Traffic Nose Dive

1. 73

   Barbara Kayposted 11 years ago

   We should use this info when we decide what to write about. I've just written about my own interests in the past, but it looks like we should be pinpointing young ladies, in their twenties, with children. I'll have to give that some thought.

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2. 73

   Barbara Kayposted 11 years ago

   We should use this info when we decide what to write about. I've just written about my own interests in the past, but it looks like we should be pinpointing young ladies, in their twenties, with children. I'll have to give that some thought.

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3. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   I so have nothing in common with young ladies in their 20's with children. I am doomed...

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4. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   I'm going to leave it to someone else to post a hub full of male-model pics.

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   1. 60

      Hollie Thomasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      PDS, they have children. Was it not you that wrote a hub about how to check your child's literacy or some such? (apologies, but I can't remember the title, but there was definitely a hub about checking literacy, handwriting, numerousy or something like that) Just think, you have knowledge that can help some young mum who may have been unable to further her education, help her kids do their homework!
      
      The possibilities are endless.

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5. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   Yep, I did two. Google was not impressed with either of them. I'm lucky if they each get one hit a day.

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   1. 60

      Hollie Thomasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      You are an educated man. Put yourself in the shoes of a woman who's very busy, hasn't furthered her own education, and then suddenly little Jimmy at the age of 10 comes home with a long division. Mum did this too, but can't remember how. She goes to google and types; how to do long divisions for ten year old? Perhaps?
      
      Or, little Sarah is twelve, she needs an explanation of algebra? Mum is nonplussed.  Next day (although this may occur earlier) she asks mum about pythagoras theorum, Wikipedia is too complex for either so mum types; pythagoras theorum for dummies, pythagoras theorum made easy,
      pythagoras theorum for mum and kids who have not  got a clue.

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      1. 61

         paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Now that Glam is on the scene, you could really be on to something.
         
         My Sunday evening traffic perk-up finally started. I'm definitely going to beat last Sunday. I'm starting to get article-writing inspired again...

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      2. 58

         Drive By Quipperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Spank em' and send them to bed early. Problem solved.

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6. 82

   tommenposted 11 years ago

   The traffic dives every time Google makes an update, minor tweaks are made several times per month.Is there some things we could do in order to become less dependent on organic traffic from Google? Other traffic strategies that are free and work? Any ideas?
   
   How about guest posting on high traffic blogs and linking back to hubs?
   
   -Tom

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7. 66

   Silver Roseposted 11 years ago

   I think Google has removed the benefit of the subdomains. See the following:
   
   http://www.webpronews.com/matt-cutts-ta … es-2012-10
   
   The key thing is at about 1:31 in the video - he obliquely says that they used to have multiple subdomains in the SERPs but now they do host-crowding by domain instead. He's trying to pretend that it's just about multiple listings in the SERPs, but in reality what he's saying is that before a subdomain was a stand-alone website in it's own right, but now it's treated as just a directory of the main domain.
   
   So while the subdomain was isolated from the hubpages domain, some soared. As soon as they were merely directories of the hubpages domain, they were infected again by what ails the hubpages domain (i.e. it's as though the subdomains switch was reversed and we're back to where we were in mid 2011 before the subdomain switch).

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   1. 87

      Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Sounds plausible.The slow downward slide most of us have suffered seems to suggest that the many millions of  poor pages still published here drag us all down.  But then individual sub-domains still get hit by Panda, while others do not.
      
      So we stand alone in some ways, while suffering for the sins of others.

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   2. 82

      Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yep.  Makes a lot of sense.  Subdomains hid the problem.  Not any more.
      
      Now we're on a quality push.
      
      As my contribution I have deleted about 100 pages.

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      1. 82

         tommenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I also unpublished all the idle zzz-hubs I had (52 hubs in total) and it seems to work, I get more traffic now.I will concentrate on making high quality 1000+ word hubs from now on.Let´s see how it goes.

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8. 61

   swb78posted 11 years ago

   Well, I followed some more of the guidelines in the forums and from some of the more successful Hubbers here and my traffic is heading back up. I was at about 200-250 hits a day. At the low point of all this I fell to about 30-60 hits a day. I`m back to 100+ a day. Maybe we all had better give it some more time. William Power.

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9. 73

   brakel2posted 11 years ago

   The poor quality hubs might go away if several people flag them, as someone suggested. If we get rid of bad content, everything can improve. Traffic should return unless Google trips us up. I already found a truly bad one and told two other hubbers. A third grader could have done better.

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10. 61

    SarahLynnBposted 11 years ago

    ehhh! Same here, something has to be going on. Hopefully, it gets fixed soon. I really hope these changes are not permanent.

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11. 73

    brakel2posted 11 years ago

    Thanksgiving Day  My traffic is up 17% according to my report.  An others with better traffic? My question/ answer views are way up. I am thankful but will not get too excited.

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    1. 79

       molometerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I had a blip like that a few days ago. It has been like that for months now. Up and down.
       My traffic would suddenly shoot up but always returned to this downward trend. Very bizarre indeed.
       
       It was only when I checked my trend-line for the whole year that it became apparent that there is something seriously wrong. And it is not with my or anyone else's hubpages.
       
       IMO. This traffic disruption is coming from outside of hubpages.

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12. 61

    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    Both as to traffic and earnings, I am reasonably certain that yesterday was my new personal best for the year.

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13. 66

    safiq ali patelposted 11 years ago

    No you are not alone with this. Last week I had my worst week every will traffic down by over three quarters.

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14. 95

    alexadryposted 11 years ago

    What leaves me confused is many of my articles are still ranking in the same spots of Google for their keywords, so I really cannot understand why page views go down if for the last 2 years they have always been stable and they are still in the same spot. Just odd!
    
    However, with the Thanksgiving holiday, could be many are cooking, enjoying family time and their last thoughts are searching the internet. Yet, recipes and other festivity related hubs should get have gotten a boost these days...

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    1. 88

       JayeWisdomposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       alexadry...I'm as confused as you are because my best-read hub (an article) still ranks the same with Google, but daily viewing is down by more than half. This has been going on since September--coinciding with HP changes as well as reputed Google algorithm changes.  I've edited/updated most of my hubs, but my views (and earnings) are still at half mast.  Very frustrating!

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15. 75

    JanMaklakposted 11 years ago

    I just checked Alexa to see the difference between hub pages and about.com.  About has remained stable with some oscillation however hub pages has taken a tumble.  I think the google algorithms got it wrong here.  Yes Hub Pages is a article farm but about.com is nothing more than a million pages of over saturated advertising.  I don't get it at all.  Since courseware is a way of the future maybe Hub Pages should diversify and we could write mini courses on topics that we are knowledgeable about.

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    1. 87

       Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       About.com has kept out absolutely terrible content. HP is only now trying to do that.

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    2. 79

       molometerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Taken a tumble is very polite.
       Traffic has been sliced in half and is continuing down at an alarming rate.
       
       Another 6 months of these and there will be no hubpages.
       
       I find the whole thing really strange too. Hubpages in the main has fantastic content and writers.
       
       There may have been a few odd profiles and dodgy pages but overall, very good articles, well written and researched. Back up by knowledgeable people.
       
       For a comparison. Check out Technorati's top articles. They are absolutely dreadful. Nothing but a load of spun rubbish. The spelling is pre-school level and the grammar...forget about it.
       
       I really cannot see, for the life of me how hubpages keeps getting hammered, unless the truth is that the almighty Google, doesn't really want good content after all. We are pursuing a dead end.
       
       The idle hub was the dumbest idea, in a long line of dumb ideas this year.
       You cannot fix what you do not understand.
       
       I don't see these other, quite frankly crap web sites, getting smashed up the way hubpages is getting smashed.

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16. 80

    Wesman Todd Shawposted 11 years ago

    So....let me get this straight...everyone is in the sandbox?  It's not just me and a few others?
    
    I went from 800 to 1200 page views a day....to about 250 per day..just this week.

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    1. 75

       JanMaklakposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       well guys I'm not at yourlevel yet but every day on Hub Pages I have to ask if I am wasting my time.  I'm just looking for enough to supplement my retirement in a couple of years but this doesn't look good.  I have 25 hubs now on social marketing and photography and I have yet to break $0.50 a day.  I was getting $0.10 a day but figured with better ads it started to improve.  When I write a photography article I put in very expensive cameras from Amazon ($20,000-$45,000) People are curious and want to see if it is an error and will go to the ad.  Nobody wants to look at another $0.99 ebook.

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    2. 80

       sabrebIadeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Yeah...originally the company line was it was just a few people.
       But either those few are VERY vocal or it's more people than they thought at first.
       For every one or two "Well my traffic has gone up!" I'm seeing five or ten "My traffic has tanked".
       Add to that the steady downward slide on Quantcast since the 10th, +4% to -11%, I'm inclined to think it's another slap.

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    3. 79

       molometerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       You are not alone Wesman. My traffic has declined by 50+% since June and is still falling like a stone, and yet every one of my 90 hubs is featured on hubpages.
       
       They still appear if I search for them using the URL's, which means they are not in the sandbox, but Google is sending very little traffic hubpages way in general. According to Alexa.
       
       This idle hubs thing is also causing problems with the nofollow flag on, the bots are simply ignoring brand new hubs.
       I posted a new hub a few days ago now, and it still didn't appear in search so I submitted using web-master tools.
       
       It found it and I submitted to the index.
       I have a creeping suspicion that I have shot myself in the foot.
       
       Because it may have been submitted with the nofollow attribute, which means it will get zero traffic.
       
       This is rapidly becoming a real mess.

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    4. 66

       theherbivorehippiposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I'm with you. Mine cut in half this week as well.

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       1. 92

          habeeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Ditto. Over the course of the last week, my traffic was cut in half.

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17. 59

    Words By Williamposted 11 years ago

    My traffic and earnings are 30-40% from what they were 3 months ago. I would appreciate some feedback also.

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18. 61

    fpherj48posted 11 years ago

    It seems this has effected a huge number of hubbers.......I read at the very least, 10 comments a day now, from hubbers concerned and curious about their disappearing traffic.   It's like a damned epidemic of some traffic-eating disease.   Hello?  Wes....It is NOT just you!!   and drops in traffic is not the ONLY issue hubbers are dealing with....no one seems to know what is happening.

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19. 80

    MakinBaconposted 11 years ago

    This is not related to just a few people. My traffic has also tanked over the last couple of days by at least 40 percent.
    
    One thing that makes me wonder if this is a Hubpage debacle is I was also selling about 15 items a day on Amazon. Over the last two days during the busy Christmas season it has dropped to zero. That's literally impossible unless Hubpages screwed up.
    
    Did they accidently or on purpose place their own Amazon ID in place of mine for the entire day, or put it on the hours that drive all the sales? Again, it's not possible to go without sales during the Christmas holiday with the thousands a day in traffic my various Hub profiles have been generating. 
    
    To see this happen at the same time as my traffic took a major hit is too hard to believe is a coincidence (I'm still getting thousands a hits a day so it's not like the traffic dropped to a couple of hundred a day where it would be a legitimate result to have little or no Amazon sales). In other words this could be the result of action directly taken by Hubpages rather than a Google slap. Google has no connection to Amazon sales, so there is something very suspicious happening in this regard.
    
    I'm suspicious of the timing of all of this at Christmas time (September through December) when it drives the most revenue for the majority of writers that know what they're doing. To me it says Hubpages is declaring they don't have a business model and seem to become the servants of Google rather than a platform for writers to express themselves and make money.
    
    More than any other attack on our traffic this one is the one that makes the least sense, and when including other factors like the Amazon issue I mentioned, could be unrelated to Google whatsoever.

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20. 94

    Daughter Of Maatposted 11 years ago

    There's something a bit odd about this update. Normally when Google decides to b*&^% slap us, traffic drops overnight, but this has been a steady decline over the past four to five days. Even on Quantcast, HP traffic has steadily declined, not plummeted. I wonder if it has more to do with the Holidays coming up than the Google update. It's hard to tell over a weekend though because traffic normally drops about 200 views (for me anyway) until Sunday night.
    
    I'm not going to panic just yet. I'll wait until Monday to see if the traffic rises again. This is just killing our earnings though.

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21. 82

    Mark Ewbieposted 11 years ago

    My organic Google search is also down significantly.  This time last year it was rising gently.
    
    So, another update, another change - who knows?  And where will we all be next week - up, down, sideways?
    
    I can handle low or high traffic.  It's the changing that hacks me off.  Seems to me that Google is just randomly tweaking.

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    1. 80

       sabrebIadeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       The only thing saving me is Bing/Yahoo...maybe because I have been focusing on them since the last Google slap

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       1. 82

          Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          For me, the biggest rising line on Analytics is direct traffic which now forms 25% of my views, roughly.  I'm not entirely sure what it even means.

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22. 85

    lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

    for the last four days i've hardly had any views. and that is very frustrating!

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23. 75

    JanMaklakposted 11 years ago

    So While I'm not an expert yet I'll share with you what I'm doing.
    I have 25 hubs on social media and photography.
    I have over 9500 twitter followers and I tweet to them all day long about every 15 minutes for business and some interesting things in between not business related.  I have a post to on how to increase your twitter followers.
    I have a FB page as well with almost 300 followers and I refer traffic here if your interested.
    I just signed up with Scoop it (I hear good things about it.)
    My 1 day traffic is 176 views (today) and I still have 1/2 day to go.
    I have one hub that acts as an index hub and I call it a Free short course on Social Media.  It refered to several of my other hubs
    I just figured out that exciting things in the ads are more important than the words written. (like a go cart, electronic drums, expensive watches($25,000) and cameras($22,500)
    I've made a whole $2.60 this month but I just figured out the ads
    I'll have an e-book coming out and a template for a photographers portfolio in the new year to further gain my own list.
    So what more can I do?

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    1. 80

       Wesman Todd Shawposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       A blogger blog with a title very specific to the kind of content you create might be the best deal for you.
       
       ...but don't take my advice, I'm really just pissed off.  I am taking the opportunity to delete/move a lot of hubs to one specific blogger blog of mine about a very specific topic...I'm hoping to see a bit of a bump in adsense revenues from it.

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24. 61

    Californialawposted 11 years ago

    It seems like this is going on across the board Google changes its algorithms all the time. Usually if you do a search for news about a new algorithm you can find out what they're targeting (excessive keyword use etc)

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25. 80

    LeanManposted 11 years ago

    It's the weekend - my traffic always suffers at the weekend - that being said it is lower than normal..
    
    BUT - it is the last but one weekend before Christmas, I would guess that a lot of people are stuck out in town buying presents for their loved ones (I need a new phone and a new laptop should anyone read this!) So I am not too worried by a dip this weekend...

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26. 80

    Rain Defenceposted 11 years ago

    Janmaklak the 170 views you're talking is the last 24 hrs, it doesn't start from midnight or something, the 'daily views' thing doesn't work like that. The best bet is just to keep on churning hubs out. You're going to need a lot more traffic to start making any money.

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27. 85

    rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago

    It appears something took place on the 13th, but Google says it wasn't Panda related.
    This came out yesterday on Search Engine Roundtable.

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    1. 80

       sabrebIadeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       "Update 2: At about 2pm EDT Google told me this is not Panda related but they are going to dig deeper and let me know if it was something else."
       
       "They are going to dig deeper"?
       Google doesn't even know what happened?
       
       "Hey Fred! Did you change the Algo?"
       " Not me. I was at lunch!"
       "Tom?"
       "Nope"
       etc.....

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       1. 86

          IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          

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       2. 87

          SimeyCposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Nah it's more like:
          
          "Hey Fred, did you break Gmail?"
          "Oops sorry, my coffee spilt on the server"
          "Ahh, just roll back the server then"
          "OK....Done"
          "Hey Fred, what server holds the algorithms?"
          "Oops - we're back to the really bad Panda version - now where's the backup????"

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          1. 80

             sabrebIadeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             I wish we had Plus 1s on comments....LOL

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28. 73

    brakel2posted 11 years ago

    So why is the site down in traffic? Was there something else beside the porn update?  My traffic is down at least 1/3.

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29. 94

    Daughter Of Maatposted 11 years ago

    Yep, mine too. I was doing so well, and then Google goes and rips it all away. The last time this happened though, my traffic recovered and increased drastically, so I'm hoping this is a case of it gets worse before it gets better.

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30. 61

    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    My traffic has begun its usual new-week muddling upwards...

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    1. 61

       paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       The trickle upwards continues...

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       1. 94

          wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Yup.  Unfortunately it's got a looong way to go to get to where Monday was a couple of weeks ago.

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          1. 61

             paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Been awhile, I finally worked up the energy to visit quantcast. That chart is depressing... If it was a stock, I'd give up and sell it. The problem is that I don't see any other "stocks" doing any better...

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             1. 94

                wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                I see what you mean.  That graph looks startlingly similar to mine on analytics, at least in shape.  Until the end - yesterday popped up a little for me but not HP and today is already higher than yesterday.
                
                Have faith - maybe we're already coming out of it.

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                1. 61

                   paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   I submit that even Wikipedia could be lower a year from now. The problem is that I don't know how to act on that hypothesis.

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                2. 87

                   SimeyCposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   I am seeing an increase in traffic over this week - back to October levels - however my benchmark hub is still sitting on page 2 of Google - so I'm hoping my normal pattern of changes happens and it goes back to page 1 tonight - giving me a few days to cash in on Christmas and the End of the World!!!!

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31. 61

    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    Wikipedia isn't quantified, but I can tell even they are dropping.

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    1. 94

       wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       That's because the people have discovered that the hubs of Wilderness are far superior to wikipedia. 
       
       Except that my traffic is falling even faster...

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       1. 61

          paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          December is already my best month of the year. However, come January, I am doomed...

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