Category Archives: SEO

You’re optimizing the wrong page on your Google +

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You’re optimizing the wrong page on your Google +

I had a discussion with Stephan Hovnanian ( https://plus.google.com/105076725141939280120/about , who is someone you might want to follow by the way on Google Plus) about optimizing your Google plus profile. Here’s the deal in my opinion. People are always talking about “optimizing” your profile, when that’s a long term losing game.

Your profile page is like a scrolling screen. Google probably see’s every post you make as a new page, and every time you make another post about cute cats, or your amazing insight into… whatever… every post you made previously gets pushed down the page (or buried under more stuff). That causes your links in those posts to gradually diminish in value, both from a readership standpoint (come on, when was the last time you read more than 3 or 4 of the most current posts on a profile page) but also from a SEO value.

Your “About Page” on G+

You could be optimizing your “About ” page, and getting far more SEO value. The About page doesn’t scroll, and is attached to your profile page. Every time you get a mention of your about page or add it as a link on an decent authority site, you are getting far more value when it comes to SEO.  Not that you want to ignore all the very cool and important ways to utilize your profile and posts.  That IS important. But a complete focus on your profile is a short term strategy.  If you build the value of your about page…. it will naturally build the visibility of your profile, and… you don’t have to constantly update, plus, mention, post, engage…

Places to add your About Page URL

Here are places you should mention and add your About page:

  • Your Facebook page

  • Your Linkedin Profile

  • Your Web site  (the Google badge goes to your profile, why not add an additional mention  and link to your About page)

  • Any other social directories you participate in.

  • Twitter

  • Any forums you participate in

  • Blog comments you make from time to time

  • On your blog

  • Add to your email signature

I bet you  can think of many more. So what happens if I do all this you ask?  Well, all the things you hope will happen as far as your sites, blogs and authority will get better.

Needless to say, if you are going to start paying more attention to your About page, please read up on all of the good info out there on how to build a good one.  And trust me, it can be a very powerful page for your internet visibility, and therefore every page you have a link to on that page..

So, if someone were to ask me, would you rather have a link to your site in a post on a profile which slowly just loses it’s value as it sinks deeper and deeper into the G+ (or Facebook, or whatever) catalog of millions of posts that are made every day, or on an About page, which never moves down into that cavernous digital vault of old posts.  Which makes more sense?

By Mike Bayes. My About Page on Google Plus


 

Worth the Read. Best SEO and Marketing Articles

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A collection of great articles and Blogs over the last few months.

When I read an exceptional blog I put it in my pocket to read or reference later.  I thought it might be a good idea to share some of the better ones here.  Some are SEO related, some are content marketing (same thing right?)  and then just good marketing.

SEO:

http://justinbriggs.org/sometimes-seo-is-just-seo

Just one of the best and simple SEO articles in years.  Can it really be as simple as he makes it sound?  Yes.  Read this if you get stuck on an SEO project.

Content Marketing:

Well, more like content distribution. If you want some tips on how and where to publish your blog, Mike Allton is the guy to read.

http://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/how-i-promote-my-new-blog-posts-04162013

SEO Checklist:

If you don’t have one, this is really great.  From beginners to professionals you should find some great ideas here, or at least a nice list to work from and cross check.

http://www.myoptimind.com/seo-audit-checklist-20-tasks-that-every-website-owner-shouldnt-forget-about/

Creating a referral group:

We all want them, but how do you build a really strong referral group?  This article has some powerful ideas if you are willing to work at it. In my experience, it’s one of the better tactics you should use.  Stop advertising and get on the referral ban wagon.

http://www.melissadata.com/enews/marketingadvisor/articles/0811b/1.htm

Non technical Startups:

And here is one for all of us non tech types who want to do a startup.  I loved this article. If you have ever felt a bit frustrated because it seems like all of the successful startups are tech driven,  read this. Great advice for all of the non tech entrepreneurs.

http://benogle.com/2013/03/25/an-idea-for-non-technical-founders-service-first-business.html

Enjoy, and let me know what you think about these articles.

By Mike Bayes


 

Google Plus for SEO. A Fellini Movie Set in Algorithms.

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Google + for SEO. A Fellini Movie Set in Algorithms.

SEO practitioners are, by their very nature, curious. I think this is the main reason they continue to research and track and measure in a business area where there are no “right answers, or at least, not that stay right  for very long. SEO is a changing landscape like no other I’ve experienced in business. It’s more analogous to a game of chess where the rules change every three moves. The queen becomes the pawn, the pawn becomes a soccer ball. Its a Fellini movie set in algorithms.

According to wikipedia.org “Curiosity killed the cat is a proverb used to warn of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation. An easier definition of the phrase curiosity killed the cat would be that being curious can sometimes lead to trouble”. As SEO companies we all understand that we ultimately are lead to trouble when we become completely focused on the newest SEO rage, currently the Google plus platform.

It seems like every 30 minutes there is a new post (on G+)  about the miracles of G+  and SEO.  It’s a mass conscientious thing. One well known SEO makes a post or blog stating G+ has potential, and then every young SEO gun slinger wants to prove it is so. The young guns do a lot of the early testing,  and when one or two stumble upon some curious correlation between say… the alt tag in your g+  profile picture and one high ranking low competition keyword, the content marketing crowd goes to work flaming the fires of curiosity, all for the benefit of traffic, not truth.

Even if all of this discourse on Google plus for SEO has a substantial amount of truth in it, the fact remains, (and this is where so many of us fail, and get “killed”), there is no one historic case you can point out where an SEO gold mine platform, wasn’t converted conveniently by  Google  into just another web page over time, leaving those who invested too heavily in it, poorer than when they began.  Can any one who has been working in the SEO community for more than a few years, honestly say, that even IF G+ is the greatest SEO platform in the world today, that in a blink of an eye, it won’t just become another web page or site, like any other, at any moment.

We should be curious…  but diverse. We should view all new trends and correlations with historical perspective, and not let the current mania du jour  form our operating principles.

 By Mike BAyes


 

Local SEO. The One Fix to Jump Start Your Rankings

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Local SEO. The One Fix to Jump Start Your Rankings

A few months ago a new prospect who has been using several different SEO type companies asked me why their site still couldn’t be found online.  This is a good question as they have spent thousands of dollars, in a slow and painful trickle, to SEO and Internet marketing people via a $350.00 monthly payment over several years. (That’s like 8K total)

Mike closing2So, I like any professional give the standard SEO guy answer, let me look at it.  The first tactic I use to figure out what is going wrong in a Local Business ranking is to see where they are currently listing online and what those listings have in them. Specifically do the sites they are currently listed on have the correct information on the company’s name, address, phone number, and categories.

In this case the potential client had a real mess going on.

One of his “SEO” companies had built two different web sites with two different URLs, both with different phone numbers (for tracking I assume) and their correct company name and physical address. They had also listed these sites with the wrong information in many of the standard local directories everyone uses, including Google of course.

They also had a HomeAdvisor listing with a tracking number, and….  they even had several directories where someone years ago had listed their home phone number and address before they had a nice big office in a nice big office building.

All of this created a very confused Google.

Google loves consistent information about your company. They are robots… they have a mission, and the first mission is to collect information on your business name, address, phone and URL. IF they see different versions, they completely lose their confidence, and push your website rankings way down, so they don’t have to deal with it. I am not joking. These robots are cowards.

The reality was they didn’t need SEO, they needed an Internet Janitor to clean up a horrible listings mess.  And this is where so many SEO’s and businesses get it all wrong, from the very beginning. They start with checking back link reports.  Back link reports will not show you the inconsistent listing issue. You must search like a human (hey… that sounds like a song title… “Search like a human”), anyway. Go to Google and type in the Company name.  Now go to every site that shows up for that company and see if it has the right Name, Phone, Address and URL.

I have seen rankings plummet when a business uses DEX advertising with a call tracking number. Dex will publish the company name, address and the tracking number, all over local directors to encourage salespeople to call the client, so DEX can make a dollar of two on the call.

It all comes down to this.

A confused search engine is a big problem. And when Google see’s different information for the same company, they don’t call you and ask, because they are robots, they just bury your rankings because Robots have no feelings.

In many cases, the fastest way to get your sites rankings up is to fix any old, incorrect, or in any way inconsistent listings that exist online today. Most businesses can do this on their own by contacting each site that needs to be corrected.  In some cases, it’s really hard, so if you can clean up most of them, you probably have done enough to fix the problem.  Or, you can hire an Internet janitorial firm (like us) and we will do it for you.  The main thing is Don’tMike closing2 continue to pay for SEO until this is completed. You may be surprised to see your site appearing on the first page for your important services after a good clean up.

Not sure if this is your issue on rankings?  See that click to call banner over on your left,<<<<< —— it rings directly to my desk.  Feel free to use it, and I can tell you in 5 minutes if you have issues.  If I don’t pick up, leave a message and I will call you back.

By Mike Bayes


 

Top Five Local SEO Ranking Killers

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Top Five Local SEO Ranking Killers. Sometimes it’s more important to know what will kill your rankings than what will help your local rankings.

1.)    Inconsistent Name , Address or Phone, on different web sites.

Architecture of a Web crawler.

Architecture of a Web crawler. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Clean up old listings that have the old address by searching that address in Google, and then contacting each site and up dating it to the new address.

Same thing for a changed phone number.  Google the number to see what sites have it listed and get it changed or deleted, and if for some odd reason (and we have seen this several times) you have a different URL, with a different phone number, please remove the site!

As a side note make sure your business listings are consistent in every directory. Same exact name, same exact phone number and same exact address. 

A confused robot is not your friend!  ( Robots are what Search engines use to look at your site) 

2.)    No Address on the Site

English: White hat seo symbolizes good ethic t...

I don’t know why I see so many local web sites with no address listed. I assume it’s because they are home based. In most cases, you should either list your home address, or get an office. You can hide your home address on Google Places  (as a matter of fact its part of their terms of service that if you are home based, to click do not show my address). Any way, if its really important that you don’t want your prospects to know you are working in your pajama’s, as if they won’t figure it out anyway, your not going to have good rankings. And if you had good rankings you could probably afford the little office up the street. LIST YOUR ADDRESS, PHONE and Company name on the home page.

3.)    No local citations

 It takes an hour or two to list your company in the important local directories.  Go to getlisted.org (It’s free and a great resource).  List your business with most of the directories they recommend.

4.)    Using Dex tracking numbers for your PPC

There is some disagreement in the SEO world about how damaging this is. I have had several discussions with some of the countries best Local Maps and Local SEO experts , most notably Mike Blumenthal (see his blog here http://blumenthals.com/blog/  and follow it if you are a serious local SEO student), But they all do agree that after looking at some case studies, a DEX tracking number published on multiple different local directories is not good for your rankings.

I would take it a bit further, IT IS A COMPLETE RANKING KILLER for Google Places.  It’s the same thing as having different phone numbers published on different web sites. It confuses the Robots, and then you are in rankings trouble.

5.)    No Meta Titles or descriptions or poorly written ones.

So your nephew did your web site when he was studying web design… nice! The most important part of your web site for SEO, is your meta title.  If you don’t know what that is (and you can not see it BTW on your site) call a web design firm or SEO and ask them to check.  If its your company name, your hurting your rankings, unless you want to rank for people who all ready know who you are).  Have a pro take a look at your meta tags, and your on site SEO in general while they are there. This one may cost you a few hundred dollars on up to fix (including the on Site SEO changes), and yes 90% of the web design firms you speak with with tell you to build a new site (and maybe you should), but, just get the tags right to start!

These are the top 5 ranking killers for Local sites that we have seen. And any one of them can keep your site from being well ranked. It’s worth the time to have a company ( like us) fix this issues if Search Engine traffic is important.

 Our site

 

 

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13 Good Luck Tactics For Your SEO Programs

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13 Good Luck Tactics for your SEO program.

We all know SEO is hard work, and lot’s of research, but as in anything, some good luck is always welcome. Here are the top 13 tatctics to attract good luck for your SEO.

1.) Type in your search term every hour, click on your listing, stay on home page AT LEAST 45 seconds. Click onto another page. Stay there as you hold your breath to the count of 10.

2.) Do this again from another IP address, but stick your tongue out as you hold your breath.

3.) Go to any of the Google blogs, and make HIGHLY positive comments about them. But be sincere, like you can tell them how great their Google Places service team is. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

 

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

 

4.) Go to Rand Fishkin’s wife’s blog and make a comment about how smart her husband is. http://www.everywhereist.com/  . Buy the way, it’s a great blog!

5.) Never, ever mention SEO in any article or published piece that in any way can be associated with you or a client.

6.) State on your site you do not list clients because you don’t want Google to know who they are.

7.) Each week mention how sexy your wife or girlfriend thinks Matt Cutts is. Post a picture of her on your blog. If need be, post a picture of a model and say its your girlfriend or wife. You can extra points if you mention it here. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

8.) Always use broad match in your Adwords… and spend too much.

9.) Do a blog weekly on how great Google Plus is. Extra credit if you bash facebook or microsoft. (I find that pretty easy to do).

10.) Just tell people they can find your site by Googling you or your company name, because, yes, you are that good. ( You might remind them to add the city after the name just in case)

11.) Carry a lucky mouse foot around in your pocket with your keyword and site written on it.

 

 

Computer mouse

Computer mouse (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

12.)  Brag about your new Chromebook on your Facebook page and refer them to the post you made about it on your Google + page.

13.) Hire someone from fiverr to search on google just like this:
Your Company name | Popular in your keyword   100 times a day.

Using all of these on a consistent basis will do wonders for your rankings. Do you have any you can add?

These are just some that work for us..  What good luck tactics have you found work?


 

Mike Bayes

 

 

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Twitter and Local SEO

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A fellow SEO just noticed some major keywords are showing up on the first page of Google.  I wonder if you use a hashtags on your tweets for your company or a local brand (company name) of it would do the same thing?

Here are two quick examples of Twitter Hashtags showing up from searches in Denver:  Searched : Earthquake

twitter forst page earth QScreenshot_1

Here is a search for Denver

twitter on First page ColoradoScreenshot_1

I think I will start Tweeting with the Company as a hashtag and see what happens. I will use #Myonecall.

Any one else want to help just to see if it shows up?

 

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2013 Local SEO Predictions. Content Marketing Is Phooey

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2013 Local SEO Predictions. Content Marketing is Phooey.

I am going against the general concord in SEO circles this year (what a shock right?) on what will work for SEO firms in 2013, and make a big statement.  Links matter more than ever, and are in fact (after your on site work) the absolute most important aspect to any successful SEO program.

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

There is a ton of content marketing, and social signal pundits in SEO since Panda and Penguin marched into town burning and destroying all search rankings developed with sophomoric and thoughtless tactics, that will tell you the only path to high Internet traffic is through a massive content marketing strategy.  The mass hysteria that  followed has been epic.

I have read a great volume of blogs’ and posts on “how to “implement SEO now that every thing has changed. The truth is, very few “things” have changed, and authors are simple feeding a hungry and worried Internet Marketeering community.

I recently posted on a very popular blog (about local SEO issues) that the loss of keyword information from Google was not a really big deal for local services. I mean, if you need a keyword tool to tell you how people find a local Plumber, you may want to get another gig. SEO is not for you in 2013. Most will use the word Plumber. Maybe add service, company, a city, I mean there just are not all that many combo’s to figure out. In my experience, what is important in local internet visibility is not the combination of keywords a prospect uses, but how they use those combinations in search. Most SEO firms won’t even report (because there is no automated tool to do so) how a site ranks in important local zip codes with no local intent term used. And this is becoming the MAJOR search type for local services.

 

English: White hat seo symbolizes good ethic t...

This race to content now being promoted as the SEO tactic de jour may be exactly what we think it is when it comes to non local sites.  For local sites, and local SEO, which is where the vast majority of us plow the ground, it is in many cases complete phooey. Not that great content is phooey, just that this obsession with great content as the number one all in one SEO device is phooey. Google wants a site to communicate the information a person goes to that site for (I am guessing). A local plumber doesn’t need to be the Robert Frost of the copper pipe crowd, to rank well.  They just need to have a well designed 4 or 5 page site, giving people what they want to read and see when they get there.

Example: In the last 4 months we have ranked a site with one page of actually content (two pages total) for a local intent keyword, by adding a few local back links, using an emd, and ummm that was it. Does it have much competition?  Yes, some.  Would it ever have a chance of ranking on a national search? No. And that’s the point; Local SEO is to National SEO what Physics is to the M theory.  They both deal with universe in completely different ways.

So for Local SEO in 2013:

  • Backlinks to your site will continue to be the number one (off site) ranking factor.
  • On Site SEO will continue to be important.

That’s it.

PS  A backlink doesn’t mean a listing on a horrible directory that no one ever visits. It means a mention of your site on a site that real people who might be interested in your service visit, and may actually click through to your site based on that visit. It may also mean an advertisement on a highly promoted site, or a mention on a popular face book or linked in page.   This hasn’t change in the last 2 years. Spammy directories and link wheels where never good for SEO. If you were using those and keyword stuffing and all of that, then I will agree with you, your SEO has changed a lot.

 

By Mike Bayes


 

 

 

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How A Blog Can Help Your Google Rankings, Or Not

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How A Blog Can Help Your Google Rankings  (again, and again):

Blogging is a buzz word in the small and medium business community. Almost every client we talk with (or potential client) wants to know how to do a blog because they have “heard” it will help their search engine rankings. This falls into the tradition of small business owners being about 8 years behind on new marketing tactics. That’s not a criticism, it’s a reality. Most small business owners don’t have the hours in a day needed to stay on top of anything besides what they do.

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

The Bad News.  Although there is clearly some truth left in that assumption that a blog will help your sites rankings, but, and it’s a big but, if  you are to see an increase in your sites popularity based on a blog, it must have valuable content that other sites and social media will pick up on and mention.  If your blog is just another 700 + words of regurgitated news, facts, rumors, or opinion  already published or blogged about on the Internet by 100 or 1000 other sites your chances of a web master or influential social media picking up on the blog are very low.  And if your Blog isn’t mentioned on other web sites, it gets no help in rankings.

Additional Value of a Blog bedside’s Rankings. Now, if your blog gives your prospective clients or current customers some unique insight into your business or industry, even if they are not going to mention it or link to it, it’s still of value, just not for your search engine visibility. It will help you become more of a trusted source for whatever it is you do.

Blog Machine

Blog Machine (Photo credit: digitalrob70)

Internet Marketers Are Blog Obsessed. That’s a problem, because many (and I mean many) Internet Marketers have had some success with getting their blog or content mentioned and linked to, (and all that SEO stuff), by writing a blog,. They write blogs about blogs that are based on another blog in the hopes that someone they don’t know, and who is trying to get followers on twitter will retweet their content to an audience that has little or no interest in what they are saying, and have already seen the information 5 times in other higher authority blogs or sites.

The reason they have any success is it’s far more likely to get Internet Marketing content linked or mentioned on the INTERNET because Internet Marketers spend half their life reading this stuff.  If you are a Plumber, or a Dentist, the likelihood of having your content picked up is very small. Plumbers and Dentists, and normal people don’t spend their life on-line reading every blog written, even when its content is the same as the last 5 they read.

It’s important for an Internet Marketer to be up to date on all the new stuff on the Interweb, if for no other reason, so they can sound really knowledgeable and use uncommon words when they speak to Plumbers and Dentists. I call it selling through a vernacular fear factor. More on that some other time.

Latte_Blog

Latte_Blog (Photo credit: digitalrob70)

Blogging For Visibility.  So how does a small business utilize a blog for better Internet visibility? It’s all about the subject and content.

 

  • Blog about a question a customer asked you.
  • Blog about a unique problem you solved.
  • Blog about how a person can prepare for your service.
  • Blog about your kids.
  • Blog about your employees.
  • Blog about your favorite customers

All of the above will at a minimum be unique, and unique is the first principle of good content.  Any content you write and publish should have these attributes.

  • Unique
  • Interesting for your prospects
  • And if you can make it about the internet you’re really doing well.


 

By Mike Bayes, My One Call LLC, www.salesjumpstart.net

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The New SEO Citations

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The New Citations for SEO.  Or how SEO is changing

We think the new rankings algorithm is based on Supervised Learning and raw statistical analysis that Google uses. The change is probably simple, and frankly very logical.  I have two blogs listed at the end of this article you can read for more and better detailed information.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome (Photo credit: thms.nl)

Before the panda and penguin updates at Google It was too easy to use on site tactics ( Keywords and H1 Tags and meta titles) to influence rankings.

Google is now moving too, and undoubtedly is using more off site context, and content to determine what your site should rank for.  To do that they probably  look at all the “citations” (mentions) for your site, in what ever format they appear, and have a raw statistical analysis of the relevancy, and then the context.

The results would be very much in line with what we have seen with the Panda and Penguin updates and algorithm changes.  If your site
has been listed in a bunch of directories that have SEO or Rankings in the titles then Google starts with this:

You say your site is about Insurance.

Sites about or related to Insurance that you are listed on or mentioned:  3
Sites not about Insurance or related topics you are listed on:  200

You get credit for the three, and how much credit would depend on the Authority of the page and site you are listed on.

One of the interesting consequences of all this is the no follow or follow link value disappears.  As many “citations” may not have a link to your site.

Statistical analysis of the COM:QIC archives
So, in summary:

  • A Citation or link is only going to help you if it comes from a site or page that Google see’s as relevant to your site.That’s one reason your rankings dropped off the face of the earth if you where primarily using non relevant sites.

Words matter. Google probably (using raw statistical analysis) looks at what a relevant page citation says about your site, or the content about your site on that page.  ( Co-citation’s and such)

  • Follow or not, a high authority site citation with a link or without is still good for your sites Authority, and ranking.

 

  • On site signals continue to be important, but they only point  Google in a direction to determine your sites Authority theywon’t help your ranking on their own.

Interesting example.

We recently built a 2 page site about a specific remodeling type project. We wanted to test the exact match domain changes. The site
url is (Project Type) in (City).
We added it to 4 or 5 sites that were related directly to Remodeling.  We may have tweeted it, and added it to a facebook comment.

Two months later it was ranked number 1 for that very specific keyword, and on the first page for that keyword phrase in different form. It was (and is) ranking higher than several sites that have been around for a long time and had SEO companies working on for years (at least to an extent).

We originally thought the the exact match domain for local sites was still a very important ranking factor and it was that simple. Now, I think  if we had back linked the same 2 page site to 4 or 5 unrelated directories… or sites, that it would have never been ranked. Well, only one way to find out. Check back in a few months. We will give you an up date.

All of this is admittedly a very simplistic view of the new Google ranking changes. There are many other important factors. Our point is to communicate that many of the old SEO tactics don’t work any more, and why. For us, it’s all good news, as we have followed the
“act as if Google doesn’t exist” principle in SEO for years (to the extent any Internet marketing company like My One Call LLC can).
Our clients didn’t see any rankings drop over the last 6 months based on these new changes.

For far more detail read Joshua Giardino’s excellent blog here :http://blog.iacquire.com/2012/11/28/its-not-co-citation-but-its-still-awesome/

I also mentioned the SEOmoz blog on Co-citations on an early blog.  http://www.seomoz.org/blog/prediction-anchor-text-is-dying-and-will-be-replaced-by-cocitation-whiteboard-friday .

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By Mike Bayes