Useful Sites For Traffic Building

When it comes to making money online driving targeted traffic is the key.  Just depending on the search engines for traffic isn’t the best idea as it can take time and a lot of effort to rank high for a competitive keyword.  But there are many sites out there that you can use to drive traffic and here I will mention a useful set of sites that can help you get more traffic.

Note: I have mentioned the number of visitors each site receives per month. These stats were obtained from trafficestimate.com.

1   1) Blogged.com 

Its a blog community that allows its users to share their blogs. Blogged also provides the latest major news events, giving the chance for its users to make comments about them and also share these stories on other sites (facebook, twitter etc).

Estimated Monthly Visits - 1,446,400

Google Page Rank - 6

What you can do

i)        Follow other users with similar interests (But unlike in Twitter the updates of the users that you are following will not be shown in the homepage).

ii)       Submit your blog. So other users can follow your blog, rate your blog and also write reviews about your blog. (Getting more users to follow your blog is a great way to drive traffic, and if they find your content useful they might share your blog by linking to it).

iii)     Rate other users blogs and write reviews about them. This is a great way to get noticed.

iv)     Follow blogs that you are interested in. (You can follow a blog, then send a message and ask the owner of that blog to follow your blog, it’s a good way to get more followers for your blog).

v)      Blogged also has its own Blog directory, you can use this to find blogs related to your niche.

2  2) Outbrain.com 

There are 2 ways to use this site you can either become a publisher or a marketer.

Estimated Monthly Visits - 28,639,000

Google Page Rank - 6

What You Can Do - Its kind of similar to Amazon.com but instead of recommending products to your viewers Outbrain will recommend content/links to articles that’s related to the content on your blog/website and just like in Amazon.com you can make money from Outbrain.

Here's how it works, lets say you become a publisher then you will have to add the outbrain blog widget to your blog. There are 2 types of widgets to choose from "Text Widget" and the "Thumbnail Widget". This is what the "Text Widget" looks like

This is what the "Thumbnail Widget" looks like

You can either add the "Text Widget" or the "Thumbnail Widget" to your blog. And this widget will automatically display links to articles that’s related to the content on your blog. And when a visitor to your blog/site clicks on one of these article links displayed by the Outbrain widget then you get paid. The amount you get paid per click will depend on several factors. You can get a revenue estimation for your blog/site once you contact them. The links to articles displayed in the widget automatically gets updated often.

But if you become a marketer in Outbrain then you can pay Outbrain to distribute your content/blogposts across 1000’s of blogs (blogs that use the Outbrain Widget) that’s already in Outbrains network. Currently over 50,000 sites and blogs have the Outbrain widget installed. So if you become a Marketer at Outbrain you can get your articles/blogposts to be displayed in 1000's of blogs related to your niche.  It can be a great way to drive targeted traffic but it is not free since you have to pay for each click you get. This system is similar to Google Adwords but instead of driving traffic through the search engines Outbrain allows you to drive traffic through blogs/sites that's related to your niche so you have a high chance of making a sale since the traffic you receive through blogs in Outbrain's network is targeted.

3)  3) Friendfeed.com  

Its a service that makes it easy to share things in real time with your friends online. Friendfeed also allows you to pull in items from other sites such as Facebook, Blogger, flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Google Talk, Delicious, Youtube, Digg and 64 other sites. So if you make an update like a status update in facebook/twitter or add a picture in Flickr or bookmark an item in Digg it will immediately get updated in your freindfeed account. But you can choose which sites (facebook, twitter, youtube etc) you want to connect with friendfeed so when ever you make an update in any of those sites it will show up in friendfeed. So Friendfeed is a place for anyone to see all the updates you make in 72 different sites in real time, this allows them to see all of the updates you make in many different sites at one place.

Estimated Monthly Visits - 19,477,000

Google Page Rank – 8

What You Can Do -  You can connect your accounts in other sites (like twitter, youtube, facebook digg, flickr etc) with Friendfeed, so whenever you make an update in any of these sites it will automatically show up in your friendfeed profile, its one place to show all your updates. You can connect your accounts in 72 different sites (Facebook, Digg, Youtube etc) with your Friendfeed account. And if your contacts/friends on Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail are also using Friendfeed then you can add them as your friends and get them to subscribe to you in Friendfeed. You can create a group for your blog/site and share new updates in the group, you can comment on other users posts/updates and like them, send direct message to your subscribers, join new groups, add friends, post in other groups. Friendfeed is a great site that can be a great source of traffic to your site.

4   4) Sphinn.com 

This is a great site dedicated for online marketers to share the latest internet marketing related stories and have discussions related to internet marketing. More than promoting your content I would say it’s one of the best sites to learn great things related to internet marketing.

Estimated Monthly Visits - 2,171,600

Google Page Rank – 6
 

What You Can Do – Submit interesting links related to internet marketing (they can be either your blog/site or other sites) and the top contributors get recognized on the leader board, you can also make comments and start new discussions. You can get a lot of clicks to your profile by being an active member in Sphinn and some of them can turn into clicks to your blogs/site or other links that you have added in your Sphinn profile.

5  5) Addthis.com 

Now this is by far one of the best sites that can flood traffic to your site/blog. Here’s how it works, first you need to add the Addthis widget to your blog/site. After you have done this if any visitor finds your content interesting and he wants to share one of your blogposts/webpages in another site then he can just click on the Addthis widget and share it in another site he wants like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Tumblr, Blogger etc (currently the Addthis widget allows readers to share any page in 341 different sites). With just a few clicks Addthis makes it possible for your readers to share your content in sites they like and there are 341 sites to choose from. Addthis is a perfect example of "Viral Marketing".

Estimated Monthly Visits - 68,108,000

Google Page Rank – 10

What You Can Do – Sign up at Addthis and add the Addthis Widget on your site/blog. Monitor how many times your site was shared and in which sites it was shared (Addthis provides very useful analytics that shows its users how often and where their content has been shared). Many popular news sites have used the Addthis widget to make it easier for their viewers to share their stories on Facebook, Twitter etc with just a few clicks. The below video shows how Addthis will make it very easy for your visitors to share your content on other sites.

6)      6) Twitter.com

The power of twitter should never be underestimated. Twitter is capable of driving targeted traffic to a blog/site if its used properly. But one question I asked myself was “Does More Twitter Followers Mean More Traffic ?” . And I found a great article about this topic. I would recommend you to click on the below link and just have a look as it shares some useful info.

Does More Twitter Followers Equal More Traffic?

Estimated Monthly Visits – 732,947,000

Google Page Rank – 9

What You Can Do – Tweet regularly (if you are looking to get followers then this is the most important) and of course the tweets should be catchy and interesting (if people like what you tweet then they will follow you even if you don’t follow them back, so give your target audience what they like to hear). Use #hashtags properly.

7    7) RateItAll.com

This is a consumer review website. The users can write positive/negative reviews on just about anything (Movies, Food, Websites, Blogs, Electronic Products etc). It can be a great place for you to get your blog/site noticed by readers interested in your content and positive reviews by other RateItAll members can be great.

Estimated Monthly Visits - 906,300

Google Page Rank – 5

What You Can Do – Submit your blog/site, review other products and services, create lists (A list is where you rate similar products/services/websites according to your own rating), add friends, follow profiles of users. Just like in all other sites it’s important to be an active member if you want to get noticed by other users. If your blog/site is not complete I wouldn’t recommend you to submit it since even a single negative review will not be very good for your site/blog. And there is a feature called “Promote Plus” on RateItAll, it can be a very useful feature to promote your site. Watch the below video to learn about “Promote Plus” on RateItAll.

8  8) ViralNetworks.com 

Viral Networks is a social network dedicated to internet marketers. Its a great place to meet other internet marketers, share your knowledge, promote blogs/sites, advertise and of course learn from other internet marketers

Estimated Monthly Visits - 736,600

Google Page Rank – 3

What You Can Do  - Add friends, join the discussions in the Viral Networks forum, upload videos/pictures, comment on other user profiles, contribute to the Viral Networks Wiki, write articles, blogs, send messages, send broadcast mail. Each task you do like replying to forums, uploading videos, contributing to the wiki etc will get you credits and you can also get paid for the credits you have earned. Not only will you get paid but the users with the most credits get noticed on the leader board that shows 25 users with the most number of credits so it can also be a great way to drive traffic which is the main objective. You can also build a downline by referring other people to Viral Networks and earn 10% of all their credits. But certainly spamming is not recommended as profiles can get deleted for misuse.

9    9) Linkedin.com 

Linkedin is the worlds largest Professional Network with over 100 million members.  Linkedin can play an important role in your social media marketing campaign.

Estimated Monthly Visits - 447,096,000

Google Page Rank – 9

What You Can Do – Linkedin can be used in many ways to promote your online business. You can add new contacts, join groups (you can also create a group for your blog/site like in Facebook), status updates, message people in your network, provide recommendations for users in your network, answer questions by other users (this is a great way to get noticed by other members), follow major companies (to receive their latest updates).

One of the best features of Linkedin is the ability to search status updates of other members. For example if you type “Internet Marketing” it will display all status updates that contain that term, even the status updates of the members that are not in your network. Using this feature you can find Linkedin users that are also discussing similar topics as you and add them to your network.  Just watch the below video to learn about this useful feature.

10)   Listwire.com  

Listwire is a 100% free autoresponder service. It’s a service that allows you to capture your visitors email so you can start building an email list/subscribers to your blog or website, it’s a great way to build a relationship with people who want to read your content. Email marketing allows you to provide your readers with valuable content and offer new products/promotions to your subscribers as well. But there are several factors such as bounce rate, open rate, opt-outs, clicks that show how successful your email marketing campaign is.  Click on the below link to read more about Listwire as well as how you can be successful in email marketing.


 Free Email Capture Software List Wire – Click Here


What You Can Do – Sign up for free at Listwire, add the squeeze page to your blog/site, write your follow up messages, broadcast messages and the verification message. Listwire also provides a free user manual that shows how you can get started with your email marketing campaign using Listwire. Click on the below link to get your free Listwire user manual.

 A point that should be kept in mind is that the success of an email marketing campaign  is in your hands. It all depends on the way you title your emails, what kind of content/products you offer, how often you contact your subscribers etc. I would certainly recommend you to read the below post where I have discussed some important points on list building.

  What Affiliate Marketers Should Know About List Building – Click Here

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What Affiliate Marketers Should Know About List Building

List Building is an important part of an online business. Whether your are a blogger or a webmaster building an email list is a great way to increase traffic as well as sales. All that is required for List Building is a squeeze page and an autoresponder. With ListWire you can get a free squeeze page and an autoresponder to start list building immediately. Click on the below link and read my other post on ListWire to learn more about it.

Free Autoresponder + Squeeze Page

There are 4 important figures that every internet marketer needs to monitor while list building, you need to constantly monitor these stats for a successful list building campaign and edit your messages if required.

1) Bounce Rate (This is different to the Bounce Rate of a website) - This is the percentage (%) or the number of emails that did not get delivered to the subscribers in your list.

2) Opt-Outs -This is the number of subscribers that unsubscribed from your mailing list, so if there are many opt outs then you need to rethink about what you're sending. Spamming subscribers or providing them with content/products they are not interested in are main reasons for losing subscribers. If you are losing subscribers then edit the required messages/newsletters and provide them with interesting content/products so they look forward to reading your emails.

3) Opened Rate - This is the number of times each email was opened/viewed by the subscribers in your list. This is calculated as follows

Bounces = Undelivered emails

One factor for a low open rate is a bad message subject, so try to be creative and write a catchy subject for each message since the "Message Subject" is what they first see when you send a message. Another reason for a low open rate is constantly sending messages that your readers are not interested in or spamming. If you do this continuously they will delete your messages without even opening them and possibly unsubscribe from your mailing list. So try to give your readers what they like to hear from you and send messages at reasonable intervals instead of flooding the mail box at once with too many emails.

The open rates in email marketing campaigns can be different for each niche. Click on the below link to read a great article that's all about email marketing open rates.

All About Email Open Rates

4) Clicks - This is the number of times each link in your message was clicked. They can be affiliate links, links to social media sites, links to other sites etc. ListWire shows how many times each link in each message was clicked, this way you will know if your messages are effective and if your subscribers are actually clicking on the links in your mails. One of the obvious reasons for a low click through rate is sending a message your readers are not interested in, so if you have a high open rate and a low click through rate then you might want to edit the message. The anchor text also has an effect on the number of clicks you receive to your links.

ListWire provides all the important information (Open rates, Clicks, Opt-Outs and more info) about your list building campaign, so you can see exactly where you are going wrong and correct them to make sure you don't lose subscribers.

 I would certainly recommend you to watch the below video as it discusses some important aspects on list building.



Another important factor of list building is the design of the squeeze page. The design and the look of the squeeze page can make a big difference. The squeeze page design can vary according to your niche. You can goto Google images and search the term "Squeeze Page" or "Squeeze Page Design" and that will show up squeeze pages in different niches. That will just give a basic idea on how important it is to have a well designed squeeze page. Below are 2 well designed squeeze pages (click on them to zoom)

These 2 squeeze pages are built for the same purpose as any other squeeze page but the designs are totally different. The aim of a squeeze page is to capture your visitors email and you can do it in different ways. Both of these squeeze pages are offering free stuff, that's great way to get a readers attention. So a squeeze page shouldn't just be a box asking for name and email, it has to be a lot more than that. The squeeze page should also tell the visitor exactly what they are going to get by subscribing and a little more about your services / products etc.

Quick Tips On Creating A Squeeze Page

1) Free Offer - A free offer will greatly increase your chances of getting a visitors email. If the visitor is interested in your niche then most likely they will be glad to get anything free related to that. Also encourage the visitor by talking about the benefits of the free report/service etc that you are offering.

2) Good Design - Make the squeeze page look professional, as I mentioned earlier the design plays a key role in capturing a visitors email. The design should match your niche / the target audience. If you don't know how to create one then you can get a squeeze page template, there are a lot of sites that offer squeeze page templates like www.squeezepages.com.

3) Personalize - Also personalize the squeeze page by adding a good picture of you as well as an image of your signature. I have seen several sites using this method. Building a customers confidence is an important part of any business and personalizing the squeeze page is a great way of boosting the visitors confidence in your website. You can create your signature image using mylivesignature.com

4) Short & Effective Message - Its certainly not recommended to turn the squeeze page into a very long sales pitch. So what ever you write in the squeeze page make it short but effective enough to make the reader subscribe. Use Google images to view other squeeze pages, this will give you a good idea on how you can pursue your reader to subscribe without writing too much.

5) Use A Talking Character - A talking character is simply a speaking avatar. A talking character will make it easier for you to give your reader more info about your offer/product instead of writing a long page. It will certainly increase your chances of getting more subscribers as its an effective way to influence the visitor to susbcribe. Features like this can help you keep an edge over your competitors. All you need to do is type in what you want the talking character to say once your squeeze page gets loaded. Two sites that offer these services are avaguide.net and sitepal.com. But I'm sure there are many other sites that offer these services.

6) Zero External Links - The purpose of a squeeze page is to capture your visitors email address and adding any external links can divert the visitors attention. So its recommended not to add any other links on the squeeze page.

7) Privacy Statement - Privacy is a major concern for subscribers, and it is important to mention at the bottom of the squeeze page or below the subscribe button that you will not share the information (email, name etc) with anyone. This will certainly increase your subscriber rates as they will know the information will not be shared so they will not have to worry about receiving spam mail.

So its important to spend a considerable amount of time to design a great squeeze page that fits your "niche" very well, as that squeeze page alone can play a big role in your success online.

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7 Important Internet Marketing Tools

If you want to become a successful Internet marketer then you must be aware of the tools that are freely available. Proper use of these free tools can help you to skyrocket the amount of traffic to your website and become a successful Internet marketer.

Google Webmaster tools

This is a tool that has to be used by every blogger and Webmaster.  The Google Webmaster Tools provide a lot of valuable information about your site/blog. In other words it shows exactly how Google sees your website/blog. It provides information such as

1) Links to your site.

2) Keywords that your site is ranked and the position in the search engine results page.

3) Any errors that Google detected while crawling your site and a lot more valuable information about your site.

And if your site gets banned by Google then you can make use of the Google Webmaster tools to submit your site for reconsideration so that it can appear again in the search engine results page. I have already written a post on the Google Webmaster Tools giving in-depth details about the Google Webmaster tools. You can read that post by clicking on the below link

Google Webmaster Tools Article – Click Here

You can visit the Google Webmaster tools by clicking on the below link

Google Webmaster Tools – Click Here

Below is a great video on the “Google Webmaster Tools” I would certainly recommend you to watch it and also search on youtube for more videos about the “Google Webmaster Tools”

Google Ad Preview Tool

This tool is especially useful if you are using PPC (Pay Per Click). This tool allows you to see the position of your website/blog according to the geographic location. For example your website might be placed in the first page of the Google search engine results page for the users in the United States but for users from other countries like Britain, Germany etc your website might not appear in the first page of Google. And using the Google Ad Preview Tool you can find out in which countries you are ranked high in Google. But as mentioned earlier it is mainly used by PPC (Pay Per Click) advertisers. 

You can click on the below link to visit the Google ad preview tool.

Google Adpreview Tool – Click Here

Yahoo Back Link Check

This is another great tool that is very useful for all affiliate marketers. This tool will provide information about incoming links to your website. Of course one of the key factors to ranking high is to have lots of back links so if you want to keep track of your back links then the Yahoo Back Link Check is great.  It will show you the total number of incoming links to your website/blog and also show which sites are linking to you. It's very simple to use this, all you have to do is go to yahoo.com and in the search box type the following

linkdomain: yoursite.com

Just replace the yoursite.com part with your domain name. And it will show you how many sites are linking to you and also provide you with the URLs of those sites. This is also useful when you are trying build incoming links. Just take your competitors domain name and using this tool find out from where they are getting the links and you can use some of those sites to build incoming links to you.  

Google Adwords Tool

This is again a great tool for PPC (Pay Per Click) advertisers. But even if you are not using PPC you can find out the number of times any keyword or phrase is searched by Google users and this tool also shows the competition for that particular keyword. This is very useful when you are thinking of ranking for a certain keyword, you can use this as a research tool before optimizing your site/blog for a keyword. Click on the below link to visit the Google Adwords Tool

Visit Google Adwords Tool

Keyword Density Checkers

Keyword density is an important part of SEO. A lot of SEO experts recommend to maintain a keyword density of 2% - 4%. A too high keyword density can be regarded as keyword spamming by the search engines while a too low keyword density will not be very effective if you want to rank high. So its better to know your keyword density and maintain it at a proper level.

Here are some sites that will automatically calculate the keyword density of your blogpost/webpage

SEO Book Keyword Density Check

Live Keyword Analysis

Different keyword density checkers can give you slightly different results. But if you want to manually calculate it you can use the Keyword Density Calculating Formula. Read more about this by clicking on the below link

Keyword Density Formula
 

Related Keywords Finder

Whenever you are optimizing your site for a certain keyword you must use related keywords as well. As this will increase your chances of getting ranked high. One tool that is useful in doing this is the Related Keywords Finder by Google. Click the below link to visit the Related Keywords Finder

For example if you are targeting the phrase “Make Money Fast” then you can type it in and the Related Keywords Finder will get a set of related phrases/keywords that you might want to think about adding to your site/blog that can help you rank higher.

 Some more simple tools that will find you related keywords are

Digital Point Tool Solutions

Finally the Digital Point Tools must be mentioned. Digital Point has provided 18 different tools (Keyword Suggestion Tool, Keyword Ranking Monitor, Diff Comparison, Back Link Tracking Tool, Google AdSense Sandbox and much more) that helps internet marketers in many different ways.

So its certainly recommended to check out some of their tools. Click on the below link to see the tools for your self.

Digital Point Tools For Internet Marketers

And if you aren’t a part of the Digital Point Forum then its certainly recommended to join in and learn from internet marketers, SEO experts, web designers and programmers from around the world.

Digital Point Forum

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Internet Marketing Definitions

Autoresponder – A program that automatically sends emails to the email addresses that have subscribed for a particular newsletter. Autoresponders can be used in both blogs and websites. Using an Autoresponder is a great way to get visitors to return to your website/blog, which will eventually help you to increase your sales. Read more about a free autoresponder @ Free Autoresponder

Keyword Density – Keyword Density is the total percentage a certain keyword or phrase has appeared on a webpage. A good keyword density should be between 3% - 4%. Too high keyword density will be regarded as spam by the search engines and a too low keyword density will not be effective.

It’s an important factor to maintain a proper keyword density to rank high in the search engine. Keyword density can also be calculated manually. But it’s easier to use a site that automatically calculates your keyword density. Here’s a site that I usually use for keyword density calculation.

Deep Link Ratio – It’s the percentage of links (both links from other sites and internal links) that point to all other pages of your website EXCEPT your homepage. A deep l40% - 60% can be called a good

Deep Link – Any link (internal or external) that points to any page on your website EXCEPT your homepage is called a deep link. Deep linking is a much quicker way of ranking high on the search engines instead of just building incoming links to your homepage which looks unnatural to the search engines.

Social Media Marketing – Social media marketing is the use of social networks (Facebook, Twitter etc), forums, wikis and other social sites for marketing. It’s a red hot method of driving traffic that’s overlooked by some. Watch the below video to fully understand the power of Social Media Marketing.

Viral Marketing – It’s a marketing technique that influence or induce visitors to pass a certain marketing message to other users and websites. The Widget that is used by many bloggers to show a visitor details can be called a great viral marketing tool created by a site that lets you create your own widgets so you too can use viral marketing to effectively promote your content.

KEI (Keyword Effectivness Index) – Keyword Effectiveness Index is a way of measuring how effective a certain keyword or phrase is going to be for your website. The formula for calculating KEI is

KEI = (Number of Monthly Keyword Searches) ^ 2 / (Competing Pages)

Suppose you are targeting a keyword that is searched 1000 times per month on Google, and Google shows up 200,000 results when a user enters that particular term.

Then the KEI = 1000 * 1000 / 200,000 = 5

In some of the other websites you might find different formulas used to calculate KEI that gives different results but the above formula is a commonly used method to calculate KEI by SEO experts. It’s always safer to target keywords/phrases that have a fairly high KEI since it will be easier to get to the first page of the search engine with a keyword/phrase that has a high KEI.  

CTR (Click Through Rate) – Percentage of visitors who click through to a merchants website. CTR is specially important when you are doing a Google Adwords Campaign. 2% - 4% CTR (Click Through Rate) is a good rate for a Google Adwords Campaign.

Cloaking – Cloaking is showing one set of content to the search engine spiders for indexing while showing another set of content to the users. It’s an SEO technique that has to be avoided since it can get your site banned by Google. 10 Actions That Will Ban Your Website In Google.

Contextual Links – If the anchor text that links from one page of your site to another page on your site is made up of a keyword or phrase that you want that particular page to rank for then its called a “Contextual Link”.

Example – Say you have 2 web pages on your site “A” and “B” and the keyword you want the page “B” to rank for in the search engines is “making money online”. Then if you are linking from A to B the anchor text should be “making money online”.  This is an example of a contextual link. Contextual Linking is a great SEO technique to rapidly increase your search engine ranking.

CPA (Cost Per Action) – CPA is a method of advertising when you only pay for each sale or each lead etc, which is different to CPC (Cost Per Click) when you pay for every time a visitor clicks on your ad or banner regardless of a purchase by the customer.

CPC (Cost Per Click) – CPC is the amount you pay every time a user clicks on your ad. CPC differs depending on the website. And if you are using Google Adwords the CPC depends on the keyword you target. Making Money With Google Adwords

CPM (Cost Per 1000 Impressions) – This is the amount you pay for every 1000 impressions for your ad regardless of a purchase or a click by the customer. CPM can be a cost effective alternative for CPC.

EPC (Average Earnings Per 100 Clicks) – This is the value of the commissions by an affiliate for every 100 clicks. It’s a method of calculating the effectiveness of an affiliate by Commission Junction.

Bounce Rate - The bounce rate in email marketing refers to the number or the percentage (%) of emails that did not get delivered to the subscribers in the subscriber list. But bounce rate of a website has a different meaning. Bounce Rate of a website is the percentage of visitors that enter the site and leave the site without viewing another page. Read more about it @ Bounce Rate


Opt-Outs -  Opt-Outs is a term used in list building. This is the number of subscribers that unsubscribed from your list.

 Opened Rate - Opened rate is also a term used in list building. Opened rate is the number of times each email you have sent to your subscribers was viewed/opened by your subscribers. 

Please link to us if you have found the information useful. Thanks.

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