore this trend, You will regret it!
A blog is a frequent, online publication of comments, web links and news. It is an online Enzine of sorts. People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with automated published systems, most notably is blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger alone.
I only realized myself how powerful Blog advertising was, after I submitted an article to one Blog, yes just one Blog. What happened next amazed me! Within one week my new site wich I used in my byline in the Blog was not only indexed, but every single page was indexed and I had over 200 other sites pointing links to my site! All from one Blog posting. See websites need content and Blogs are a great source for content, and search engines LOVE blogs! I really need to say that again, search engines love Blogs!
Want your site indexed? Want hundreds maybe even thousands of incoming links all pointing to your site?
Here are the reasons you should not ignore Blog advertising. Remember when all search engines were free, and simply submitting your web sites got you listed quickly? Gone. Then it wa FFA pages, they brought in a ton of free traffic, built links to your site, and added to your mailing list like crazy. Tried one lately? Safelists were an online goldmine for a while... until bottom less email accounts were introduced.
Every new technology does what you need, at first. Then slowly more and more learn the secrets, and by the time the herd has caught on it's too late. Technologies have changed, everything has slowed way down, or the search engines have decided that it's become another form of spamming the search engines and stop weighing it so heavily. Sometimes they even ban the technology from their databases, remember doorway pages and multiple sites?
So where is blogging along this curve today? The early adopters have been doing it for the last couple of years, and the leading internet marketers started coming into it over the last year, many are still just getting started with it. So you're at the perfect time, most of the expensive development time is done, the bulk of the bugs are out of the whole RSS and Atom feed systems, and engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google are embracing the technology and waiting to greet your Blog with open arms. So dont ignore this whole Blogging idea, embrace it you just might see your sales soar through the roof!
Do give me your feedback through comments...
Awaiting,
Fkay
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blogger,
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RSS
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Written on 2:51 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Most of us are trying to Earn with Google Adsense but are frustrated with this Program... and want to have some other source just like this program... According to me Experimentation is the Best way to gain something... I have found these alternatives for Google Adsense all of which are worth trying..
1. Clickbooth
2. Bidvertiser
3. Revenue Pilot
4. Chitika
5. Clicksor
6. Yahoo Publisher Network
7. Tribal Fusion
8. Vibrant Media
9. Bidclix
10. Cpx-Interactive
11. Fastclick
12. Adbrite
13. Addynamix
14. Burst Media
15. Oridian
16. Adtegrity
17. 24/7 Real Media
18. Expoactive
19. Adsonar
20. Agloco
All the above sites are offering their best for Publishers & are good Examples of Adsense Alternative So Who Wins Google Adsense or These Alternatives?
Do give me your feedback through comments...
If you like the post then please do click on my ads.
Awaiting,
Fkay
Posted in
adsense,
advertising,
earning
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Written on 3:04 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
In the past, website directories, online classifieds, safe lists and banner ads were all terrific ways to obtain website traffic. But the Internet is a dynamic medium that is constantly changing. And some methods just haven’t been able to keep up.
On top of that, cost-per-click advertising is costing today’s entrepreneurs as much as several dollars per visitor!
Search engine optimisation is a long-term strategy, costing thousands of dollars (unless you do it yourself) but results are not guaranteed…
Pop Under advertising campaigns are cheap but you have to know how to properly set-up a pop under campaign.
In my opinion, PopIn (layer) ads are a terrific (and cheap) way to attract the attention of thousands of visitors:
PopIn ads receive a click trough rate of 1% - 2.0% (some popin layer ads receive a CTR of up to 5%)
Banner ads receive a click trough rate of 0.2% - 0.6% (some banner ads receive a CTR of up to 2%)
That means that if your PopIn ad receives a CTR of 2%, a 100.000 PopIn impressions campaign (avg. cost: $200,00) will bring 2.000 (targeted) visitors to your web site with a cost per targeted visitor of $0.10 only.
Targeted visitors are people that have clicked on your ad to visit your site. These are visitors that already have some idea of what your site offers and have come to look for more information.
Do a search on Google or Yahoo for PopIn Advertising to find companies offering this type of advertising.
Tips for a successful ad: Use a catchy headline, a dark background and offer something of value for free to motivate the viewers to click trough to your website.
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publicity
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Written on 3:03 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
If you want to make money online with a work from home business then you are going to need lots of good targeted traffic to your web site and or affiliate links. One way to get good targeted traffic is to pay for it. I know you were hoping to do this business of yours without spending a dime right? Well if that’s what you are thinking you better keep working for someone else and forget about working from home with your own internet business.
I have been paying for traffic ever since I started my online business over 4 years ago and one of the best sources of targeted traffic is through pay per click search engines (PPC) or pay for placement search alternatives like Google adwords or Yahoo Sponsor Listings, formerly Overture.com .
Google adwords and Yahoo Sponsor Listings are the kings of pay per placement search engines. They are also the most expensive but you will get the most targeted traffic from them. If you cannot get a free listing in the top 10 on their main search results under the sponsored listings then you may want to consider pay per placement. Sponsored listings usually appear at the top above regular listings on Yahoo, and down the right side of the page at Google.
If Google and Yahoo are too rich for your liking then try some of the smaller PPC search engines like 7Search, Findwhat and or Kanoodle. I have put together a web page with links to these PPC search engines at the following web page.
CLICK HERE-----> http://bigmoolla.com/ppc.html
The key to good PPC advertising is to find cheap key words under .50 cents per click that will land you in the top 5 positions. There is no need to be number 1. A number 5 placement may cost you a few cents per click less and you will likely get the same traffic or in some cases even more than a number 1 spot. Try to pick as many key words as you can that are directly related to your product or service.
If you are advertising a work from home internet business try breaking down what I just typed. Work from home, home internet business, internet business, work from home business, home business. YOU GET THE PICTURE.
If you want to advertise a product like multivitamins try keywords like vitamins, supplements, vitamin supplements, health supplements, diet supplements, multivitamins. YOU GET THE PICTURE.
If you don’t have your own web site and only an affiliate link you may have to get a redirect URL from someone like http://tinyurl.com/ . Most of the PPC engines will not allow you to use an affiliate link. But you can get a tinyurl for free and have it re-direct to your affiliate link. If your affiliate program allows you to key code for testing purposes like SFI does then you can get several tinyurls and direct them to a different key code. That way you can actually test your PPC ad campaign to see which key words are working the best for you. This is important if you want to reduce your advertising dollars without sacrificing traffic to your web site. (We all want to do this right?)
PPC is only one advertising method that you should be taking advantage of, but it’s an important one so give it a try if you have not already. It may just change the way you do business and effect how much money you make with your work from home internet business.
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advertising,
publicity
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Written on 3:02 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
I decided to try something a little different and illustrate the marketing challenges of a small business. I'm using one of my clients, PrescottWeddings.com.
PWC is an online resource guide for couples planning their weddings. Along with a ton of information for brides and grooms, the site includes a resource guide where local businesses can advertise their products and services.
We launched PWC in November 2001. Like many start-up businesses, PWC didn't have much money for marketing. Yet we had two major challenges (three counting the limited budget):
1. PWC had to attract two kinds of target markets to the site -- advertisers and couples -- essentially at the same time. And if that wasn't bad enough, we had to appeal to each group even though one was dependent on the other -- advertisers wanted brides and grooms logging onto the site, and brides and grooms wanted a complete resource center.
2. Several bridal print publications had come and gone in Prescott -- and had burned their advertisers while racing out of town. Businesses were understandably hesitant about sinking their money into another bridal venture.
Armed with those challenges, we went to work. Now, just over two years later, PWC enjoys well over 40,000 hits a month and has increased its advertising base by over 600%. On top of that, PWC is well on its way to establishing a reliable brand in not just Prescott but throughout Yavapai County.
So how did we do it? A great Web site with great content plus three main marketing strategies:
1) Using print to drive traffic online
2) Thinking small
3) Frequency, frequency, frequency
I'll cover number two and three in the next two articles. Today we'll talk about number one: Using print to drive traffic online.
The cornerstone of PWC's marketing program has been print advertising, more specifically monthly advertising in the local newspaper. Print advertising is an excellent choice for many businesses -- from small to large. In fact, it's not uncommon for small and medium-sized businesses to build their advertising program around print.
The strength of print advertising is its flexibility. Print publications come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They can appeal to a broad readership or a narrow one. They can be published every day or once a year. This variety gives you a lot of flexibility in fitting print advertising into your campaigns.
You can also track print to a certain extent (coupons in newspapers for example). Print is physical, allowing your customers to carry something around with them.
However, print's weakness is also its strength. It's a visual medium only, so it requires more effort and interaction from your audience to make an impact (they need to stop and read it).
In the case of PWC, we chose monthly advertising in the local paper as the foundation of our marketing program. We decided upon the local newspaper because it has the broadest reach. Prescott isn't big enough to have its own evening television news, so the newspaper is the best vehicle for local news.
If you live in a big city, the local newspaper may not be practical because of cost. In that case, you may want to try a niche newspaper or magazine, like a business or lifestyle journal, or maybe a regionalized newspaper. In Phoenix for instance, the Arizona Republic is the main newspaper, but all the cities around Phoenix, like Scottsdale and Tempe, also have their own papers.
Because PWC is a Web site, there's an assumption we should be using only online methods to advertise. Online methods are good, and PWC does use them, but they only take you so far. Print is a part of the "real world" -- something you can touch and pick up, not virtual like a Web site. Print has also been around a lot longer, and carries more trust with it. We found by using print, some of that trust and "real world" essence rubbed off, making PWC seem less anonymous and more like a "bricks and mortar" business (a business with a store front).
Also, since we were trying to drive local traffic to the site, it made sense to advertise locally rather than attracting people from all over the world. But even with our local advertising, we still have a substantial number of visitors from around the state, including Phoenix and Tucson, as well as all over the globe.
The point of our marketing program was to advertise regularly so we could both build the PWC brand and drive traffic to the Web site. Yet it was essential to keep our costs down. So we leveraged our monthly newspaper advertising to stretch our marketing dollar as far as we could. More on that and how we "thought small" in the next article.
Posted in
advertising,
publicity
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Written on 2:59 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
The ad tracker was originally developed to provide a record
of all hits to a site resulting from ad placements. This
article shows a host of different ways to utilise an ad
tracker.
FOR AFFILIATES
#1. The Long Url Problem
Have you ever seen an ad where you are asked to click on an affiliate URL so long that it stretches over 2 lines, like this
http://www/anysite.com/cgi-bin/dir1/dir2/.cgi?code=123RT&type=102
35&subid=89715
Do you think your reader will bother to do the necessary cut and paste to put it in a browser?
Probably not.
And that's probably one lost sale.
And even a one line affiliate link may exceed the permissible length for some ad posting requirements.
The solution: use a short tracking URL.
#2. Losing Your Affiliate Code
As an affiliate you may have your affiliate code embedded in a link something like this:
http://www.abc.com/123
Some customers will bypass the affiliate code and just type in the home URL http://www.abc.com/ (possibly because they think that they will be paying extra for an agent's commission)
The solution: use a tracking URL - so that your affiliate code number is never seen.
#3. Make Your Ad Stand Out
You may have seen search engine results showing near identical listings for the same product, differing only in an affiliate code appended to the URL.
Your listing here will be just one of many unless you make it stand out. So bypass the standard affiliate URL and use a tracking URL.
#4. How Effective Are The Links
You can measure and compare the effectiveness of the different banners or text links the affiliate programs provide you by using a tracking URL.
#5. Changing Links
If an affiliate company change their links then your existing ads, wherever they are posted, become worthless. But if you use a tracking URL you simply revise the affiliate URL at the tracking control centre.
#6. Affiliate Program Discontinued
Similarly if an affiliate program is discontinued you just change your tracking URL to a new page where you explain the circumstances and point your visitor to your other promotions.
#7. Better Affiliate Stats
Not all affiliate programs provide you with stats about visitors. And if they do are they adequate ?
Compare a basic monthly figure say
- Jan: 39 hits
with a detailed analysis such as
- Jan 12: 10 hits
- Jan 13: 2 hits
- Jan 20: 21 hits
- Jan 21: 6 hits
where you can relate those dates to particular ad campaigns.
Tracking URLs will give you these improved figures.
#8. Checking Affiliate Stats
Even if you do receive good stats from your affiliate program it still makes sense to use tracking URLs so that you can compare your figures with theirs.
A large discrepancy could mean errors in their software or (hopefully not) fraudulent activity on their part.
An alternative reason is that their measurement takes place when their page is fully loaded rather than at the start, indicating that visitors are clicking away because it is taking too long to load.
FOR EZINE PUBLISHERS
#9. Win Advertisers With Tracking Reports
If you sell advertising space in your ezine you can offer to your advertisers to replace their URLs with your tracking URLs and Email them the results.
Tell your advertisers about these benefits in your advertising guidelines
- They will know the number of clickthroughs their ad has generated. They can then decide how to improve the ads for better performance
- If they use a tracker program with your own domain name in the tracking URL your ezine subscribers will be more inclined to click
- They can use your ezine as a test centre, modifying their ads until they are happy, before launching with other publishers
#10. Use Tracking Report Results
The tracking reports above will provide you with information on your subscribers' interests, influencing your editorial content and helping you select which potential advertisers to approach.
Also, once your advertisers have seen for themselves the benefits of an ad tracking program they will be inclined to purchase one. So set yourself up as an affiliate for a program and promote it to them.
#11. Measure Your Readership
You may know how many subscribers you have but how many actually open and read your ezine and which parts of it attract most attention ?
Here's how to find out if you distribute your ezine in HTML Format: include an image on your page, e.g a banner or logo or a single pixel GIF. Then reference this image with a tracking URL.
For an ezine distributed as plain text it is not possible to see if it is actually opened or read. But what you can do is insert tracking URLs at the appropriate points, such as product offers or special articles, and get comparative figures for which items are being read.
AT YOUR WEB SITE
#12. The Problem Of Permanent URLs
Web sites are continually evolving and changing.
You may want to rename a page to make it more consistent and logical but there's a huge problem. You have given out the URL in an ebook, or a directory submission, or an article or wherever. There's no way you can undo this.
The solution ?
Never provide the actual URL, just a tracking URL. You can then just edit the link at the tracking centre whenever a page is moved or renamed.
The external links, in your ebook for example, stay the same but they will redirect to your new page.
#13. What Are Your Visitors Doing ?
You have text links all over your site, links to your other pages and links to recommended sites.
Where are your visitors clicking ?
Where are they leaving your site, why, how can you stop them ?
Which graphic do they click on the most ?
Do they click on the text link more than the graphic link?
Your log files may tell you at best which are the most popular pages at your site but it is vital to know how your visitors move through your site and what is tempting them.
Use tracking URLs to replace actual links wherever you need to monitor click activity.
#14. Sell Website Advertising Space
You can offer tracking reports to your advertisers in the same way as for ezine publishers (above).
#15. Stop Piracy
If you have invested man-months of time setting up a vital resource site involving a directory of links it's very easy for a pirate to simply copy your page and provide useful content for his own site.
If you use tracking URLs for those directory links you can detect this copy - because the ad tracking program will record the referring URL.
At the same time of course you can measure the popularity of the directory links.
USING PAY PER CLICK SEARCH ENGINES
#16. Better Click Activity Reporting
Pay per click search engines will report to you click activity on your URL. Engines vary in the frequency and format of the reporting so you can use tracking URLs instead to obtain better information.
#17. Prevent Fraudulent Activity
You can compare your figures with the engine's and should query any large discrepancy.
If click activity is unusually high you may have a competitor clicking on just to incur costs against you. You may be able to detect this by comparing the figures for unique hits and actual hits (several hits per visitor).
OFFLINE MARKETING
#18. Check How Successful
If you have ever wondered whether it was worth advertising off line because of the supposed impossibility of measuring the response then ad tracking URLs will answer that problem. Just include them in your ads in
- newspapers
- magazines
- flyers
- billboards
- press releases
- shop notice boards
- and so on
#19. Use The Time Reports
The date and time when clicks are made will allow you to check the progress of your ads, for example
- has your newspaper ad been submitted yet ?
- has your billboard notice been removed ?
- how long does a magazine ad stay around ?
For a long running ad you can study the response and switch the link midstream if necessary to an improved web page.
EBOOKS
#20. Do Free Books Work ?
The main purpose of a free ebook is to get the reader back to your site. But how successful is it proving ?
Put tracking URLs in the book and you will find out.
#21. Maintain Control After Download
Once your ebook is downloaded it would appear that you no longer have any control over it. Not so. You can redirect the reader to other pages of your site by changing the tracking Url links.
OTHER WAYS
#22. Become An Ad Tracking Affiliate
Since ad tracking programs are high demand marketing tools you can profit by joining their affiliate program (if they have one).
Owning the product that you promote always gives that extra advantage e.g you can give an example of how you use it or a personal testimonial as to how it has benefited you.
#23. Privacy
You may want to post an URL somewhere and - for reasons of your own - not let it reveal your website. You can do this with an ad tracking program where the supplier domain name is used in the tracking URL.
Posted in
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affiliate programs,
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Written on 3:09 PM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Online advertising on the Internet leaves a lot to be
desired. We have ads that emulate Windows-warning boxes. We
have pop-ups and pop-unders. All of these are developed with
the intent to make people notice them. However, most of them
only end up irritating them. Advertisers, especially those
with small budgets, can't afford to waste money on
ineffective buys. In order to optimize your advertising
buys, you need to concentrate on improving your creative.
Here are some tips that might help:
Step 1: Define clear goals of your advertising campaign
The most important aspect of any advertising campaign is to
have a clear objective in mind. You may be targeting a
specific group of people, your initial aim may be to target
at least 1000 internet surfers and so on and so forth. Have
a well defined, clear purpose.
Step 2: Identify the most effective sites for achieving your
goals
Sites that are most relevant to your product or service
will, more than likely, be your best bet; but also consider
larger sites or networks that can target the audience you're
trying to reach. They can be very cost-effective. If you
have multiple products or services that appeal to various
target markets, you'll have to consider sites that reach all
those various segments.
Step 3: Craft your message to fit the needs of the audience
you're targeting
This comes down to understanding the audience of the sites
you're advertising on. The message you use on a technology
site to appeal to technologically savvy customers won't have
the same appeal for visitors on a small-business site. Focus
your campaign.
Step 4: Content of your Ad
Pay particular attention to the content of the Ad. The
content should be such that it clearly distinguishes your
product or service from your competitors’. Have a catchy
headline. The headline is probably the most important part
of the Ad – It is the customer puller.
Step 5: Formulate the specific promotional messages that
correspond to your goals
The promotional messages should concentrate on the major
selling points of your product or service and have a strong
call-to-action.
Step 6: Make the desired action clearly visible
This certainly doesn't mean the desired action should
necessarily blink, bounce or do flips, but it should be
visible within an accepted format for the media you're
using. In the case of the Internet, underlined text links,
"click here" text entry boxes, and pull-down menus are all
ways you can make the desired action clearly visible.
Step 7: Design the ad so it looks like it belongs on the
sites where you're advertising
For instance, you may want to use the site's font faces in
your text, color schemes in your background, font color
choices overall, and emulate images where appropriate. Try
to conform to the environment so potential customers
visiting the site don't gasp in shock when they see your ad.
Step 8: Produce multiple versions of each ad
Create three or four versions of each ad, changing the
promotional message, call-to-action, font faces and color
schemes. This is especially important if you're doing price
testing or gauging reaction to specific promotions. By
splitting your advertising buy among the various versions of
your creative, you can then start to optimize your buy based
on the message that works best.
With these tips, you will not only be able to create an ad,
but you will be able to create an effective ad that does
what it is supposed to do – sell your products and services.
Posted in
advertising,
earning
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Written on 3:04 PM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
If you are running pay per click advertising campaigns and more money is going out than coming in, something is not right. Here are some tips to ensure effectiveness and minimize costs.
*Choose the right keywords
Let's just say you have developed an amazing diet drink that is safe, effective, tasty and will guarantee that people will lose 15 lbs in 30 days. You know you have a product that is a winner and are excited about marketing it on the World Wide Web. However, you are relatively new to the Web and pick keywords that are too general and thus expensive like 'dieting' or 'weight loss'. Not only are you perhaps disappointed by your PPC advertising results but it will likely be draining your bank account. This is why niche keywords are so important. Look at bidding on keywords such as 'weight loss supplement' or 'weight loss drink'. Go to Overture or Word Tracker and find keywords that are more niche oriented and not so competitive.
*Make your ad attract attention
It is worthwhile to spend some time learning about effective copy writing. It could be the difference between mediocrity and success. You want to know how to get someone's attention. Unfortunately saying "I have the best diet drink on the planet" doesn't work. You have to motivate and inspire people to take their time to look at what you have to offer. Also, in pay per click advertising you have to do it in very few words. This can be a challenge. Use the words that sell or attract or grab someone's attention like "Must see", "Quick results", "New…", "The truth…", "Groundbreaking…", "Instant…"
*Double check your URL
Sounds like a no-brainer but many times people either misspell their URL or send someone to their home page instead of the page that directly relates to their question. In other words, you may have a website that is dedicated to weight loss but in your pay per click advertising, you want to direct them specifically to your diet drink. So, you would want your URL to read http://www.myweightlosssite.com/dietdrink.html. There is nothing more frustrating to the website visitor than having to go hunting for the information. Your job is to make it easy to find and informative. If they have to look long, they will leave. These are dollars lost to you.
*Check out the competition
It is likely that your competitors who have a high PR (page rank) and continue to advertise, are doing something right. Learn from those who are successful. While the differences may seem subtle to you, in the World of PPC advertising a single word or sentence can discourage or invite a potential website visitor.
*Choose a good title for your PPC ad
Plain and simple: Use the keyword that is being searched. Don't get fancy or creative here. If someone is looking for a diet drink then your ad title is 'diet drink'. Give the website visitor what they want.
*Move away from the bidding war
Try your best not to get caught in the bidding war game. There are plenty of ways to drive traffic to your site without spending a fortune. General keywords will always have high prices like 'dieting.' Don't fall for the trap. Most refined keywords will have lower priced bids but are excellent because they will target your traffic. A Website visitor may only be looking for diet recipes and dislike diet drinks. They are not your customer. Same for the website visitor who may want to tone-up while they are dieting. The more specific you can target your market, the better you will do.
*Two often overlooked PPC advertising tips
1. If all the bids are around 25 cents and the lead bid is at $5.00, you know someone is trying to own the number 1 position. If you want to have fun, bid $4.99 and they will get nailed $5.00 for every click and you will only pay 26 cents if they click on your ad. Warning: if you want to play this game, keep an eye out so they don't drop their bid.
2. Keep any eye on all of your bids. People do change what they are willing to bid on any given keyword or search term. Carry out an overview every few days.
*Final tip
One last key to good pay per click advertising is testing your ads. You can set up two different campaigns and rotate them for the same period of time. What you might learn could surprise you and benefit your bank account!
Good luck with your PPC advertising!
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earning,
PPC
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