Indexing Delays Due to 'Pending' Killing Traffic and Earnings - Fix!!

1. 53

   janderson99posted 11 years ago

   The Googlebot visits new hubs within 30-60 minutes while they are in 'Pending' mode and the NOINDEX tag is in place for 24 Hours. This means that the bot does not index the page, and does not return for days or weeks. New pages do not get indexed for days or weeks. This causes lost traffic and lost earnings and leaves the pages open for obvious other consequences. The lost earnings from the delays can never be recovered. Surely this issue needs to be fixed by allowing 'trusted authors' to have their pages by-pass the 'pending' sin bin. Authors could be assigned 'trusted status' by getting 10 hubs through pending without any violations. HP could do random checks on the trusted authors and remove their benefits and reimpose the 'pending' sin bin checks for the next 10.
   
   This Penalty imposed by 'pending' is killing traffic and killing earnings. It is probably contributing to the sustained traffic decline seen on Quantcast. It is also killing the moral of established writers on HP. Surely this would mean that HP's scare resources could be re-allocated to checking new-comers and offenders.
   
   This issue needs to be addressed PLEASE!

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      DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Agreed!  This is a TERRIBLE idea!  It might make sense to apply to newbies, until they are established as quality writers, but to apply it across the board to everyone is ludicrous!

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      1. 86

         IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Look how many hubbers here are getting featured within 24 hours.
         
         http://hubpages.com/hubs/latest/
         
         What is going on, Hubpages?

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         1. 82

            snakeslaneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            IzzyM, Can you tell me where you got the link to the latest page? I didn't know that it still existed. And thanks for posting it here btw, very helpful.

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            1. 86

               IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I think it is hidden now. It used to be under Explore~Hubs, but the url is easy enough to remember anyway.
               
               Every hub there less than 24 hours old is by-passing the pending mode, and I want to know why.
               
               At first I thought it was just high scoring hubbers, then I noticed a lot of older hubbers (and staff) but recently I have noticed relative newbies with lower scores being featured too.
               
               But still, those are only a fraction of the whole site.
               
               Why some and not others?

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                  tussinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  The bypassers seem to be staff, apprentices, and people with scores over 95.  You'd think HubPages would reveal the secret recipe for bypassing the pending  period for newly published hubs, after all, don't they want writers to succeed?
                  
                  Say you run a business and give your employees incentives for doing things you consider really good for business.  Do you keep it a secret what you consider to be good for business? Of course not.
                  
                  
                  
                  ****Note for the reading comprehension-challenged, this is an analogy.  I know that contributors are not employees. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/analogy

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                  1. 88

                     SimeyCposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     I am an apprentice who has had a 'score' of over 95 (currently 95) - all my newly published hubs in the last month have gone into idle status.

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                        sharkfactsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        You must be wondering why, too?
                        
                        You have been here long enough and are a trusted writer.
                        
                        Why some and not others?

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                        1. 88

                           SimeyCposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                           To be honest it doesn't really bother me - even when there wasn't an idle hub status it could take a few days or longer to get indexed - this really isn't a new issue. Many writers on here are already in the habit of using the webmaster tools to get hubs indexed - it's a bit of a pain, but just part of the writing process.

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                  snakeslaneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  OK thanks. I am wondering if the 'time published' ie: X number of hours ago,  is referring to the 'after pending' time?

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                  1. 86

                     IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     No, that is real-time published. If you go to the second page (or even the bottom of the first page) you will see hubs published 24 or more hours ago.
                     
                     When the idle hubs first came out, all latest hubs had a timeline of 20 odd hours or more.
                     
                     And it's not all hubbers over 95, apprentices and staff.
                     
                     I saw someone there with no badges, here only a few months with a hubberscore of 89 and it was a poem. So that doesn't fit any pattern.
                     
                     My last five new hubs are now getting zero views, and only 2 of them are indexed.
                     
                     They have missed out on that Google boost which always gave new hubs a chance of gaining natural, organic backlinks.
                     
                     I'm seriously thinking of giving Wizzley a try.

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         2. 85

            DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            There is something very wrong, here...and even in skimming the first 5 or so of those listings...in the first few sample sentences, I saw a number of spelling/grammar mistakes... THIS is what HP wants to publish in a hurry as "quality writing??!!"

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               janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

               You're right, there is something very weird about this!

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         3. 85

            DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            My hubber score is consistently in the high-90s; often enough, it hits 100, yet none of my hubs were in that list...so that can't be the answer, either.

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      RichieMogwaiposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Bow wow, this is all so new to me it stumps me. In fact, I don't even understand the issue completely. I will just let it percolate in my mind for a while, like brewed coffee.  Anyway, thanks for the Webmaster tools link, I just used it.

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         Pearldiverposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         You're obviously not a Cat person with an exclamation like that 

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            DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            LOL  Mee--ow!

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      Xenonlitposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Agreed. This is a thumbs down. Will be back when something better happens.

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2. 0

   RTalloniposted 11 years ago

   Something like this was rolling around the back of my mind.  Will follow this to see what input comes in.  Thanks.

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3. 66

   Pearldiverposted 11 years ago

   Within the last 30 hours I published a hub that went into that free pending parking space...
   
   In the 24th hour that hub went out of pending and into HP's 2nd stage.... It had been crawled during that pending period.
   
   After 24 hours that hub had been indexed in both G and B... My images had been captured by G within that 24 hour pending period and appeared in their serps after 24 hours, but actually stating that they had been captured 17 hours earlier... ie:  7 hours after it went into 'pending' 
   
   So.... what does all this mean???

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      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Can I ask how you checked that
      "After 24 Hours that hub had been indexed in both G and B" - I think that some people who are using the new tool - see that the bot has visited, and assume that this mean the page is indexed ( careful reading of the information => 'indexable' not indexed). Bot visits do not = indexed. Searching for the title + "hubpages" will show if its indexed  or "cache: URL"  - Sorry if you already know this stuff but I suspect many people don't.
      PS your last hub is indexed - says 2 days ago in SERPS

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      1. 66

         Pearldiverposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Nope... I understand completely the points you raise and agree (from experience) with the issues.... so I certainly did not rely on the information provided by HP in that 'tool.'
         I checked directly with both G and B (with a section of text) and perused the new image pool on G, which provides details of when all new pics were captured and indexed with them.
         I generally find the images when I search the exact title of the hub and switch from web search - image search.
         Because I always use excellent images... I know that they always rate well with G....
         if they rate well with G and my hub doesn't (for whatever reason) then it indicates that an anomaly exists... and that, sadly tends to come back to HP....
         + within their 'tool' it gives view duration details...
         my work always views to the max as I write and construct them to do so....
         90% of those which have problems when checked, show that HP have not followed the process fully with them, as they do not indicate any view duration measurement.. even though they may be 2 years old and have gained little traffic.
         Every well performing hub has its viewing duration details provided within a month of original publishing... they are represented by up to 5 stars and can be checked via GA also.

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4. 91

   Learn Things Webposted 11 years ago

   Established writers should be treated differently than newcomers. I didn't realise until a few days ago that the pending pages could actually be crawled by search engines. I assumed they were completely invisible until they were published. But my new hubs are getting Google visits within a day or two of going live. I haven't had a situation where I've gone for a long period of time without search engine visits.

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5. 88

   SimeyCposted 11 years ago

   I know it's probably not the answer you want, but can't you simply use:
   
   https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url
   
   to re-crawl the relevant hub once you know the 'no-index' has been removed?

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      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yep! I have to do that with every hub - Its such a pain and unreliable!

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      Novel Treasureposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I was just going to suggest that too. It's what I do and it seems to counteract the pending status.

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         janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I get an error message if I do this while hub is 'pending' - It only works reliably after hub is 'featured' and there are still variable delays. Why should every experienced hubber have to do this? HP stuffs it - we have to fix it - not good!

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      RichieMogwaiposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      SimeyC, thanks for the Webmaster tools link. I just used it.

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      DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      What if the URL you submit to Webmaster tools is the link to your profile, where most all of your articles are shown?

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      Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This tool is great, but my most recent request has gone unheeded for 35 hours by WebMaster Tools.  This is on a hub about Hurricane Sandy that is updated every few hours.  Not good at all.  So you can not rely upon Webmaster Tools to do a quick index anymore.

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6. 59

   Xenonlitposted 11 years ago

   Why would a site want to nuke it's own views and income? I don't get it.  I do tweet and publicize my articles and they do get views from my other audiences, but why am I publishing them here if they don't go anywhere else?

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   1. 95

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Why would anyone gripe about losing zero views by being put to sleep?
      
      While the system is not perfect and still needs some work, the idea is to remove hubs that get no traffic from the SE.  Why would anyone at care if that happens?  It costs them nothing.
      
      If your hub gets views from other audiences (FB, Twitter, etc.) it will still do so - going to sleep won't change that.  So what's the problem?  That's what I don't get.

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         janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         This post is about "Pending" and delays to indexing by Google - not "Idle" hubs

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            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            My bad.  Got to reading through the posts, I guess, and lost sight of the exact topic.  Sorry.

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7. 84

   internpeteposted 11 years ago

   Yes, I am interested in this question as well.
   
   Based on other's responses and my own experiences, new hubs go into a pending phase for 24hrs in which they cannot be indexed by Google when they are first published. (thus they cannot show up in SERPs)
   
   This results in at least 24hrs of wasted time as far as getting it indexed and ranked.
   
   Why is this 24hrs so big of a deal? Because of hubs written on time sensitive subjects, such as reviews of sporting events.
   
   I was able to get one of my hubs onto the first page of Google within 24-48 hours after publishing it. (this was several months ago). This generated several thousand views in 3-4 days all from search engines.
   
   If the same situation were to occur today, I don't think I would get nearly as many visitors because of the 24hr delay in ranking my hub.
   
   Anyone else concerned about this type of situation as well?
   
   I like the idea of experienced hubbers being exempted from the 24hr review process because I think the review process is a good thing to help hubpages improve it's credibility.
   
   It seems like every time I flag a poorly written (or any other violation) hub, it is from a newcomer to hubpages anyway.

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   1. 53

      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      OK - you maths buffs. Try to work out the net loss of traffic and income associated with delays to indexing under the following scenarios.
      
      1000 hubs added a day - all approved. After being indexed, each hub gets 10 views a day and earns an average  of  0.1 cents ( 1000 indexed hubs earns 10 cents every day)
      
      Base scenario Hub is published and indexed on the same day  - over two weeks gets 140,000 hits earns $1.40
      
      Scenario A Hub is 'pending' for 24 hours and indexed on the next day. What is the net percentage loss over a two week period   => 7%   i. e. you lose 1 day in 14. (net loss is 10000 hits ; $0.10)
      
      Scenario B Hub is 'pending' for 24 hours and all indexing is delayed by another day. ( days 1 and 2 lost)
      Only 50% of the hubs get indexed on day three, another 25% on day 7 and all are indexed on day 14. This is equivalent to half the pages not being indexed for a week after coming out of pending,  and one quarter being delayed for 2 weeks.  What is the percentage loss in traffic and income over 14 days =>  My estimate of the loss is  40% (80,000 hits lost;  $0.60). This loss can never be recovered!!!
      
      You lose this income and traffic over the first 14 days for each new batch of 1000 hubs is added.
      So the average loss of traffic and income for each new hub added under scenario B is 40%.
      So for each hub you add under this scenario  you lose a about $0.006 due to delayed indexing. Never to be recovered.  If you get 100 hits a day instead of 10, you lose $0.06 for each hub  -- etc.
      Extreme example BUT it does highlight the losses.
      Is this correct!

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8. 86

   IzzyMposted 11 years ago

   I want to know this too. I've been here for three years and have nearly 1000 hubs across all my subs, yet I still get the 'pending' stuff like most of us do on newly published hubs.
   
   It matters, because if the Googlebots see the hub, and they do if another hubber sends it to Facebook or Twitter (even if HP 'hides' it), they see the noindex tag and sometimes don't return for ages.
   
   Even when they do come back, we lose out on the promotion Google gives new content.
   
   I have a new subdomain, with 6 hubs each of 1000+ words, that gets NO visits per day.
   
   That worries me, because new subs here always got a boost.
   
   I know I could go to webmasters tools and ask Google to index them, but hey...why should I? This is a high profile site, and the whole point of writing here is that we are spared having to do all that stuff.
   
   What I really want to know is why some hubbers, and there are only 20 or so, get immediate featuring rights while the rest of us don't?

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9. 75

   Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years ago

   Drop in traffic on Quantcast - Awesome. This means that all those crap Hubs at the bottom of the barrel thats been on here for years is NO Longer getting indexed by Google if those authors are not revising them. Which one will find will be plenty.
   
   John, you intimating that hubs, only ever, get traffic from Google, this is simply not correct.

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   1. 53

      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Drop in traffic on Quantcast - Awesome.
      Nope - Idle hubs get very little traffic - 20% of hubs that used to get traffic now get 20% less on average - not Awesome => Devastating!. Google is the major source of traffic and hence income.

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10. 85

    Mandy M Sposted 11 years ago

    The thing that really bugs me about the pending is for news things.  Like if I wanted to write a hub about tonights world series game, or immediately following the election, or whatever, nobody will read it until what I wrote is out of date!  We need to fix this, before the election!  I want to write election night, but I wont be indexed until it's too late, then there's no point.

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    1. 89

       WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       It's better to write evergreen content anyway, as this is not a blogging site and you'll easily be outranked by news sites on saturated topics like elections.

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11. 89

    WryLiltposted 11 years ago

    I agree. It really feels like every time Hubpages brings in a 'solution' it hurts the more experienced and proven writers more than anyone else.
    
    After Panda it was the repeated changes that saw year or older hubs being unpublished for infringements of multiple new rules, or hubbers having to go through and edit hundreds of hubs to meet new rules.
    
    In this case, it means even people who have experience writing quality content on subdomains that Google likes get belted as badly as a newbie with no experience.

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12. 83

    tillsontitanposted 11 years ago

    I don't know the figures or exact logistics, what I do know is since this new 'pending' status for new hubs I have lost traffic and a lot of revenue.  I don't understand the reason for the pending status....do hubs ever get deleted while in pending status?  I have to agree with others that 'seasoned' hubbers shouldn't have to have their hubs put into pending status AND it is now impossible to write a timely hub as someone else pointed out.

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    1. 89

       WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Hubpages never deletes hubs. They will unpublish them, but that is all.
       
       Pending status was essentially meant to hide low quality or low traffic hubs, which may effect your overall subdomain.

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          Marketing Meritposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I thought idle hubs was intended to hide the low quality/traffic hubs?
          
          Isn't pending status just a delay to assess quality of hubs prior to official publication?

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             janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             =>Isn't pending status just a delay to assess quality of hubs prior to official publication?
             Yes it is, but I have never had one knocked back - surely established authors can be trusted. The pending causes delays in indexing - instead of 30 minutes it an be days or weeks!! => lost of traffic and earnings.

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             1. 93

                Marketing Meritposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Yes, Janderson99...I agree entirely and am equally as frustrated as yourself!
                
                My response was specifically to WryLilt's comment that:
                
                =>"Pending status was essentially meant to hide low quality or low traffic hubs, which may effect your overall subdomain".
                
                and intended to distinguish between 'pending' hubs and 'idle' hubs.
                
                I personally see little merit to the the 'pending' process and also believe that established authors should not have to be penalised because of the sub-standard submissions of some authors.
                
                Whilst quality is difficult to assess I have been rather surprised that hubs are allowed to be published with more or less a paragraph. I know that there are some formats such as videos and recipes which may not require many words, but I am not referring to these.
                
                It is AUTHORS who need to go into 'pending' publication mode and not all hubs.
                
                I also note that some authors are already receiving preferential treatment by automatically having their hubs approved i.e. no 'pending' period and others published within a couple of hours. Mine are all 24 hours to the minute, more or less!
                
                What happened to the level playing field?
                
                The lack of staff feedback and transparency concerning this is irksome. All I have read is that they are 'trialling' some changes and nothing further.

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                   WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   Sorry, hadn't had my morning coffee. Yes, I meant to write idle,  not pending.
                   
                   I do agree that trusted authors should be able to bypass this. Or crawlers should be blocked completely from even crawling pending hubs.

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                      Tealparadiseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      Yes!  This irks me as well - why is it 24 hours exactly?
                      To the minute?
                      
                      If they were actually looking at each hub, it would be checked and passed through on a somewhat variable schedule.  BUT that is not what is happening - hubs are going through exactly at the max time, almost as though if they are not checked, they simply pass through after this damaging delay.
                      
                      To me, the appearance is that Hubpages wanted to implement some moderation, but doesn't have the manpower.  So they are hurting many in order to moderate a small sample.  Frustrating!
                      
                      I'm sure they have access to the published time & date, why not moderate retroactively and just inform users that any hub can be sent back for review within the first week?

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                         summerberrieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         This sounds like a good idea to me.

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    2. 85

       DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Agreed,  tillsontitan,
       While I wasn't making a ton of money, I had finally at least broken the payment threshold...but not yet on a monthly basis..I was at a little over a dollar a day... now, I am behind...it is the 26th of the month, and I'm at 25 bucks instead of the 26 and change I'd started seeing before all this... this...  well, this crap!

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13. 94

    thooghunposted 11 years ago

    Signed. It doesn't seem to be doing the platform, it's traffic trends or its' writers any favors. Having Gbot bounce away with a noindex tag has led to crawling rates becoming a desert wasteland among my hubs.

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    1. 86

       IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Is HP experimenting with us?
       
       The noindex tag is being applied to most, BUT NOT ALL, writers' new hubs.
       
       The only newly published hubs being featured under hubs> latest are all from the same small group of authors.

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          EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          

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             IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             

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          Isabella Snowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I don't see a "latest" section, can you link to it please?

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             IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             http://hubpages.com/hubs/latest/

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                Isabella Snowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Thanks!

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