Blogger Blog by Switcher: Google

Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts

Blogger - How To Change Icon

Want to change the default Blogger icon in your template?

1) First thing you need is a new icon! You can create your own image in whatever image editor you are comfortable with (Paint Shop, Inkscape, MS-Paint, etc…), make the image 16x16 pixels & save as a .png image.

An alternative is to search Google for a 16x16 pixel .png image that’s already finished.

Here is a Google Image search I did for the word star imagesize:16x16 , you can change the word star to any subject you like, just keep the rest of the search string the same:

(example = cell phone imagesize:16x16).

2) We need to convert our .png image into a .ico file (icon image). Go to the Dynamic-Drive website, & use their online converter to upload you .png image, & create your new .ico file (icon image). After the icon is created, download the new icon to your PC desktop.

3) Now that we have our new icon, we need to upload the icon, to the internet. Blogger won’t let us host our own .ico file so we can use Google Sites for our host, you can follow a blog post I did Blogger - Host Javascript File for Free , this link will show you how to host your own files online for FREE, you do not need to change the extension for this tutorial, your icon URL should look something like this:

http://sites.google.com/site/YOUR_GOOGLE_SITE/PAGE1/YOURICON.ico

4) Paste the code below into your Blogger template just below the <HEAD> tag

<!-- Favicon -->
<link href='http://sites.google.com/site/YOUR_GOOGLE_SITE/PAGE1/YOURICON.ico'
rel='shortcut icon'/>
<link href='http://sites.google.com/site/YOUR_GOOGLE_SITE/PAGE1/YOURICON.ico'/>
<!-- end Favicon –>

NOTE: Make sure to change both of the URL’s to your own links, from your Google-Sites webpage. Press the Save Template button in your Blogger editor. Make sure when you paste the code into your Blogger template, that you have four individual lines of code, if the lines are broken you will get an error message in the Blogger Editor.

That’s it!

Visit your blog & you should see your new FAV icon at the top of your browser window.

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Icon,Code

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Blogger Meta Tag

I’ve been busy working on a really cool bit of Blogger Meta Tag code, the last couple of days. This new code will let me control all my meta tag content dynamically with the exception of my blogs homepage, which will have its own static meta tag content, that is still totally customizable.

What's all this mean, why do I need this?

The old way of creating Meta Tags for a Blogger Template, will only let us set the Meta Tag content for all of our Blogger blogs, as single Meta Tags, that shows the same content on every single blog page.

My new improved code will automatically write this dynamic content to the Blogger template for each individual blog page:

TITLE
Description Meta Tag
Keywords Meta Tag

1) Title Tag = Blog Post Title + Blog Post Labels + Blog Title

2) Description Meta Tag = Blog Post Title + Blog Post Labels + Blog Description

3) Keywords Meta Tag = Blog Post Labels

The Blog Title pulls it’s content from Blogger Control Panel –> Settings –> Title. The Blog Description in the Meta Tag Description pulls it’s content from the Blogger Control Panel –> Settings –> Description. All the Label content pulls it’s content from each individual blog posts labels, so we use those Labels as Keywords inside the Meta Tags.

What all this does is provide Google our own unique content & keywords, that have a very good chance of showing up inside the Google Search results Pages description, just below the Title. The reason I say a very good chance of showing up is, it’s impossible for any website on the net to force Google to use content. With the Meta Tag Description, Google most times will look for that tag & use it in the SERP.

I’ve had my new Dynamic Meta Tags crawled by Google & already showing up in the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page), after only a few hours of testing.

The image below, you can see a screenshot of my new Meta Tag content, from my last blog post

Blogger – Change your Tools

My intention is to have Google notice my blog for a wider dynamic selection of keywords & phrases, than my old static template. I’ll wait about a month & keep monitoring how Google Search handles the content in my SERP results, before I post any code for others to use on their own blogs, I want the code to be 100% up & running with results to show everyone.

Keep an eye out for related future blog post.

While I’m tweaking the code, have a look thru this blogs source code, to check out how every single page on this blog has dynamic Meta Tags & Page Titles (no two pages are the same).

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Meta Tags,Code,Google

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Blogger – Change your Tools

Google_Webmaster_Tools3 Blogger & Google Webmaster Tools, make for a great SEO team. A little known secret that GWT has buried deep inside it’s treasure chest of handy tools, is a feature that I’ve been very happy to find.

Have you ever wandered which of your own blog post was the highest rated on the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page)? I’m about to show you a very cool feature, that will show all of your most popular blog post, & not only that, everyone can view their own highest ranking SERP results for FREE!

Let’s get started!

1) First thing we need is a blog (check)

2) Go to Google Webmaster Tools

3) Select your blog name from the list of your blogs/websites

4) Click on the link Your site on the web

5) Click on the link Top search queries

6) You should see a list of words/phrases. Go to the far right side of the screen & click on the link that reads Position (see screenshot below)

Google_Webmaster_Tools

What you see in the above screenshot is the most popular search results from real people on the internet, searching for relevant information to this blog, from the last seven days.

Beneath the Position link, shows the real position for each group of search words, that the visitors to my site used to find this blog (soswitcher.blogspot.com).

Here is how I rank for these search strings in the past seven days:

1) google for free javascripts hosts

2) visible title code for blogger

As you can see I’m indeed number one in both of those search strings, for the last seven days. What’s better is, you can search for longer periods of time, example the screenshot below is for August.

Google_Webmaster_Tools2

The most interesting search I found, that just blew me away was one of the shortest search strings. The search string blogger change, shows I was number one in the month of August, but get this (here’s the good part) The search string blogger change has over 451,000,000 other pages, below my blog (I’m now 2nd place as of this post, still very happy).

All I can say is WOW!

Note:

Google Webmaster Tools takes a while to crawl your blogs pages, If you are new to GWT then you should follow my other blog post Better Google Sitemap when setting up new sitemaps for Google to crawl. The longer your involved with GWT the larger your list of SERP keywords will be.

Go check out your own Google Webmaster Tools, list of most popular search words, I think you will be very surprised at how well some of your blog post are ranking.

Lets hear how well your ranking. :)

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Google,SEO

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Blogger - Power of Text

I’m always looking at new & improved ways to SEO my Blogger blog. Each & every time I sit down to write a new Blogger post, I find myself finding better, more interesting information that gets me thinking of new & better ways of looking at Blogger SEO.

Today I was looking thru my Blogger Page Titles, & discovered the power that text plays in the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page), now I’m not talking about Hypertext Links, I’m talking plain old text, you know the same as this blog post.

Let’s backtrack a bit.

Back in April of 2009, I wrote a small Mp3 Plugin for Windows Live Writer, & posted the plugin on the Windows Live Writer Gallery. Inside of the description I posted a text only version of the URL to a sample of what the Mp3 Plugin would look like, so that the end user could make a quick decision to decide If that plugin was what they wanted. Since Windows Gallery wouldn’t let me post an actual hyperlink, I had to settle for a plain text version, & hope that anyone looking thru the Windows Live Writer Gallery, would copy & paste my text URL that I posted, into their own browser, & then find my blog.

Fast forward, to today.

I was looking thru Google Webmaster Tools, & found that I was getting a lot of Mp3 related organic search traffic from Google SERP. My first thought was that Google is wrong in what they are finding. I do have a few short blog post that are Mp3 related, but that wasn’t my ultimate goal for this blog, sure this blog is all about me sharing what I know, & what I discover while pushing this blog towards the top of the SERP. Could Google really be on to something, in my Google Webmaster organic search results?

The search results in question is Windows Live Writer Mp3, If you follow that link to the Google SERP, you’ll see that I’m not number one (or am I), the number one spot points to the Windows Live Writer Gallery, the really cool thing about this is, If you look at the number one spots description, it shows that single plain text link, that I posted back in April 2009, multiple times.

Now don’t take this post the wrong way, I’m not bragging about how well I’m ranking in the Google SERP, in fact 1million hits isn’t really that much as far as SERP goes. What I’m blogging about, is that plain text is a powerful tool, & can be used to replace hyperlinks, when your in a situation like I was, If the site your posting on doesn’t allow hyperlinks.

Now again only use this trick when you are actually contributing something to others, don’t use it for spam, nobody likes spam. In this example I did a lot of work to get that plugin working, I did days of research to learn how to hook into Windows Live Writer, with VB.NET to write my first Mp3 plugin, just try & do a Google search for any good info on the related subject.

Use the “POWER of Text” wisely. :)

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Google Webmaster Tools,SEO

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Blogger – Better Google Sitemap

Blogger & Google Sitemaps will allow your Blogger blog to get indexed by the Google spider with very few problems. Did you know that the Blogger code for the default sitemap, that you submit to Google Webmasters Tools only allows the first 26 pages of your blog to get indexed by the Google spider?

That’s right …

If you are using the default code as your sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools, your site is missing out, for every single page that is over the 26 page limit. So say I have 150 pages on my Blogger blog, the math says I’m missing out on the opportunity to allow the Google spider to crawl 124 additional Blogger pages, on my blog!

I’m ready for change …

I actually found out that I was allowing my Blogger blog to be short changed by the Google spider, on one of my other Blogger blogs, & this wasn’t only a few pages, it was a huge amount of pages, in fact my blog was over 400 pages long, & out of those 400 pages I was only allowing the Google spider to crawl 26 of my latest blog post.

Whooooa… STOP THE BUS!

The default sitemap code looks like this (see red/bold text below):

1) http://YOUR_BLOG_NAME_HERE.blogspot.com/atom.xml?orderby=updated

The code above is all good, as long as you have less than 27 blog post, but the fact is you’ll quickly find that you will with no doubt exceed that maximum limit at some point in your blog.

From all my research & trial & errors, on all my Blogger blogs for well over a year & a half, I’ve found the code below to be a better alternative to the default Blogger sitemap code. The new code will break the sitemap down into multiples of 100, so for every 100 pages on my blog, I need to tweak the sitemap code a little bit.

New sitemap code (Google spider crawls the first 100 blog post)

1) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100

So in the new sitemap code above, we start with the very first blog post (start-index=1) & now allow the Google spider to crawl to page 100 (max-results=100).

Say you have over 100 blog pages, what you need to do is submit additional sitemaps for the same blog at the Google Webmaster Tools website. As an example I have a Blogger blog that has over 400 pages, for that blog I have 4 sitemaps, that look like the code below.

1) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100

2) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=100&max-results=100

3) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=200&max-results=100

4) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=300&max-results=100

Notice how each new sitemap starts at a higher start-index, by 100 blog post. So for the sitemaps I have, I’m covered for the first 400 blog post of my Blogger blog.

Below is a screenshot of my sitemaps, for one of my blogs that has over 400 pages.

NOTE:

When you submit sitemaps to Google Webmaster Tools, for a Blogger blog. Google won’t crawl your Blogger Labels, that’s the reason why every page isn’t being crawled in the screenshot above.

This new sitemap code has greatly improved how Google crawls my blog, I went from having only the first 26 pages of my blog crawled to now having 324 pages crawled by the Google spider.

I have internal links hard coded into my template, on every blog page, so it’s important to me to allow Google to crawl as many pages as possible, as often as possible. I also have widgets that have text that changes often, that text also is picked up by the Google spider, which allows my blog to show a massive amount of relevant keywords, for my Blogger Blog.

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Bing – Marketing Ka-Ching!

Bing Search Page I was reading this article today on MSN, that ask the reader If they should save or pay down debt? While reading this short blog style article, I noticed that starting in the second paragraph, the writer started embedding search strings for the new Bing search engine from Microsoft.

Microsoft, what a clever company it is…

What makes Microsoft so clever in this article, isn’t the article itself, it’s the long list of URLs that move the reader from the article to Bing search results pages.

What’s so clever about the way they are moving traffic away from this article, you say? Isn’t it just an average article with URLs, that just happen to be pointing to a search page? No, no my friend this is internet marketing at it’s best.

Search page marketing…

This article is setup to drive traffic to Bing. While the author of this article moves readers to a premade search string on Bing that will find higher paying strong Microsoft keyword Ads.

It looks like Microsoft is building their new Bing search engine, with the help of a small army of bloggers, embedding all their blog style articles with premade Bing search pages.

Bottom line is, everyone has an exit point on every webpage, with this technique Microsoft is moving their traffic to position readers in front of higher paying Ads.

Microsoft, very clever indeed…

Technorati Tags: Bing,Adsense,Google

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Blogger – Title Labels Page Title SEO

The Blogger Page Title by default isn’t SEO friendly to say the least. I added a Title tag code snippet to my blogger template ( Blogger - Change Page Title Tags for your Blog ) a while back. Everything looked good on my Page Title, but when I did a Google search for each of my page Titles, my blogs homepage always showed up, instead of each specific page Title, in the Google search results, which wasn’t what I wanted at all!

The answer…

I started searching for a better way of handling my blog page Title problem, what I found was a snippet of code that would change everything about my page Titles in a far better way than I was looking to accomplish. This new code snippet not only added my blogs specific page Titles to all my Google searches, for my blogs page Titles, it also added all my Labels to my Google Search results (Very Cool)!

By adding my Blogger Labels to the Title of each page, I’m adding keywords to the Google search results, so that moves my blog post ~~one step~~ closer to the top of Google search.

The code…

Below are the steps to add your Labels to your Blogger page Title:

1) Backup your blog template .xml file, to your local PC

2) Go to your Blogger Dashboard & Layout –> Edit HTML

3) Find the <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title> tags at the top of your template, & delete them.

4) Add this code, above the <head> tag, at the top of the template :

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<b:section id='titleTag'>
<b:widget id='Blog2' locked='false' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>
<b:includable id='nextprev'/>
<b:includable id='backlinks' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='post' var='post'><data:post.title/></b:includable>
<b:includable id='status-message'/>
<b:includable id='comment-form' var='post'>
<div class='comment-form'>
<a name='comment-form'/>
<h4 id='comment-post-message'><data:postCommentMsg/></h4>
<p><data:blogCommentMessage/></p>
<data:blogTeamBlogMessage/>
<a expr:href='data:post.commentFormIframeSrc' id='comment-editor-src'/>
<iframe allowtransparency='true' class='blogger-iframe-colorize blogger-comment-from-post' frameborder='0' height='275' id='comment-editor' name='comment-editor' scrolling='no' src='' width='100%'/>
<data:post.friendConnectJs/>
<data:post.cmtfpIframe/>
<script type='text/javascript'>
BLOG_CMT_createIframe(&#39;<data:post.appRpcRelayPath/>&#39;, &#39;<data:post.communityId/>&#39;);
</script>
</div>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='backlinkDeleteIcon' var='backlink'/>
<b:includable id='postQuickEdit' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='main' var='top'><head>
<title>
<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<b:include data='post' name='post'/>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>&#8212;
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<data:label.name/>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast != &quot;true&quot;'>,
</b:if>
</b:loop>
</b:if>
</b:loop> &#8212;
<data:blog.title/>
</title>
</head></b:includable>
<b:includable id='commentDeleteIcon' var='comment'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinks'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinksBody' var='links'/>
<b:includable id='comments' var='post'/>
</b:widget>
</b:section>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/> AnyCustomTextHere</title>
</b:if>

5) Replace the text AnyCustomTextHere in the new code snippet (towards the bottom of the code), with any text that you would like to show at the end of your blogs Title.

Note:

This code does have a couple of things I don’t really like, still it does a much better job at blog post SEO than the default Title tags, or any other Title tags I’ve tried on any of my Blogger blogs, not to mention adding all your Blogger Labels into Google Search results :

If you want to change anything on your Blogger Dashboard Layout (edit gadgets, etc…) make the changes, but don’t click the SAVE button at the top right side of the screen. Blogger should still save your changes.
If you want to add any new gadgets to the Blogger Layout, remove the entire Title code snippet, from the Blogger HTML editor, then save your template, paste the Title code snippet into another text editor (Windows Notepad), until you are done adding gadgets in the Blogger Dashboard Layout, when finished adding gadgets, replace the Title code snippet you saved inside of Windows Notepad.
This new Title code snippet will also add all your comments from each blog post, to Google search results, I don’t like this feature & have tried to remove it, only to have blogger keep adding the code back to my Title tags, in the template, this is probably my biggest complaint about this code snippet, because each time someone adds a comment to your blog post, it will change your blog post rank in the search engines for better or worse.

Update:

Here is a link to a 2nd text file that includes similar code as this tutorial, this new code will only return Blogger Labels in the Page Title, everything installs the same on both versions.

(Download Blogger Labels Only - File)

Update:

Here is a link to a 3rd text file that includes similar code as this tutorial, this new code will only return Blogger Titles (without labels) in the Page Title, everything installs the same on all versions.

(Download Blogger Without Labels - File)

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Title,Page Title,Google

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Blogger – Profile Location

The last time I checked Google Blog Search, I found 604,632,067 search results for the word “blogspot”. Now that’s a lot of Blogger blogs out in cyber space.

I got to thinking about other bloggers that use the Blogger platform to host their blogs, but more specific, I was wanting to know If I could find any bloggers in my own town, you know geographically close to me.

What I found…

It’s actually very easy to find all the bloggers that host their blogs on a Blogspot domain, & are in the same town or at least very close to you. In the example below, I’ll look for all the Blogger members that are located in Bismark, North Dakota

http://www.blogger.com/profile-find.g?t=l&loc0=US&loc1=North+Dakota&loc2=Bismark
Here are the search results for the above URL

To find your own town/location change the text in red, If you state or town has two parts to it’s name (example:North Dakota) you will need to add a plus sign between the words, like I have done in the example link above.

You should also know that this only works on members that have filled out their Blogger Profile page. The example URL is also based on a search in the USA, If you have another country you would like to find, you can fill out the location of your profile page, in your blogspot profile. Once your blogspot profile location is completed you can right click/properties on the locations link to get the code for the country your in. Then just change the town, etc… to something close to your own location, If nothing shows up for your own town.

It’s kind of fun to see If you can find anyone you know in person, good luck with your search & have fun. :)

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Profile,Location

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Blogger - Blog List SEO

A Blogger Blog List is a gadget that will list your favorite blogs. Blogger Blog List gadgets can also be used as a simple blogger seo tool. My Blogger Blog List Gadget is at the bottom left side of my blog, it’s a short list of outgoing links, to my favorite blogs. What looks like any other gadget, is by all means an interesting gadget.

Here’s why!

I’m always tweaking my blog (who isn’t, right? lol), most times tweaking the template. What I found was, while researching some of my blog post Titles in Google search, was that my Blogger Blog List was also showing up in my search results page.

You might think, well so how is that a good thing or why does it matter at all? When one of my favorite blogs post a new blog post on their blog, what happens is, their RSS will update the Blogger Blog List gadget at the bottom of my blog (stay with me).

Here is when the magic happens.

When Google crawls my blog, looking for new content, well guess what I haven't made a blog post in a week, no fear, one of my friends in my Blogger Blog List made a new post on their blog. Google looks at my blog while still crawling & see’s that BINGO my Blogger Blog List has new content. That’s right, Google see’s new content! So what If I didn’t post anything new in the last week, the Google spider found something that’s changed on my blog.

So what does all this mean?

The Blogger Blog List gadget will let you piggyback on the shoulders of your friends new blog post, & not only that, you get search engine optimization for FREE, so what it’s not keyword specific to any of your blog post, what matters here is, your getting your own blog post messages ranking in a new way.

Below are some of my own examples, from my Blogger Blog List:

Blogger Templates

WebHostingGeeks – Most Efficient Web Hosting Review Website

The MLxperience

Can Zemanta make my blog posts more interesting? (It won't take much)

So, have you noticed your Blogger Blog List showing up in your Google search?

Technorati Tags: Google,Blogger,Gadget,Blog List

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Blogger – Feedburner in Google Images

Blogger & Feedburner are both great Google products. Did you know Feedburner images, posted on Blogger, will show up in Google Images, as a Feedburner .GIF image?

I actually found this out by searching for one of my blog post Titles, to see what images are showing up on Google Images.

This will only work If you already have a Feedburner account setup, & have the Feedurner image posted on your Blogger site.

So If you already have the Feedburner Feed on your blog, try this:

Go to Google Images
Search for one of your Blogger post Titles & only the name of your blog (example:SoSwitcher) not the end (example: .blogspot.com)
My Google Image search looks like this “Blogger Ad Code Converter soswitcher”
Below is the result image from my search , it’s not an active URL, just the image.

Something else that is cool, the above image will always be updated with the newest content from my blog, since it’s an animated .GIF, while it still shows on Google Images.

What’s funny is, my search results show more links pointing to bloggertricks, than my own blog (lol).

This might not look like a big deal, having a single image on the net, the way I see it, every little bit helps a future visitor find my blog. :)

Switcher

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Feedburner,Image

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Google Maps Plugin – Windows Live Writer

This is my third “Windows Live Writer Gallery” plugin.

This plugin will let you Insert the Google Maps code, that Google Maps will produce when you do a search.

The options are, Align map in blog post:

Left
Center
Right

Step 1: Go to Google Maps & search for a map location.

Step 2: Click on the “Link” URL, Upper Right Side of your browser window (see screenshot).

Step 3: Right click on the “Paste HTML to embed in website” textbox, & copy that code to your PC clipboard.

Step 4: Select how you want the Map to be aligned in your blog post (left, center, or right).

Step5: Click the “Insert Google Code” button in the “Google Maps Plugin” (when you click the button, the code from Google Maps will be pasted into the plugin).

Step 6: Click the “Save” button, in the “Google Maps Plugin”

This example below has a map to “Disneyland” inserted into my blog.

Download this plugin “Windows Live writer Gallery”

View Larger Map

Technorati Tags: Windows Live writer,Google Map,Map,Plugin

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Search Google - for Music

Google is great for searching out webpages, but did you know Google will search for music, video, or just about any type of media? I’ve used the search string hacks for a couple of years now, to find mp3 music. That’s all fine & dandy, the problem is all those long search strings start getting annoying after a while.

So anyway, a while back I was doing a Google mp3 search, & came across a site that will let you enter only the info you really care about (song title, etc…), at first I thought hey this is kinda cool, then I got to searching & thought hey this is GREAT!

Why is googlemusicsearch.com so great, well first, after you do a music search, you get the usual looking Google search results, here’s the kicker, at the bottom of each search result is a link “scan for music”, what this does is scan the search links for mp3 files, without ever leaving the search results page, then displays the results in the same search results page, & provides all the mp3 download links, all without ever leaving the search results page, now that’s cool!

Blogger Blog by Switcher: Google | SoSwitcher

Blogger - How To Change Icon

Blogger Meta Tag

Blogger – Change your Tools

Blogger - Power of Text

Blogger – Better Google Sitemap

Bing – Marketing Ka-Ching!

Blogger – Title Labels Page Title SEO

Blogger – Profile Location

Blogger - Blog List SEO

Blogger – Feedburner in Google Images

Google Maps Plugin – Windows Live Writer

Search Google - for Music

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