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#just a normal frog. common frog (uk)
baalzebufo · 4 months
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frog in da garden what will he do
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magistralucis · 5 years
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[四十九齋 / 3 - Introversion.]
Mimi was kind of a chungus.
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That’s a weird way to begin a memorial post, but there it is. It had little effect on her mobility or health while she lived, but she was a plump girl. It wasn’t because Mimi was greedy: she ate the same food as Monty did, and the same amount. When there was a roast dinner on she would hover around, hoping someone would slip her a sliver of meat, but these dinners weren’t exactly common and she wasn’t outspoken about her begging. She simply sat by your feet and stared at you, hoping you’d relent.
I’m torn when I remember those times. Human food and cats shouldn’t mix as a default, but I don’t regret slipping her the little bits I did. She knew I was soft for her, and she got some nice (unseasoned!) chicken out of it. It was a deal between us.
Mimi loved to eat, but she was a very slow eater. She was the kind of cat that has to drag its food out of the bowl to eat it. (I doubt it was whisker sensitivity; she did this with every food vessel she had over the years, bowls and plates.) Not, in any case, the profile of a particularly greedy cat. Unlike her brother. Monty is a loud boy. He meows and climbs on you to this day to beg for human food. He stole more bits than Mimi ever did, and he’s still healthy and thin as a rail - whereas I, over the years, remember so many moments I would glance at Mimi and see a massive loaf of sinister bread.
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A massive, purry loaf of sinister bread. She was so tempting to pet.
No, the issue was that Mimi didn’t like to move. She moved fluidly, but only when she wanted to. She reacted to toys and catnip, but she wasn’t into leaping or catching; she would stare at fish-rod toys and take swipes without jumping up for it, and she wasn’t into chasing ball toys or anything that actually required her to move. In Mimi’s middle age she lost interest in toys entirely, which made things more difficult.
She didn’t care for the outdoors either. I hear she used to bring back live frogs from the garden when she was younger, but by the time Mimi and I were freshly acquainted, she'd stopped doing that. She was never outside for longer than twenty minutes at a time in all the years I knew her, and eventually, she refused to go out at all. Sun or rain or snow, it wasn’t her thing.
Perhaps this was for the best. Cats contribute to massive destruction of wildlife in the UK. Nowadays, it’s accepted wisdom that indoor cats remain indoors, and Mimi lived according to that wisdom: in her entire life she hunted a single woodpigeon and then she just never went outside again. The older she got, the more reluctant she was to even step out onto the porch.
Mimi’s spot was by the windowsill. She could hop up there - she loved vertical space, she was very mobile when she needed to jump - and watch everyone else go about their day. She also liked beds; she would curl up and nap in mine if I wasn’t there, and if I was reading or working on there, she had her own spot by the foot of the bed she could loaf in. Here she is in her favourite spot, modeling my Rammstein wallet.
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I still use that wallet. Over seven years and not a stitch loose. There is still an indent of her body on the mattress where she used to sit.
What this boils down to, I think, was that Mimi was introverted. She was a mobile cat, but only on her own terms. She ate when she wanted to, she moved (usually at night) when she wanted to, and although she liked Monty well enough she was always a limb’s length away from her own brother. As I found out firsthand, Mimi took some time to warm up to visitors, treating them with detached curiosity - but she was perfectly happy to watch others pass by as she sat on the windowsill, dogs and babies and all.
All this makes me think she was just an introvert, and a cat after my own heart. Because she was indoors all the time, she was great company for me when I was undergoing the worst depression of my life. I was ashamed of being home all the time. I was scared and tired of people; Mimi wasn’t shy or scared, but quiet, and she showed me that it was all right to live one’s life according to one’s own schedule. I think cats are born mindful to their core, and it was watching Mimi serenely accept the world around her that cemented that belief. It was really encouraging to come home after an errand and watch Mimi rush out to welcome me. Due to her plumpness she didn’t scramble onto her hind legs as Monty does, but had her own strange way of locomotion: she’d dig her claws into the carpet and start dragging herself sideways across the floor, writhing in the happiness her loved ones’ arrival afforded her. It made me laugh a lot and gave rise to such fantastic moments as this.
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I loved her. I loved her so much.
Who will welcome me home now?
In my country they keep cremains for a long time. It’s normal for us to maintain grave sites and hold jesa rituals for up to five generations. Urns can remain in beautiful columbariums for decades on end, and as you can see in that picture, people will offer constant flowers and mementos to those urns as if to a grave. The scattering of the ashes within are not expected as a necessary end stage, but when they are, we carry the urn around the deceased’s favourite places in life and release the ashes somewhere they loved. I don’t know where I’d even scatter Mimi. She was such a homebody.
[ 四十九齋 | Previous / Next ]
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brassash3 · 4 years
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Fake Tan And Also Melanotan Shots
How Long Does Melanotan 2 Take To Work
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Melanotan 2 Nasal Spray Kits (.
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One of the most common Melanotan-II side effects include light queasiness and also warm flush in face. In situation you don't wish to experience this Melanotan 2 neutral result, take the medication right before going to bed. By so doing, in as much as the medicine will be activating your body to create an impulse to make love, your mind will be too inactive to process the called for action and so, you will not feel aroused. Otherwise, you can simply await the impact and also have some great time with your love.
Several of my member of the family utilize it and in my opinion, and i like my phony tan, it looks too orange. It doesn't look all-natural and u can inform a mile off that its been utilized. My skin highlighting after the last usage was one factor, plus I now appear to tan quicker. It's that solid and you still need to make use of the sunlight to bring the tan out. Normally a 10mg training course is sufficient however numerous go straight in there at too expensive a dose and also darken also quickly. If you have any kind of scar tissue or moles this will certainly darken at a much faster price. Melanotan II- A quick history as well as explanation of this peptide hormone.
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I just recently saw a person who, despite making use of skin-brightening products, saw noticeable skin dimming in an extremely brief time when taking melatonin for a few weeks. Top Qaulity Easy to Use Peptide Kits Ireland has actually not been fully evaluated, as well as due to its potential negative effects it is not advised that anybody use this medicine. No evidence exists for the use of melatonin II in pregnancy or bust feeding however it is suggested that it should be stayed clear of. He claims when people inject melanotan it can alter the look of their moles and also freckles. Melanotan resembles a material in our bodies, called "melanocyte-stimulating hormone." This hormone increases the production of skin-darkening pigments. Melanotan might likewise work in the brain to promote erections of the penis. If you are naturally really pale I would never ever trouble with sunbeds, it's a pointless and unneeded danger for a very little result.
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As we have several satisfied customers throughout the UK, we pride ourselves in using an option to acquire an all-body tan that is basic and also efficient to utilize. Identification and characterization by LC‐UV‐MS/ MS of melanotan II skin‐tanning items marketed unlawfully on the web. When you reconstitute MT2 to the appropriate concentration, it's currently time to administer it, an activity that you'll do using an insulin syringe. One thing that you'll discover regarding the syringe is that it's not just small but calibrated in IU. so, if you want to carry out 0.3 mls, you'll gauge the medication approximately the 30 IU mark in the syringe. As discussed previously, starting at a high dosage raises your opportunities of experiencing a Melanotan-II issue such as queasiness.
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All of these tanning variables can make it challenging to give the proper recommendations on an upkeep dose for every user. Consequently, a person's application frequency can be found with experimentation. The Melanotan 2 maintenance does are taken when the preferred pigmentation has been reached and also requires much less regular shots. Loading methods taking doses a lot more regularly to accumulate a first tan faster. This can imply the customer will certainly reach a tanning upkeep dosage sooner. If these adverse effects occur, the individual's dosage can be administered prior to going to sleep, so any undesirable results occur while the individual is asleep. With routine use, these side effects will certainly dissipate, as well as the item can be taken at any moment of the day.
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Using mercury in cosmetic products has been banned for over 3 years in the EU.
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In high doses, mercury can likewise cause psychological impacts.
It is a therapy which assures to leave you tanned, thin and also stimulated.
It is very important to mention that there is a series of skin lightening items that adhere to the lawful demands that allow them to be sold in the UK.
Melanotan II was initially created in the 1990s at the College of Arizona. The hormone caused the dimming of the pigments of the frogs used in the experiment. Unlike fellow tanning addict Martina Big - who revealed she is moving to Africa to "be with her individuals" last month - Hannah firmly insists that she's not in fact attempting to change race. This means any kind of that you do purchase have not been subjected to the rigorous testing necessary to ensure safety and security and efficacy. Real side effects as well as long-lasting consequences are actually unidentified. If one thing is for certain, it's that there's a lot of false details available on the web concerning the efficacy and also safety of melanin shots. " Within 6 days you will start to see your skin heating up to a natural-looking sunkissed glow."
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thelondonfilmschool · 7 years
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“LFS imbued me with a sense of passion and wonder for filmmaking that I’ve carried with me.” - LFS Alumnus Yiannis Manolopoulos
Interview by Sophie McVeigh | Photo by Paul Stephenson
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Greek cinematographer Yiannis Manolopoulos graduated from London Film School three years ago and has since forged a flourishing career in the industry, with his work on an LFS graduation film recently selected by the British Society of Cinematographers Emerging Photographers event. We talked to him about life in London, what it takes to be a success in the industry, and what filmmaking has in common with military service …
Sophie McVeigh: Could you tell me a little bit about your background before LFS?
Yiannis Manolopoulos: I’m from Athens and my first degree was in Philosophy and Economics, so it had nothing to do with filmmaking. I always wanted to do filmmaking, but for different reasons I never took that route. After I did my undergrad in York, here in the UK, I went back to Greece and went into the army because it’s mandatory there. Then I did a Masters - I wanted to do filmmaking but for several reasons that didn’t end up being so. I went to NYU and did Project Management, then I went back to Greece and I was working in a publishing house but filmmaking was always eating me away. So there came a point where I realised that I had to do it. I started doing some classes in a school in Greece, I did some directing classes, some cinematography classes, I did some shorts. And then I decided I needed to do it properly. So, I applied to LFS, which is known as one of the best filmmaking schools.
S.M: Was your focus always on cinematography?
Y.M: Yes, from Term 1 really, it was. I was always interested in photography and the visual aspect of storytelling – how to use symbolism, how to use colour and light to tell a story and create emotion. From the beginning I was always geared towards camera and light. I think that just came from films, watching films as a kid, going to the cinema. I was a kid of the 80’s, so I was in the VHS revolution. Besides having cinema on the weekends, my brother and I would rent five or six films and stay in for entire days and watch them back to back. I was always in love with film.
S.M: You graduated in 2014.
Y.M: Officially, yes. I graduated as a cinematographer. I shot my first grad film at the end of the 5th term which was the end of the second year in 2012, but then I kept shooting grad films.
S.M: Everybody needs the cinematographer?
Y.M: Yeah, it’s a good place to be! You have so many directors and people wanted to work with me and I was happy to shoot different things. So, I kept shooting grad films until almost a year and a half later and I submitted a portfolio of many films. I graduated in 2014.
S.M: Was it always your plan to stay in London after you graduated?
Y.M: Not really, I didn’t have that specific goal in mind, it was just learning the craft and doing it, basically. I just wanted to go wherever the projects and the work is. I mean, that’s one of the things that I got from LFS, it’s like a network. Coming out and graduating and being an alumnus, I’ve got people that I keep working with, like directors that were in my term or a few terms above or below, and we do projects together again and again. It tends to gravitate around London and the UK and around the school because of those connections.
S.M: Is there any other reason why you think London is a good place to be for the kind of work you’re doing?
Y.M: It’s also the industry. In Europe I think it’s the biggest and the more voluminous in terms of jobs, job availability and demand.  And the language element, for me, because I speak English and Greek so it’s easy for me to work here versus going to, say, France or somewhere. I’ve been here permanently since 2010, it’s been seven years now.
S.M: Can you tell me about your career since graduation?
Y.M: During the last year of my being at LFS, because I love operating so much and I thought it would be a good development for me as an operator, I did some Steadicam courses and became a Steadicam operator. My career has taken two parallel paths, basically. I work both as a Director of Photography, mostly on drama and I’ve done a few commercials and music videos, and then I work a lot as a Steadicam operator as well. Being a DOP, you are basically responsible for the image of the projects, that being light, camera and frame. So that has a more directorial and over-arching responsibility over the project, and being a Steadicam operator is basically operating on a specific kind of rig, it’s a speciality kind of operating. You would be hired in by other DOPs to do those speciality shots. In terms of career, I’ve been fortunate enough to have that Steadicam angle to be able to keep shooting more and more projects, and then be able to do more passion projects. I want to do drama and my goal is to do features. That way I can be more involved in low-budget or no- budget shorts and keep shooting and developing my craft, and at the same time I’ve got some connections so that I can do more paid projects and commercials. I’m fortunate enough to have some of my work being recognised. I had the Panalux award (Yiannis was the recipient of the LFS 2014 PANALUX award for Cinematography) and this year I’ve been selected to be BAFTA crew. That means you’re part of a network of filmmakers, be that directors, producers, crew, camera crew, sound crew, who collaborate and share knowledge. There are different events and networking events that we attend, there are different kinds of workshops. I’ve been asked to sit in on one-on-one meetings with students and talk to them about cinematography, and also I’ve been in workshops taking advice from seasoned cinematographers. It’s a kind of community to help you move along. It’s been very rewarding so far. And recently I’ve been selected for the BSC Emerging Cinematographers panel, which was a great honour. Actually, it was with a grad film from LFS that I shot, so that’s great. In terms of career I’m inching towards my goal because I’ve been asked to shoot a feature as a DOP at the UK unit of a film called Utopia that shot in Afghanistan and India. I was very fortunate enough to be part of this very good production which got picked by the Afghani government to be submitted for the foreign Oscars submission. And then I’ve also been involved in a few other feature projects as an operator. The most notable would be Notes on Blindness, which is a very nice documentary which was BAFTA nominated, and then it won the Cameraimage Frog for Best Cinematography.
S.M: Does being involved in something that was long-listed for an Oscar open up a lot of opportunities?
Y.M: It’s a good thing to mention, to get your foot in the door and get people to pay more attention. In general, I find that the industry is very saturated. There’s a lot of people doing the same thing and it’s an over-abundance of cinematographers and camera people, and at the same time we also have this culture of distraction and there’s a low focus point. When you get people to see or talk about your work, usually you get 10 or 20 seconds to give your show reel and your website. So, having something like that to put up front and having some awards hopefully gets producers and directors or any future collaborators to pay more attention to what your work is. Hopefully it rises more to the top among the multitude of amazing work that is out there.
S.M: So, in this saturated environment, what advice would you have for a student leaving LFS who wants to be a successful cinematographer?
Y.M: I would say, I mean I think it’s the only way to do it but at the same time it’s kind of counterintuitive advice – if you want to get into an industry you have to have good material. Basically, you have to do good work. That’s the only thing that should matter to you, that you always deliver the best possible result and service. It’s not only about the film being good, it’s also about your attitude on set – how you work with directors and producers, how you behave. That all counts, because, as everybody knows at LFS, it’s long hours, it’s working very closely with people, so it matters, your people management and how you carry yourself on set. Always try and do your best because you’re always remembered by your last project. The industry works in a way where there are no interviews, there is no sending CV’s or going through the normal process that usually gets you a job. The way you get a job is either someone knows you and knows your work, or you get mentioned by someone for your work. The only way for one of those two things to happen is that the last thing you did was really good, so people will remember it. You always have to be at your best. That means, I think, shooting as much as you can. You might aspire to get to a level but you always do work and it never really reaches it – you always feel you’re lacking. That, I think, is the process – you keep shooting and you keep doing it. There’s a great quote by Ira Glass (host and producer of This American Life) that says more or less that. In your creative life there’s a phase where your work never reaches your expectations. And you just need to keep grinding away, and at some point your skill level and the quality of your production will reach your aspirations. So, you just have to keep shooting. I said it’s a bit counterintuitive because that means that you have to get involved with a lot of low-budget or no- money projects which sometimes lead you to compromise, because you have these aspirations but then there’s no budget because it’s an expensive art, filmmaking. There’s no budget for the right equipment, or the right amount of time, the right locations to get everything you need right! So, it’s a kind of push and pull – trying to do good work with no resources and trying to rise to the top so that you can have the resources and do the work that you want to do.
S.M: You’re always relying on someone else’s vision for the project as well.
Y.M: Yes, which in another sense, for me, is the great part about it because I jump from project to project and I get to share different visions and talk with directors that have different ways of thinking and working. And then you translate that through your own filter into a visual language. So, you always find something new. It’s a craft that makes you grow every time because it’s new challenges every time and new ways of approaching things. So, I would say don’t get discouraged and just keep shooting. And it will get better, I hope!
S.M: You’ve worked on a lot of international projects – was that something that was always important to you in terms of sharing different visions, and was that part of your reason for coming to LFS?
Y.M: It’s something I cherish and that I really embrace. I look at a project more favourably if there’s travel and it’s international because you get to see different cultures, different people, different ways of thinking. Different light, which I’ve found is very interesting. I’ve shot in Iran, I’ve shot in Lebanon, in Greece and Italy. The light is different every time, and it’s a great surprise. But that was not the goal, really, and that was not one of my main prerequisites for coming to LFS. My main reason was the interdisciplinary nature of it. Because I came from a non-filmmaking and non-photographic background, I found it very worthwhile that I was able to go through all the steps and assume an editor’s role, a director’s role, a sound person’s role, and understand what the process is throughout. I think that’s made me a better collaborator now because I can understand all the departments and how they work, and I can talk better with everyone. That was the main reason – it was less of a steep learning curve into filmmaking. Although, having said that, it was still very intense coming in and them just throwing everything at you! But it’s great.
S.M: What kind of qualities do you need to do your job?
Y.M: Another nice quote I read on a website, which a gaffer had put up, was that to always have work in filmmaking you have to have two out of three things: be on time, be good at what you do and be fun to work with. So, if you have at least two out of three you’ll always be employed. Filmmaking has the kind of structure that you find in the military – you have this kind of pyramid of responsibility, and it has long hours and this group mentality where everybody works together. And I think punctuality is an important thing to take out it. If you’re always on time and reliable, that’s really good. That’s one thing, the other is be good at what you do – love it, have passion for it and give everything to it. And the third is, I think we mentioned it – 12 hours in a hot studio with everyone, if you’re grumpy or you’re particular … you have to have good people skills and give leeway to relationships so that you’re fun to work with.
S.M: Did your time in the army help you with that?
Y.M: I like to think people skills and punctuality are things I had anyway! (laughs)
S.M: What projects are coming up for you in the near future?
Y.M: At the moment it’s a busy November. I have two short films I’m prepping – one is an LFS graduation film, actually. People from LFS know me and have seen my work and keep coming back, which I’m very fortunate to have. Another is a short film with another director I’ve met. I have a music video which I’m doing Steadicam on. I have a content commercial which I’m DOPing. And then I’m also doing four days on a feature which has some pick-ups – I did some B Camera for a low-budget feature, they’ve done assembly and they need some pick-ups. The original DOP is back in the States where he’s from and can’t come so they asked me to do it. That’s what a busy month looks like. From month to month it really changes. It’s been quite a busy summer but there are months where you could have just one job or a couple of Steadicam dailies, and then a month like this which is kind of crazy.
S.M: Do you find you have to say yes to everything because you don’t know when it’s going to be a quiet month?
Y.M: Not really, for me it always comes down to the content. It starts with the script and the story or what the commercial is, what it’s about and how the treatment is and what we’re going to shoot. I have to be invested somehow in that - either I love the story or the subject matter, or I’m attracted to the vision or find that visually I can give something. If there’s nothing in the material that I can relate to then I can’t really adhere to what I said before and actually make it good. I have to be invested in it. It’s also important to have good working relationships, so if it’s a director or producer that I know I can work well with, that’s also very good. There’s been projects that I’ve turned down because I just couldn’t relate to the material, or sometimes I could relate to it but because the calendar was full I knew that I couldn’t give my best, so I would have to pass.
S.M: If you were to give advice to a student thinking of coming to LFS, why would you recommend the course?
Y.M: I think it’s the infectious culture of passion for film that’s the most important thing. Coming in, we would work very long hours and everything else in my life during those two years was in the back of my mind. The forefront was, “What project are we shooting, how are we doing this?” That’s all in the process of learning, and it leads you to discover new things – technical things, or theoretical things or creative things. And you discover things about yourself while you’re working with others. Being in the space with everyone having this kind of mentality imbued me with a sense of passion and wonder for filmmaking that I think I’ve carried through with me.
You can follow Yiannis’s work at http://www.yiannismanolopoulos.com/.
Yiannis is from Athens, Greece. His first feature film as a Director of Photography, "Utopia", was longlisted for the 88th Academy awards, as the 2016 Afghanistan foreign film submission. He is a member of Bafta Crew as well as a member of the Association of Steadicam Operators. His work was recently selected for the BSC Emerging Cinematographers (https://bscine.com/news?id=227)
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Magnus Chase and the Obligatory Hogwarts AU Ch1
On ao3
And here it is! If you read Bound X before this, here is the Hogwarts AU I talked about! If you haven't read Bound X, here's the Hogwarts AU this ship needed! (like seriously, how come there hasn't been one yet?) Thanks to @tearfulmelody for editting this and @alexfierrno for helping out with some details. Anyway, lets get on with this! Hope you enjoy! (Why am I using so many exclamation marks?!!!!!) 
“Watch where you’re going!” a man yelled as Magnus run past him.
“Sorry!” the blonde boy called out without turning to look at the man or stopping. He was already late enough as it was, he couldn’t afford to stop to apologize, even if he did feel sorry for almost knocking that man over.
Of all the days he had to be late, it had to be this one! One is not simply late for the first day back at school. Especially when your school is in the Scottish Highlands and you need an hours long train ride to get there. Magnus has never been late for the Hogwarts Express. He normally arrives early to find a good compartment.
But normal has changed a lot for Magnus lately. His mother normally wakes him up and drives them to King’s Cross, she normally kisses his cheeks before he gets on the train even though Magnus is embarrassed and she normally waves goodbye at him as the train starts moving, telling him to “Be careful, pumpkin!”
That’s what happens normally. But it won’t happen again.
Stop, don’t think about that. You can’t think about that.
“Sorry! Excuse me! Coming through!” Magnus said as he elbowed his way through the crowded platform, his backpack bouncing on his back as he run.
Magnus really liked his backpack. It might be old and worn out but it was Doctor Who themed and Magnus had had it for years. His mother had given up a long time ago to get him to get a new one. Now, if Magnus said his backpack was his most valuable possession, it wouldn’t be just sentimental talk.
It was quite literally all he had left. Everything he owned was inside that backpack. His wand, his cloak, his trunk with his schoolbooks. You might wonder how all that fitted in a backpack, but Magnus’ Charm Professor and his Head of House, Professor Blitzen, moonlighted as a fashion designer. He had made a line of all sorts of bags that could have a car in them and still look and feel half empty. The charm he put on his backpack was the only reason why Magnus had been able to hold onto his belongings on the streets.
Magnus had always been a bit paranoid about the wall leading to platform 9¾. What if he run into the wrong wall? What if it was out of order and Magnus run into a wall? What if it was out of order and only part of him passed through? He couldn’t think of anything more humiliating than have his but stick out for a wall.
“Your butt won’t stick out of the wall, pumpkin,” his mother had said when he told her about his worries when he was a second year.
Magnus scowled at the nickname. Some kids from his old school had heard his mum calling him that and teased him about it. It was a lame pet-name.
“How do you know?” he asked her. “I’m sure people would take hundreds of pictures. I can already see the internet articles: Teen boy’s arse sticks out of wall at King’s Cross station.”
His mother laughed and ruffled his hair. “If that happens then my butt will be stuck as well,” she told him.
He used to go through the wall while holding his mum’s hand or, when he grew up a bit and thought he was too cool for that, holding onto her clothes. She was always the one who stepped through first, with Magnus following behind her.
But now he rushed forward, not even flinching as he run into and through the wall.
The difference between the Muggle and Wizard platforms never seized to amaze Magnus. A moment ago, he was running through crowds of coffee-fueled, nameless people on their way to work, the air filled with the station racket and a cacophony of voices all speaking at the same time, either on their phones or to other people.
Now he was on a platform smaller than the other’s he run through in his haste but just as lively. People in robes were talking to one another, saying goodbye to their children or catching up with some friend. There were trunks with owl cages on them everywhere, and Magnus saw a man trying to catch his daughter’s owl that had gotten out of its cage. The air seemed to buzz and glow with magic. It called out to Magnus like it was a part of – which, okay, it was- and gave him this refreshed feeling, like he stepped into the cool ocean after a hot day.
Magnus rushed onto the train with the last few students as the train gave its last warning that it was starting its journey.
The train’s doors closed behind Magnus and he took a moment to catch his breath. I made it, I made it. By the time he could breathe normally, the other students that had gotten on the train with him had already left. Magnus started walking down the corridor to find where his friends were until he realized he had no idea in which compartment they were.
Normally, when his mum was still here, she’d wake him up early so they could get to the station without rushing and Magnus would be one of the first kids to arrive so he would find a compartment for him and his friends. No he had no idea where they were.
Guess I’ll have to check every compartment until I find them or they find me.
With a sigh, Magnus started walking down the corridor. He knocked on every compartment door before opening it (he had manners, thank you very much) but he didn’t find his friends in any of them. There was a group of girls gossiping among themselves in one and a group of boys hunched over their chocolate frog cards in another, but his friends were nowhere to be seen.
He knocked on the last door of the wagon. “Yes?” came the answer from inside and Magnus pulled the door open.
There was a kid about his age in the compartment, with black hair like coals and two toned eyes, one warm brown and the other bright amber. There were no other students in the compartment, which was weird since there’s normally at least three in each. The unknown kid sat against the window and looked at Magnus with curiosity, as if the blonde was an unexpected surprise.
“Do you want something?” the kid asked and only then did Magnus realize he had been staring. His heart did a weird little thing, like it just did a loop inside his chest. This kid sure is pretty, he thought before. Wait, what?
“I, um…” he stuttered. Before he realized it, he had blurted out “Can I sit here?”
The kid seemed surprised for a moment before nodding. “Sure. There’s no one else here.”
Magnus sat down opposite of the stranger, holding his bag on his lap. The other kid ignored him, just staring out the window at the changing landscape. Magnus was fiddling with the straps and zippers of his back, feeling a strange de ja vu, as if he was back at first year. He felt like a nervous eleven-year-old trying to make friends on his first day at Hogwarts.
He stole a glance at the stranger in front of him. Magnus couldn’t remember seeing the kid at Hogwarts before. It was weird. Hogwarts didn’t get new students. It was literally the only Wizarding school in the country, any child with magic in the UK would go there.
“So, um, I’m Magnus Chase, fourth year,” He said, hoping he didn’t sound too awkward. “And you are?”
“Alex-“ the kid stopped, as if considering something to say, before continuing. “Alex Fierro, fourth year too.”
“So you’re my age? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around Hogwarts.” Obviously you haven’t, you wouldn’t have forgotten eyes like that. The nerd in Magnus was awakened and he couldn’t help thinking that in a fantasy world, those were the eyes of the Chosen One or of someone with hidden mystical powers or all sorts of other cool things.
“Of course you haven’t,” Alex said, bringing back Magnus from of his nerdy thoughts. “I’ve been going to Durmstrang up until now.”
“Why did you change school?” Magnus asked. It wasn’t unheard of for parents in Britain to send their kids to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons, but it was still extremely rare.
The easy going smile on Alex’s face disappeared and Magnus realized he stumbled on a topic he shouldn’t ask about. “Family issues,” Alex finally said, looking out of the window instead of at Magnus.  
There was an uncomfortable silence as the other teenager didn’t talk or look at Magnus. In an attempt to keep the conversation going, Magnus resorted to the classic going-to-Hogwarts-for-the-first-time topic.
“So, what house do you think you’ll be sorted in?” he asked.
Alex’s shoulders relaxed, dropping from their hunched up guarded position. “My parents didn’t really like Hogwarts, so I don’t know anything about it other than that there’s four different houses and each has a different color. How do you get in each house, anyway?” Alex asked. “Do you have to apply or something? Are they split in boys and girls?”
There was a strange tightness in Alex’s voice at the ‘boys and girls’ part, but maybe Magnus had just imagined it.
“Well, you get in each house based on what you’re like,” Magnus started explaining, doing wide hand gestures. “The red house is Gryffindor and to be in it you have to be brave and courageous. Their symbol is a lion and their common room is in one of the towers. Ravenclaw’s common room is also in a tower and their symbol is an eagle. Ravenclaws are clever and creative and their color is blue. Then there’s Slytherin, which is the green one and they are ambitious and cunning. Their common room is in the dungeons and their symbol is a snake. Finally, there’s Hufflepuffs, who are kind and loyal. They’re the yellow house and their mascot is a badger. The common room is next to the kitchens.”      
“Oh, lucky,” Alex said, taking all the information in. “But if it’s based on your character, how do they know which house to put you in? Do you take a test?”  
Magnus chuckled at that. It seemed weird to him, getting sorted in your house by a test instead of the Sorting Hat.
“No, we don’t. A professor calls your name and you sit on a stool as they put the Sorting Hat on your head. It sees into your head and then announces which house you are in.”
Alex looked at him like he was crazy. “You get sorted by a talking hat that sees into your head?”
Magnus nodded. “Yeah. Why, how did you get sorted in Durmstrang?”
“There aren’t any houses like yours in Durmstrang, just the Boy’s Dorms and the Girl’s Dorms.”
“Oh.” Magnus said. He remembered back in second year when the Triwizard Tournament happened. All the Durmstrang students wore the same clothes, but so did the kids in Ilvermorny, where Annabeth goes to school, and they had houses. He had assumed Durmstrang would work in the same way. “That’s  kinda boring.”
“And stupid,” Alex added.
“So what house do you think you’d be in now that you know how they’re separated?” Magnus asked.    
Alex shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe Slytherin? It sounds cool, and I like green.”
As the other teen talked, Magnus watched in amazement as Alex’s black hair turned green. The color started from the roots and moved towards the ends of Alex’s hair like a wave washing over a beach.
“How did you do that?” Magnus asked, almost jumping out of his seat.
Alex raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Do what?”
“Your hair!” Magnus said, pointing at the green locks. “It’s green now!”
Alex took a lock of hair and looked at it. “Oh, yeah. It is green.” The phrase was said with the kind of nonchalance one would say “Oh, it’s raining.”    
“Your hair is green and that is your reaction?” Magnus asked baffled.
Alex shrugged. “I’m a metamorphmagus. I can change things like my hair and eyes easily.”
“That’s awesome!” Magnus was basically jumping on his seat now. He looked like a little kid who just saw a cool magic trick. “So can you, like, change your face to look like someone else or grow taller?”
“No, at least not yet. Hair and eye color is easier, but changing my face or my whole body includes changing my body structure, which is more complicated and tiring. I’ll need a few years before I can do that.”
“That’s still so awesome! You could look like anyone you want! You’d be a great spy.”
Alex chuckled. “Yeah, it would be useful if I was a spy. I’d be the new James Bond.” The teen took a pose, hands clasped together like a gun. “My name is Fierro. Alex Fierro.”
Magnus laughed at the over the top impersonation. Alex did a dramatic hair-flip and everything, giving the imaginary camera a sexy glance. (Or it was supposed to be sexy, I guess. It was more like a person squinting to read something because they took off their glasses.) The other teen managed to hold the pose for a few more seconds before falling back on the seat laughing.
“So what house are you in?” Alex asked.
“I’m a Hufflepuff,” Magnus said. “I have friends in the other three houses too. I can introduce them to you. You might end up sharing a room with one of them.”
A weird look flashed in Alex’s eyes at the mention of rooming with someone but it was gone before Magnus could see exactly what it was. “Aren’t your friends on the train?” Alex asked. “How come you aren’t sitting with them?”
“I was actually searching for them when I knocked on the door-“ Magnus said, only to be cut off as said door was pulled open.
“There you are!” Mallory said, red curls flying everywhere like always. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
“I was looking for you too, but then I met Alex and I got caught up talking,” Magnus explained.
“Well, your new friend can come sit with us, if he wants,” Mallory said. “We’ll make room-“
“She” Alex cut her off.
“Huh?”
“Call me she,” Alex explained. “Unless and until I tell you otherwise.”
Mallory was taken aback for a moment before nodding. “Okay,” she said. “Come on, we’re in the next wagon.”
They walked to the compartment Magnus’ crazy friends were sitting in. Magnus sneaked a glance at Alex as they walked, her hair still bright green. He was surprised, but not as much as he would be before this summer. A horribly big number of the other kids his age he met on the streets this summer didn’t identify as the sex they were assigned at birth or thought the whole boy/girl binary wasn’t for them. They ended up homeless because their parents didn’t accept them. Magnus didn’t even know their parents, but he still hated them. Oh, I know what will make it clear I love my child; kicking them out because of who they are! What a brilliant idea!      
If Magnus knew where they lived, he would gladly through a dozen dungbombs at their houses. Their houses would stink like shit to match their shity personality.
Mallory opened the door of a compartment without knocking and yelled “I found Beantown!” as she walked in. She plopped down on the seat next to T.J., who was leaning against the window and flipping his wand like he was taking part in the wand-flipping Olympics.
Alex looked at Magnus. She smirking so much Magnus new it wasn’t a good sign. “Beantown?”
“My mum’s from Boston. We lived there until I was about six,” Magnus explained. Then he turned to his friends and said “And I’ve told you not to call me that!”
“Magnus, mate, how have you been?” Halfborn asked as Magnus walked in, patting him on the back. By now Magnus knew that a ‘pat’ to Halfborn was a slap to normal people, but he had gotten used to the giant boy’s shows of endearment.
Magnus was pretty sure Halfborn was a giant. Or at least half giant. He towered over most students – and even some of the shorter teachers – and he had towered over them since Magnus met him back on his first year. Yet somehow he didn’t look lanky at all – then again, being a Beater on your house Quidditch team probably gives you plenty of muscle.
“Good, good,” Magnus said, as the sarcastic-shit part of his brain answered Living on the streets because my mum died.  
“Guys, this is Alex, I met her while looking for you,” Magnus said as he did the introductions. “Alex, the redhead is Mallory Keen, Slytherin. The huge one who just broke my back,” Halfborn smiled proudly at that, “is Halfborn Gunderson, Gryffindor. T.J is the one in the army jacket, he’s Ravenclaw. And lastly, this is Samira ‘Sam’ al-Abbas, she’s in Slytherin.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Sam said, offering Alex her hand. Her green hijab was around her neck, letting her dark hair fall on her shoulders. Sam was one of the prettiest girls in their year and one of the most formidable. Magnus may or may not have rooted for her (multiple times) when she’d put some rude jerk in their place.
“Nice to meet you too,” Alex said as she took Sam’s hand and shook it. “Magnus wasn’t lying when he said he had friends in all houses.”
“Magnus is friends with everyone,” Halfborn said. He was sitting next to Sam, with his legs kicked up so they rested next to T.J’s legs. “I think being friendly is a Hufflepuff qualification.”
“I’m not friends with everyone!” Magnus protested.
“You’re friends with the house elfs,” T.J pointed out. T.J was the rock in their group. When everyone else would get too carried away, even Sam, he would keep his cool and get them to pull their shit together. It happened more often than Magnus would like to admit.
Magnus opened his mouth to say something but closed it again. “Okay, point taken.”
“So, Alex,” Sam started, “What year are you in?”
“I’m in fourth year. You?”
“We’re all in fourth year too, except for Halfborn,” T.J said. “He’s in fifth year.”
Alex sent a glance to the large boy. Despite being only a year older than Magnus, he already had stubble on his face, whereas Magnus didn’t even have a hair. He fit the stereotypical image of a big and strong Gryffindor pretty much perfectly, what with his arms being as thick as Magnus’ thighs and his eagerness to get into a fight. What didn’t fit the Gryffindor stereotype was his almost limitless thirst for knowledge. How he hadn’t been sorted into Ravenclaw no one knows.
“Is you name really Halfborn?” Alex asked. Magus was surprised the question took this long; everyone always asked about Halfborn’s weird nickname.
“Nah, it’s a nickname. I was a large baby and my mum said it was like half of me was born and the other curved out of rock or something. The name stuck.”
There was a knock on the door and the snack lady came in, pushing a cart filled with chocolates, caramels, chips and all sorts of unhealthy snacks your dentist wouldn’t want you eating. T.J. bought a large bag of every-flavor- beans (because he’s hardcore), Mallory got a few jelly slugs and liquorish wands, Sam got two cauldron cakes and Halfborn bought pumpkin pastries and a chocolate frog, as did every one. It was a tradition in their group to all get a chocolate frog and see who got the best card.
The only one who didn’t buy anything was Alex. Even Magnus bough a chocolate frog, despite the fact he didn’t have enough money to waste on sweets, because he didn’t want his friends to suspect anything. He knew he couldn’t keep the fact he was homeless from them for long, but he really didn’t want to tell them on the first day back at school.
“Aren’t you hungry, Alex?” Mallory asked. Her liquorish wand was hanging from the corner of her mouth like a limp noodle and bobbed up and down when she talked.
“Nah, I’m not hungry,” Alex said, but her eyes kept going back to the food cart, which hadn’t left the compartment yet.
“Nonsense,” Halfborn said through his mouthful of pumpkin pastries. “You’re looking at the snack cart like Magnus looks at falafel.”
“Alex,” Sam said seriously. She was looking at the other girl straight in the eye and her face was so serious she looked like she was about to give a speech in front of the Ministry. “Do you want to be our friend?”
“I-what?”
“Do you want to be our friend?” Sam repeated.
Hearing it twice didn’t help Alex’s confusion any. She still looked at them as if they had just grown a second head. Why is she so surprised we want to be friends with her? Magnus wondered. She’s really cool.
“You want to be friends?” Alex asked. There was so much confusion in her voice and in her face you would have thought she was a muggleborn that was just told magic is real.
“Yeah, you seem really cool,” Halfborn said.
“And if you’ve had a one-on-one conversation for twenty minutes or more with Magnus, you’re already his friend,” T.J added. “And if you’re friends with one of us, you’re friends with all of us.”
Mallory nodded. “We’re a package deal. Five losers for the price of one.”  
“So do you want to be friends?” Sam asked once more.                                                                                                            
“Uh, okay,” Alex finally said awkwardly. She was still taken aback by the question; one moment they were talking about food and the next Sam was asking her to be their friend.
No one had even asked Alex that before.
“Well, if you’re our friend and then you take part in our traditions,” Mallory said. She left some money on the cart, took a chocolate frog and gave it to Alex. The green haired girl looked down at the sweet in her hands like it was the Queen’s crown or something similarly impossible for her to have in her hands.
“I… thank you,” Alex said quietly as the snack lady walked out. She looked down at the chocolate frog and smiled to herself.
Magnus raised his chocolate frog in the air. “To our new friend!” he toasted.
“To our new friend!” everyone cheered along, their frogs held high in the air.
Alex was looking at them baffled, like they were maniacs and she was very seriously reconsidering being friends with them (Magnus understood that, he had that thought a lot too.) In the end she smiled and raised her chocolate frog too.
“To my new friends!”
~~~~~~~
Getting off the Hogwarts Express was chaos. It always was, since the first time Magnus got off the train, a nervous first year trying desperately not to lose sight of the huge man that was the Keeper of the Keys and Grounds, Hunding. Once the train came to a stop, its engine finally ceasing to growl like beast and its door opening, waves of children poured out. The air was filled with a cheerful cacophony of voices and what once felt overwhelming to Magnus was now familiar.
“First year over here! First years over here!”
Hunding was beckoning first years towards him to take them on the boats to Hogwarts. The children were apprehensive to go near him at first, which was understandable. Hunding wasn’t exactly what you would describe as a welcoming figure. He was burly and huge, with a wild beard and eyes hidden under his bushy eyebrows. Magnus had somehow stricken up a weird friendship with the man and he’d always joke that Hunding looked like a Viking. (Which was a joke Hunding like quite a bit, since he came to every single Halloween party since as a Viking.)
Magnus and the rest of his friends walked to the carriages that took the students of years two and above to Hogwarts. The carriages looked like normal horse-pulled carriages, the kind you see in old-fashioned movies. The difference was that these didn’t have horses pulling them along, they moved on their own. They had seemed so amazing to Magnus when he first saw them; everything magical did. Despite being a halfblood, he had grown up around more of the muggle world than the wizarding world. There wasn’t a lot of magic his mum could show him since she was a Squib.
“Why are we going to Hogwarts on carriages and they go in boat?” Alex asked, pointing over at the first year students following Hunding like sheep follow a shepherd.
Mallory shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe to make more of an impression on them. It’s quite impressive, seeing Hogwarts from the boats as you arrive.”
Magnus would have agreed with her - he had been thinking about that since his second year - but he couldn’t look away from the carriages. Or, to be more precise, what was in front of them.
Horses. But no, not exactly. Because normal horses don’t look like this. The creatures, whatever they were, looked like inky black skin was pulled taunt over a horse’s skeleton. Every single bone was visible, and if they weren’t so creepy Magnus would have counted them all. Large, bony wings sprouted from their backs, like the wings of a freakishly large bat. There was something weirdly reptilian about their faces, like they were part dinosaurs, which freaked out Magnus even more (he had had dinosaur nightmares for a week after he first saw Jurassic Park.)
But when one turned and looked at him, Magnus decided that the scarier thing about them was their eyes. They were completely white, no iris whatsoever. Against their pitch black skin, they looked like twin moons looking at you from the night sky. Magnus felt a shiver run through his spine. He felt as if they were staring into his soul, able to see all the things he didn’t want to let himself acknowledge.
Like his mum. And how she would never be there to pick him up from Platform 9¾ ever again.
“Magnus?” T.J asked. His hand was on the blonde’s shoulder and his voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “You have been staring at nothing for a while now. Is everything alright?”
“Y-yeah. Everything is alright,” Magnus said. “Anyway, let’s get on a carriage before they leave us behind.”
Magnus quickly moved to get in the closer carriage, eager to get away from those creepy horse-bat-dinosaur things. What he didn’t see as he rushed into the carriage, however, was Sam glancing between him and where the beasts were with a skeptical look on her face.
It wasn’t long before they arrived at Hogwarts. The entrance was filled to the brim with students, children in black and red, green, blue and yellow flooding through the huge main doors. Professor Sif was standing at the side of the entrance hall, calling over the first year students. Her long hair spilled down her back like melted gold and it seemed to shine against the dark fabric of her robes.
“I think that’s where I should go,” Alex said, pointing over at the blonde woman.
Magnus and his friends walked over to their respective house tables when they entered the dining hall a.k.a. “Feast Hall of the Slain”. Yeah, not the most welcoming name for a place where you go to to eat, but Magnus had to say he loved the reactions first years had when they first heard of it. Magnus didn’t know why the hall had gotten that nickname to begin with, the information had been lost in the many decades the school was open, but not knowing made it even better (and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know).
Professor Sif stood on top the small stage in front of the High Table. A stool stood in the center of the stage with the sorting hat on it. The first years sat in a row in front of the stage, their backs facing the rest of the students. Alex stood out among them; she was at least a head taller than most of them and although her hair was black again, it still had some green in it that hadn’t gone away yet.
As Professor Sif called out the first years to be sorted after the Hat was done with its song, talk of the new student spread through the hall in whispered voices. Magnus couldn’t blame them for being curious, but at the same he felt so sorry for Alex. It had been nerve-wrecking enough getting sorted normally; he didn’t want to imagine what it would have been like with everyone staring at and taking about him.
“Fierro, Alex!” Professor Sif called out in a loud voice. There was a second of silence among the students before the whispering started even more intense than before as Alex stood up and walked to the stool.
“Did she say Fierro?”
“Like the Fierros?”
“I didn’t know they had a child.”
“I heard that their child went to Durmstrang.”
Magnus looked around him confused. Why was everyone talking about Alex’s family name?
“Why are everyone talking like that? Who’s Fierro?” Magnus asked a girl next to him who was in his Magical Creatures class.
“You don’t know who the Fierros are?” she asked in a surprised voice.
“Should I?” Magnus didn’t know and didn’t really care to know about wizarding politics. Names that were meant to be important just went through one ear and out the other, unless he heard it a bazillion times.
The girl nodded frantically. “Yeah! They’re like the richest wizarding family in the UK!”
“And I heard they’re mixed with dark magic,” a boy piped in.
“Oh, those are just rumors!” the boy’s friend said.
“You don’t know that! They may be true!”
Magnus turned to look at Alex, who was sitting on the stool with her back straight, looking confidently at the crowd of unknown students in front of her. She looked so composed and sure, but having a reputation like this follow you everywhere must be tiring.
Professor Sif placed the Sorting Hat on Alex’s head.
“Hm, let’s see where to put the young sir,” the Hat mused out loud. It normally said things like these before it started figuring out where to sort each student. Most students, when they replied to it, didn’t know whether they should talk out loud or just think very hard.
Alex chose to talk out loud. “Actually,” she said calmly, “it’s lady today. She and her.”
The whispering returned tenfold.
“Oh, excuse me then, young lady,” the Hat said. It didn’t talk anymore, simply humming as it decided where to put Alex.
For the few moments it took the Hat to make its decision, the whispering among the students was almost unbearable. Students didn’t seem to acknowledge it, but while one person whispering didn’t make a lot of noise, when a lot of people did it created this buzz that spread through the room like a wave, each person’s words adding to it and making it louder.
“Slytherin!” the Hat shouted its choice.
Professor Sif removed the Sorting Hat from Alex’s head and the girl stood up and moved to the Slytherin table. Cheers and woops  and fists pumping high filled the air as Alex took her seat in the Slytherin table. As Headmaster Odin gave his start-of-the-year speech (which no one listened to), Magnus saw Mallory pat Alex on the back as Sam smiled at her and the three girls laughed at something somebody from Slytherin said.
“And now,” Headmaster Odin said, “let’s start the feast!”
And that was the first chapter! (again with the exclamation marks?) Updates will be about every ten days, so look out for that. 
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geeksperhour · 4 years
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via Screaming Frog
We are excited to announce the release of Screaming Frog SEO Spider version 13.0, codenamed internally as ‘Lockdown’.
We’ve been busy developing exciting new features, and despite the obvious change in priorities for everyone right now, we want to continue to release updates as normal that help users in the work they do.
Let’s take a look at what’s new.
1) Near Duplicate Content
You can now discover near-duplicate pages, not just exact duplicates. We’ve introduced a new ‘Content‘ tab, which includes filters for both ‘Near Duplicates’ and ‘Exact Duplicates’.
While there isn’t a duplicate content penalty, having similar pages can cause cannibalisation issues and crawling and indexing inefficiencies. Very similar pages should be minimised and high similarity could be a sign of low-quality pages, which haven’t received much love – or just shouldn’t be separate pages in the first place.
For ‘Near Duplicates’, the SEO Spider will show you the closest similarity match %, as well as the number of near-duplicates for each URL. The ‘Exact Duplicates’ filter uses the same algorithmic check for identifying identical pages that was previously named ‘Duplicate’ under the ‘URL’ tab.
The new ‘Near Duplicates’ detection uses a minhash algorithm, which allows you to configure a near-duplicate similarity threshold, which is set at 90% by default. This can be configured via ‘Config > Content > Duplicates’.
Semantic elements such as the nav and footer are automatically excluded from the content analysis, but you can refine it further by excluding or including HTML elements, classes and IDs. This can help focus the analysis on the main content area, avoiding known boilerplate text. It can also be used to provide a more accurate word count.
Near duplicates requires post crawl analysis to be populated, and more detail on the duplicates can be seen in the new ‘Duplicate Details’ lower tab. This displays every near-duplicate URL identified, and their similarity match.
Clicking on a ‘Near Duplicate Address’ in the ‘Duplicate Details’ tab will display the near duplicate content discovered between the pages, and perform a diff to highlight the differences.
The near-duplicate content threshold and content area used in the analysis can both be updated post-crawl, and crawl analysis can be re-run to refine the results, without the need for re-crawling.
The ‘Content’ tab also includes a ‘Low Content Pages’ filter, which identifies pages with less than 200 words using the improved word count. This can be adjusted to your preferences under ‘Config > Spider > Preferences’ as there obviously isn’t a one-size-fits-all measure for minimum word count in SEO.
2) Spelling & Grammar
If you’ve found yourself with extra time under lockdown, then we know just the way you can spend it (sorry).
You’re now also able to perform a spelling and grammar check during a crawl. The new ‘Content’ tab has filters for ‘Spelling Errors’ and ‘Grammar Errors’ and displays counts for each page crawled.
You can enable spelling and grammar checks via ‘Config > Content > Spelling & Grammar’.
While this is a little different from our usual very ‘SEO-focused’ features, a large part of our roles are about improving websites for users. Google’s own search quality evaluator guidelines outline spelling and grammar errors numerous times as one of the characteristics of low-quality pages (if you need convincing!).
The lower window ‘Spelling & Grammar Details’ tab shows you the error, type (spelling or grammar), detail, and provides a suggestion to correct the issue.
The right-hand-side of the details tab also shows you a visual of the text from the page and errors identified.
The right-hand pane ‘Spelling & Grammar’ tab displays the top 100 unique errors discovered and the number of URLs it affects. This can be helpful for finding errors across templates, and for building your dictionary or ignore list.
The new spelling and grammar feature will auto-identify the language used on a page (via the HTML language attribute), but also allow you to manually select language where required. It supports 39 languages, including English (UK, USA, Aus etc), German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic and more.
You’re able to ignore words for a crawl, add to a dictionary (which is remembered across crawls), disable grammar rules and exclude or include content in specific HTML elements, classes or IDs for spelling and grammar checks.
You’re also able to ‘update’ the spelling and grammar check to reflect changes to your dictionary, ignore list or grammar rules without re-crawling the URLs.
As you would expect, you can export all the data via the ‘Bulk Export > Content’ menu.
Please don’t send us any ‘broken spelling/grammar’ link building emails.
3) Improved Link Data – Link Position, Path Type & Target
Some of our most requested features have been around link data. You want more, to be able to make better decisions. We’ve listened, and the SEO Spider now records some new attributes for every link.
Link Position
You’re now able to see the ‘link position’ of every link in a crawl – such as whether it’s in the navigation, content of the page, sidebar or footer for example. The classification is performed by using each link’s ‘link path’ (as an XPath) and known semantic substrings, which can be seen in the ‘inlinks’ and ‘outlinks’ tabs.
If your website uses semantic HTML5 elements (or well-named non-semantic elements, such as div id=”nav”), the SEO Spider will be able to automatically determine different parts of a web page and the links within them.
But not every website is built in this way, so you’re able to configure the link position classification under ‘Config > Custom > Link Positions’. This allows you to use a substring of the link path, to classify it as you wish.
For example, we have mobile menu links outside the nav element that are determined to be in ‘content’ links. This is incorrect, as they are just an additional sitewide navigation on mobile.
The ‘mobile-menu__dropdown’ class name (which is in the link path as shown above) can be used to define its correct link position using the Link Positions feature.
These links will then be correctly attributed as a sitewide navigation link.
This can help identify ‘inlinks’ to a page that are only from in-body content, for example, ignoring any links in the main navigation, or footer for better internal link analysis.
Path Type
The ‘path type’ of a link is also recorded (absolute, path-relative, protocol-relative or root-relative), which can be seen in inlinks, outlinks and all bulk exports.
This can help identify links which should be absolute, as there are some integrity, security and performance issues with relative linking under some circumstances.
Target Attribute
Additionally, we now show the ‘target’ attribute for every link, to help identify links which use ‘_blank’ to open in a new tab.
This is helpful when analysing usability, but also performance and security – which brings us onto the next feature.
4) Security Checks
The ‘Protocol’ tab has been renamed to ‘Security’ and more up to date security-related checks and filters have been introduced.
While the SEO Spider was already able to identify HTTP URLs, mixed content and other insecure elements, exposing them within filters helps you spot them more easily.
You’re able to quickly find mixed content, issues with insecure forms, unsafe cross-origin links, protocol-relative resource links, missing security headers and more.
The old insecure content report remains as well, as this checks all elements (canonicals, hreflang etc) for insecure elements and is helpful for HTTPS migrations.
The new security checks introduced are focused on the most common issues related to SEO, web performance and security, but this functionality might be extended to cover additional security checks based upon user feedback.
5) Improved UX Bits
We’ve found some new users could get confused between the ‘Enter URL to spider’ bar at the top, and the ‘search’ bar on the side. The size of the ‘search’ bar had grown, and the main URL bar was possibly a little too subtle.
So we have adjusted sizing, colour, text and included an icon to make it clearer where to put your URL.
If that doesn’t work, then we’ve got another concept ready and waiting for trial.
The ‘Image Details’ tab now displays a preview of the image, alongside its associated alt text. This makes image auditing much easier!
You can highlight cells in the higher and lower windows, and the SEO Spider will display a ‘Selected Cells’ count.
The lower windows now have filters and a search, to help find URLs and data more efficiently.
Site visualisations now have an improved zoom, and the tree graph nodes spacing can be much closer together to view a site in its entirety. So pretty.
Oh, and in the ‘View Source’ tab, you can now click ‘Show Differences’ and it will perform a diff between the raw and rendered HTML.
Other Updates
Version 13.0 also includes a number of smaller updates and bug fixes, outlined below.
The PageSpeed Insights API integration has been updated with the new Core Web Vitals metrics (Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay and Cumulative Layout Shift). ‘Total Blocking Time’ Lighthouse metric and ‘Remove Unused JavaScript’ opportunity are also now available. Additionally, we’ve introduced a new ‘JavaScript Coverage Summary’ report under ‘Reports > PageSpeed’, which highlights how much of each JavaScript file is unused across a crawl and the potential savings.
Following the Log File Analyser version 4.0, the SEO Spider has been updated to Java 11.
iFrames can now be stored and crawled (under ‘Config > Spider > Crawl’).
Fragments are no longer crawled by default in JavaScript rendering mode. There’s a new ‘Crawl Fragment Identifiers’ configuration under ‘Config > Spider > Advanced’ that allows you to crawl URLs with fragments in any rendering mode.
A tonne of Google features for structured data validation have been updated. We’ve added support for COVID-19 Announcements and Image Licence features. Occupation has been renamed to Estimated Salary and two deprecated features, Place Action and Social Profile, have been removed.
All Hreflang ‘confirmation links’ named filters have been updated to ‘return links’, as this seems to be the common naming used by Google (and who are we to argue?). Check out our How To Audit Hreflang guide for more detail.
Two ‘AMP’ filters have been updated, ‘Non-Confirming Canonical’ has been renamed to ‘Missing Non-AMP Return Link’, and ‘Missing Non-AMP Canonical’ has been renamed to ‘Missing Canonical to Non-AMP’ to make them as clear as possible. Check out our How To Audit & validate AMP guide for more detail.
The ‘Memory’ configuration has been renamed to ‘Memory Allocation’, while ‘Storage’ has been renamed to ‘Storage Mode’ to avoid them getting mixed up. These are both available under ‘Config > System’.
Custom Search results now get appended to the Internal tab when used.
The Forms Based Authentication browser now shows you the URL you’re viewing to make it easier to spot sneaky redirects.
Deprecated APIs have been removed for the Ahrefs integration.
That’s everything. If you experience any problems, then please do just let us know via our support and we’ll help as quickly as possible.
Thank you to everyone for all their feature requests, feedback, and bug reports. Apologies for anyone disappointed we didn’t get to the feature they wanted this time. We prioritise based upon user feedback (and a little internal steer) and we hope to get to them all eventually.
Now, go and download version 13.0 of the Screaming Frog SEO Spider and let us know what you think!
Download Now
The post Screaming Frog SEO Spider Update – Version 13.0 appeared first on Screaming Frog.
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koopatzi · 6 years
Text
Here's What People Are Saying About SEO 2019
The particular search engine optimization (SEO) is definitely an important design feature associated with the website that enables the particular spider or robot to quickly access it, thereby increasing the visibility on the internet. If you speak about search ranking in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, you're talking about the place of your content on research results pages (SERPs). Kent Lewis, Originator, and President of Anvil, the performance-based firm based out associated with Portland, says that in 2019 voice search and Amazon research will end up a lot more notable than they were in 2018. Google Search Console (Webmaster tools) is one of the particular SEO basics. If you would like to find out how I actually actually do it, visit Content Czar to get a free gift plus details of could use content marketing and SEOcious to acquire top Google listings. It really is geared towards SEO professionals (in-house and agency), marketing managers, and business people. But now SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION considers tweets, retweets, Google+ authorship, as well as other social signals. Besides rank the site, the SEO team turns into fault Client's marketing or product sales team by converting surfers or even visitors into buyers. Because therefore much sharing now takes place on major social media systems, social signals may become simply because important to SEO as period on page, editorial linking, plus content quality. Using social mass media marketing in PA with SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION tactics can help boost the website's ranking and popularity. This may create friction and the impact that most well-designed websites are usually very poorly optimized for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. They have impacted SEO in past times as well by bringing inbound links, and today it's even even more. Screaming Frog SEO Index tool does it for you personally inside a few seconds, even intended for larger websites. SEOs also used to believe that buying links was the valid method of link developing; however, Google will now punish you for buying links within an attempt to manipulate page rank. Ultimately, achievement in SEO in 2018 plus forward will depend on producing amazing content and making this as easy as possible regarding search engines like google in order to understand exactly what that content material is all about. Answer: When you focus upon SEO for voice search anyone need to create your articles around long tail keywords because people tend to use even more words in voice search. SEO is the practice associated with increasing the search engine ratings of your webpages so that will they appear higher in lookup results, bringing more traffic in order to your website. In the particular previous example, Bob's home web page might have the title, "Bob's Soccer Store - Soccer Shoes and boots and Equipment. " The name is the most important component of SEO, since it shows the search engine exactly exactly what the page is all regarding. 47. When creating SEO content material, keep the social layer within your mind. When you have time to get good search engine optimisation education, after that combine this knowledge with greatest practices and you are upon your way to become a good SEO expert. 46. Use SEO practices in order to optimize your social media content. 4. Mobile SEO plus Local Business: - As we all mentioned before, users tend in order to search for local business upon the smartphones. This guide will be made to describe all places of SEO—from seeking the terms plus phrases (keywords) that generate visitors to your website, to producing your blog friendly to search motors, to building links and advertising the unique associated with your own site. Without having SEO, a website can become invisible to search engines. On-page SEO refers to be able to every strategy, technique, and application you utilize within your web site to optimize your web internet pages and content for search machines like google. Today, the quality of arriving links is evaluated higher compared to their quantity and may lead your SEO efforts. Lookup engine optimization (SEO) tools assist companies position themselves to obtain a favorable ranking in internet search engine results. The particular second biggest SEO trend within 2019 will be voice lookup Seven Common Myths About SEO 2019. We are going to long past mobile search plus voice-search being a ‘trend' : they are the full upon normal now, outdoing desktop research in both volume and SEO-favorability. Rather compared to marketing at people, you require to make it possible intended for them to find you whenever they want you, and that is where SEO is available within. Prior To going BlowFish SEO full Time, Robert Headed very successful internet incoming marketing campaigns for Bella Sante Day Spa's of Boston plus Red Door Spas increasing their particular yearly Gift Card Sales simply by over 400% and increasing client appointments over 300%. In 2019 and further than, the majority of the on-line searches will be in the particular form of conversation, and since a result, the online internet marketers will give more importance in order to artificial intelligence keywords for optimisation of the web content. You discuss core SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION strategies and tactics used in order to drive more organic search network marketing leads to a specific website or even set of websites, as nicely as tactics to avoid in order to prevent penalization from search motors. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Smart links allows you in order to specify a word, like 'SEO' and then link it in order to a post on your web site. It's great for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION to feed the search motors a good amount of keyword-rich links. Sites making use of organic SEO in the strict sense is going to become much like organisms, meaning they will will grow, expand and adjust over time according to readers' desires. No matter the market, the age of business, or even status of competitors, every company should at least implement simple SEO strategies to help their Blog9T own offerings get found on Search engines. So your SEO if your own thinking mobile, needs to end up being either responsive or app-store technique with the right dimensions, style, user-friendly, UX experience. Dark hat SEO methods, such because the use of keyword filling and link farming, can furthermore boost organic SEO. SEO will be important in every area associated with advertising, marketing, design, optimization, movie, content, mobile and e-commerce, with regard to without SEO all is untuned in need of synchronization, as an orchestra of musicians without a good experienced conductor. Unfortunately, 95% of links through SEO link building never provide a single new visitor in order to your website. Erase all duplicated content material; it will increase your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ranking. Long-term: as discussed over, you'll ultimately get more lookup traffic from better usability, also though you don't squeeze every single last drop from the SEO-trick lemon. However, to accomplish all this particular, web-developers use SEO custom solutions, that have long-lasting SEO Search engines rank. That being said, companies usually have little or simply no time for you to maintain up with the latest advancements in SEO techniques. Social search motor optimization is largely built on user-generated content. Keywords are at the cardiovascular of SEO, but they're really not your first step in order to an organic growth play any more. Obviously, reviews are a powerful kind of customer content that has large implications for SEO and enhancing organic traffic. With right search engine optimization and with the help associated with an SEO expert however, your own website can give you a good increasing number of visitors plus exposure. Just keep in mind to pay attention to strong content creation and copywriting basics, engage your viewers deeply, plus stay abreast of technical tendencies such as backlinks, SEO health, site acceleration, and schema. SEOmonitor pricing is based on the particular number of websites and key phrases you track. So, I actually would say that 2018 will be a challenge for Google, mainly because much as it could be for SEOs. The SEO Publication Keyword Suggestion Tool aggregates research data and provides volumes, associated terms, and more.
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Dave Gregory, Content Marketing Supervisor from the UK based efficiency marketing agency, SiteVisibility, predicts that will 2019, and not 2018, is usually going to be the actual year of voice. If we consider Google's Guide then there are almost 200+ factors that lead a web site in ranking, which we have got researched and clustered in twenty one On Page SEO Factors, that will needs your attention in 2019. SEO Wise Links can automatically link important terms in your posts plus comments with corresponding posts, web pages, categories and tags on your own blog. 41. An effective sociable media strategy needs a strong SEO plan. Google does make a few of this data accessible in their particular free Webmaster Tools interface (if you haven't set up a merchant account, this is a very useful SEO tool both for unearthing search query data and regarding diagnosing various technical SEO issues). AI and Tone of voice Search Impact SEO, Lets observe how voice search analytics Impact's SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and can impact in the particular coming time. A great many businesses choose to hire external help in order to get the full benefits regarding SEO, so a large component of our audience is understanding how to convince their consumers that search is an excellent investment (and then prove it! ). Nevertheless, SEOs tend in order to prefer links higher on the page. Because your site, thanks to the nature of your current business is going to always be more image orientated than textual content heavy, you may be at a minor disadvantage when it comes for you to employing SEO techniques such since keywords, backlinking and so out. An extensive dental marketing plus dental SEO campaign can become attained by the enterprise just if the web address associated with a dental practice contains straight into all the promotional materials intended for the business. This shows the importance of focussing voice search engine results within order to grow your company, marketing, and Search Engine Optimization(SEO) strategies. They attain this by increasing their internet site rank through a method known as SEO or even search engine optimization. Just like almost all other SEO approaches, be certain your links are appropriate, plus be careful to not cross the particular line into excessive linking : you don't want your site visitors to obtain annoyed. Bryan Yeager, Research Director at Gartner, will certainly share 9 Key Insights through Gartner's Marketing Technology Survey in order to Help You Prepare for 2019 and Beyond. SEO is a combination associated with digital marketing efforts all functioning together to increase a website's value to users and presence in search. On-page SEO (also identified as "on-site" SEO) may be the take action of optimizing different parts associated with your site that affect your own search engine rankings. In 2019, we will have to optimize voice research answers with CTAs that Google's algorithms don't pick up upon, but humans do. Dan Mallette, Lead SEO Strategist at each InVue Digital & HearstDMS, forecasts that SEOs will need in order to optimize for voice search in order to find new avenues as SERP property shrinks. Obviously, a social networking web page that has more interaction will probably bring bigger SEO benefits in order to some business than one that will has less interaction, but basically having a social presence is definitely a good start.
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Since her business, web traffic, in addition to customer base grow, Sue will certainly require some outside support regarding keeping her SEO on monitor so she could sell typically the best shoes on the prevent. Whilst links continue to be essential and it's incredibly difficult in order to rank well without links through other websites, content and on-page SEO has become increasingly essential. For businesses searching to raise their search search positions, what this means is that will a comprehensive social media technique could be in order - within addition to all of the particular usual SEO tactics. Because of criteria changes and the trend in order to more local searches, it actually is no longer an massive cost to implement good SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. Whether you're killing it along with SEO, or struggling to break the very first page, a good SEO audit can assist give your own rankings a shot within the particular arm. According to web marketing experts, the impact associated with AI and Voice Browse SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION can be expected in 2019 after that. Gowns it. If you'd like in order to speak to us about a good SEO campaign, or even multilingual SEO marketing and keyword study then get in touch associated with just start a live talk if we're around. Moreover, Google will carry on to elevate the importance associated with usability and technical SEO elements, for example site security, page acceleration, mobile friendliness, and navigability. As a consultant, this individual has helped many different businesses—including, Lonely Planet, Zillow, Tower Information, and literally countless medium plus small businesses—with SEO and online-marketing advice. The number 1 reason for using video upon your site to improve SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is to increase the quantity of time users remain upon your site. Search engine optimization had been but still is fascinating in order to me. The SEO placement regarding any size business begins along with proper web site optimization, a good excellent link building strategy plus a well planned online advertising plan. One section of focus for better marketing and SEO performance within 2018 is the confluence associated with content, influence, and social. This can be advantageous for SEO, because it helps avoid search engine crawlers from getting confused by syntax or affirmation errors, and leads to even more accurate indexing. Stop thinking in terms associated with SEO vs. content marketing” plus start exploring how well they will perform together. (Give it a try tone of voice search using OK Google through your cell phone and enquire "What Is BlowFish SEO" ) In case all remains as it is usually, Google will read out loud almost all about my company in the short to the point method, These cards are formatted in order to fit the screen of your own cell with no scrolling upward or down. Although SEO is really the time-consuming process but believes me personally, if you work well along with dedication and trendy techniques, the particular combined results of on-page plus off-page SEO holds you upon the top with rank #1 for a specific search outcome. Fairly lately, I've seen a resurgence associated with on-page SEO factors making the difference searching engine rankings. You've added even more relevant content to your site article and increased the on-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION targeted against your focus keyword(s). Before my first ISS, My partner and i had always thought I may just learn everything by me personally about global online marketing matters like International SEO just simply by doing online investigation and testing, but honestly nothing beats typically the efficiency of attending a convention like ISS where one could share your experiences and immediately gain a treasure trove regarding learnings and best practices through other international marketers. That method, you and your SEO may ensure that your site is usually designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. Even so, a good SEO can furthermore help improve a current web site. If you would like to know what kind associated with SEO trends are going in order to develop in 2019, look simply no further than the trends that will are developing in search within both 2017 and 2018. Webmasters are usually going to remain competitive within the online business when they will stick with SEO experts. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and social media marketing assure that one's site has the particular best SEO Online marketing, which usually means that their company may remain competitive in the on-line market. An SEO ("search engine optimization") expert is somebody trained to improve your presence on search engines. From an SEO perspective, a person want to have more inner links pointing to your many important content.
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Right now there are a few fundamentals that will can help boost the technique, but SEO, or seo, is definitely hardly ever considered. While employing the services of a great SEO agency can get a person good marketing copy for the particular website and an effective make use of of the related keywords, getting a brilliantly designed website can help a lot when this comes to attracting people plus even the search engines in order to your website. You are able to get into important SEO-related data like the particular page title, description, and key phrases for every page or a person can have the system instantly populate this data depending upon a document name or additional fields. SEO has become broadly adopted as an online marketing and advertising strategy due to its effectiveness. Creating high-quality content along with SEO in your mind through the beginning boosts search presence. In contrast, dark hat SEO is about attempting to take shortcuts and sport search engines. You may also use Google Analytics in order to find SEO keywords for content material optimization. Keyword research is the particular process SEOs value to discover what search queries consumers get into into a search engine regarding a given topic. Within today's rapidly shifting world, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION techniques can change on the dime—and the worst part will be that you might not also know it. Hacks that can have won you a front-page result as recently as 2016 are not only obsolete right now, but they may even harm your website's rankings.
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A several of the popular keyword study tools are Wordtracker, SEOMOZ Key phrase Difficulty Tool, SEOBook Keyword Device and Google Keyword Tool. Luckily, SEO allows webmasters to supply clues that the engines may use to understand content. Since less as 20% dentists within a city hire SEO expert s who really wants that shift within their Google ranking. The particular analytical part of the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is about tracking organic key phrase positions, website traffic and the engagement in Google Analytics, Website owner Tools and many other specific tools. Mobile SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is nothing than a typical SEO, creating content and marking to be able to remain out online. SEO rankings are placing excess fat than ever upon what users have to state. The Search Gaming console will help you to evaluate your keyword rankings, CTRs, feasible Google penalties and many various other useful data for technical SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. Blog posts, guides, whitepapers, situation studies, videos, and social articles all need to include the particular right keywords for social plus SEO. For even more detailed information on the make use of of keywords on your internet site visit SEOcious to will discover many other important factors included in having your web web page in the top 10 entries on the search engines. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, search engine optimization is just about all about search engines, search motor result page (SERP), search rating, online visibility, and quality visitors. If your internet site has about 5-10 niche key phrases that are extremely targeted yet not very competitive, your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION pricing is going to end up being quite less. 55 The difference from SEO is the majority of simply depicted as the distinction between paid and unpaid concern ranking searching results. I get into much more detail in SEO Titles on pages: 15-Point Checklist for B2B and B2C Brands, which explains how one can work in relevant keywords that will accurately reflect the page articles. Are good nevertheless SEO potential may be reduce when compared with single links. The education and learning behind our SEO expertise has been developed from years and many years of learning from mistakes marketing and advertising with our other businesses. Our own in-depth guide contains the most recent SEO best practices so a person can improve how your content articles appears in search results, plus get more traffic, leads, plus sales. Keyword study definitely belongs to the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION basics. I'll start by stating that social mass media and SEO are heavily linked to each other. Black head wear SEO attempts to improve ranks in ways that are disapproved of with the search engines, or even involve deception. This particular is more tedious and tasking than inorganic SEO because this particular is how all the key phrases get a full blast associated with attention. SEO: It stands for Lookup Engine Optimization. Within this post, we will break this down in the complete first timers guide to SEO: what SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is, how it works, exactly what factors affect search and exactly what sorts of changes you may make today to improve your own search optimization. The no follow hyperlink has been contradicted many instances over where SEO is included and it depends on the particular web owner concerning if they will allow them on the web site or not. SEO's basic importance comes from the particular fact that most users show strong search dominance — that will will be, search is the main method people go places on the particular Internet. Reading blogs connected with SEO might also be very useful within locating out concerning the important companies on the market which usually are offering comprehensive and genuine Search engine optimization services in the direction of the corporate sector. The initial SEO is dependent mostly on number of key phrases targeted and the size associated with your web site, while the particular ongoing link campaign depends even more on the competitiveness of the particular keywords chosen. Whether most likely an SEO newbie or the seasoned practitioner, I encourage a person to fully read this in order to understand how you can obtain your content on top associated with search results. Large Brand campaigns are far, significantly totally different from small business SEO strategies that have zero links, to start with, to give you yet an example. These SEO companies possess a strategy requiring clients in order to pay for the major lookup engines (including Google and Yahoo) for monthly website maintenance. Professionals are reporting that 2019 can be the year of tone search, and that the words search algorithm may change in addition to supersede text search relatively. A TOP DOG blog is simply one component of social media distribution, an essential SEO strategy according to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Consult You should be disseminating links to fresh content upon your site across appropriate sociable networking platforms.
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Several of these so-called 'tweaks' include advertising and link-gathering, and We use SEO and article advertising for that. Within 2018, your SEO success will not depend on how well a person optimize your website for Search engines. But if you're brief on money, use these diy SEO ideas to improve your natural rankings. If you choose SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, you're helping Google's spiders in order to crawl and understand your content. The job of a good SEO is to manage the particular optimization of websites to make sure they gain site traffic from research engines such as Google and Bing. One great bit of content that will ranks well within the research results is its beginner's facts SEO. SEOs in addition to online marketing specialists in basic who are dealing with intercontinental websites or for online businesses thinking about going international may certainly benefit from attending ISS. We would certainly like to serve you in order to save money and your power by offering affordable SEO providers to increase link popularity. Work the key word into the SEO page name, content header, image, image betagt text, etc. SEO equipment provide position monitoring, deep key word research, and crawling through personalized reports and analytics. Certainly, white hat SEO always integrated creating high quality, unique content material as a prerequisite for acquiring long-term quality results, this reality hasn't changed. Beyond compensated and organic, there are various other types of SEO and expertise and niches within search motor marketing.
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alisonellery-blog · 7 years
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Animal
RSPCA makes urgent appeal for facecloths and towels to help stranded wild animals. For the numerous you that have actually been adjusting in to take witness of this instructional experience of a live giraffe birth, there is a handful of extremists as well as animal protestors that could not concur with us - and that's all right - yet they have actually however reported our YouTube webcam as raunchy for nude content which has actually created its elimination from You Tube.
The last report of a scientific study, which was done under the auspices of the Darwin Plus programme, supported with funds from the UK Federal government, discloses that a minimum of 50 percent of Cayman's nesting green sea turtle ladies in the wild are straight connected to the turtles launched from CTC," Mr Bodden informed Telegraph Traveling. The pet well-being charity clarified today just how Lola had actually not long been embraced by her owner when she disappeared behind the fire place at her new house in Fairfield Drive, Liverpool. The Pet Adventure Park's latest upgrade stated that visitors had actually seen what appeared like a darkness in the shape of a child giraffe in the bed linen of April's pen. Concerning weekly later on, I achieved a benefit from a friend, wrapped in. Gathering order info: For 2 weeks, we shall await backers to answer their survey. A manufacturing credit history in the movie plus invites to future events pertaining to the job and also routine updates on the progression - if so desired. TuTu instructs interaction and communication, and she aids unlock the world of creative imagination for your child, one where she or he takes care of and takes duty for his or her very own stuffed pet. To commemorate, you'll additionally get a big distinctive Canvas Publish for Pet Gods (never to be printed once more!), signed by the Still Gamings Team, and also positioned in a rustic framework. Wayne Pacelle, president as well as chief executive of the Humane Society of the USA, says conserving animals is an essential part of any catastrophe feedback. ADI stated life is unpleasant" for the animals whether they are touring or in winter season quarters. These tasks and video games are fun but not extremely difficult, designed to develop children' confidence as well as inspire interactive play in brand-new means. PICK OF THE CLUTTER - Choose your benefits from the Attachments section for the amounts listed. They have no eyes, no apparent feeling organs or mind however there is a head end, tail end and the primitive body strategy of backboned pets is established," claimed Monty Priede, among the lead scientists on the job, part of the Demographics of Marine Life. If we obtain ₤ 2,000, anyone who has pledged at any type of level will certainly obtain a special Kickstarter Poster that could be utilized as an attractive item in your virtual area on BittyBay. Considering that I anticipate guide to be ordered from different locations, it makes establishing a funding goal a little complicated. The toxin progressed time after the beginning of the poison dart frog lineage, inning accordance with Santos' data, as well as different groups developed it at different times. Funding for this task was put on hold by Kickstarter 1 day back. April's caretakers have noticed her changing most of her typical behaviour patterns, showing that her body is preparing for distribution, in current days. The funds elevated with this campaign will be made use of to cover the initial print, layout, distribution as well as self-publishing expenses. Team at the zoo were additionally hit with criticisms as Twitter viewers felt April and Oliver had been maintained inside for as well lengthy. Nevertheless, an effective crowdfunding project is making it feasible for him to obtain a prosthetic beak. The Family pet Tutor smart device application is currently in beta for iphone, yet we should port the application to Android. As an example, you could visualize that peacocks initially progressed large tails in order to help stabilise themselves in flight, and that the tails after that grew and larger under the influence of females. The candidate additionally should show a duplicate of the licensed health authorization. If we need to produce more TuTu stuffed pets (greater than the 1000 we currently produced), manufacture the extra batch based on the final order numbers from Kickstarter. The very first player to play their card wins the round. More problematically, Darwin had not explained exactly how mating preferences emerged in the first place, says Adam Jones of Texas A&M College in University Terminal. Pet Adventure Park principal Jordan Spot confesses giraffe baby arrival times are not a predictable thing" yet states April is absolutely in the lasts of pregnancy. Consequently, I can not ensure the exact timeline for publication, yet my estimate is based on my previously published book. Should you have any kind of concerns regarding where by in addition to tips on how to use mouse click the following website page, it is possible to e mail us at the web site. The birth of the pet on Friday evening - whose sex is not yet known - was introduced earlier compared to normal by Flamingo Land zoo in North Yorkshire so youngsters could come and see it before institutions return after the summer vacations. Mother giraffes stand up while delivering, so infant's access right into the globe is a 5-foot decrease. The lioness jumped via the open home window of the pair's vehicle and also began whipping the lady, assistant park manager Scott Simpson claimed. The child is clearly enveloped in its amniotic cavity as well as April is licking away at the child. Making use of a drone genuine estate as well as protection is currently common knowledge, yet exactly what less people recognize is that state-of-the-art drones could likewise be used in ecological tasks as well as rescue goals.
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nedsecondline · 7 years
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Fungal diseases are on the rise. Is environmental change to blame?
Oops! Another story and facts to deny.
Fungi are everywhere — from the mushrooms that decompose fallen logs in the forest, to the mold that grows in your bathtub, to the microscopic fungal cells that reside naturally on your skin. Scientists estimate there are 1.5 million species of fungi on the planet. They’re a diverse group, bunched together by their ability to use digestive enzymes to break down and absorb nutrients from their surroundings — a characteristic that makes some of them great decomposers. Fungi are, in essence, nature’s first compost bin. Many of them also help plants grow or carry out other important ecosystem functions.
And some fungi are pathogens, causing disease in plants and animals, including humans. Throughout human history, fungal diseases have been pretty rare. Those that do arise tend to be only skin deep (think athlete’s foot or ringworm). Our complex immune systems and our hot bodies — most fungi can’t survive our internal temperatures — have largely protected us from major life-threatening fungal outbreaks.
“We live in a sea of fungi, but probably less than 20 to 30 species are common pathogens in humans,” says John Perfect, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University.
Invasive fungal infections — the really bad kind that infect the heart, blood, brain, bones and other internal organs — kill about 1.5 million people worldwide every year. According to some estimates, at least as many people die from the top 10 invasive fungal diseases as from tuberculosis or malaria. Perfect and other experts say these deadly diseases are on the rise. Some fungal pathogens that infect humans are emerging in parts of the world where they’ve never been found. In hospital patients, these life-threatening fungal infections are becoming more difficult to treat. Scientists and doctors are beginning to trace these worrying trends to human activity and changes in the environment, and working to figure out what we can do differently to reduce the threat.
Emergent Strain
The rise of human fungal infections coincided largely with the onset of the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s, says Robin May, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in the UK. Fungal diseases flourished in the severely immune-compromised population of people with AIDS. One fungal disease in particular — cryptococcosis — became an AIDs-defining illness in the 1980s. While the advent of antiretroviral therapy substantially reduced the number of people getting — and dying — from cryptococcosis, the disease remains a big problem in some parts of the world.
The main cause of the disease is a common fungus found in soils all over the world called Cryptococcus neoformans. In some people with cryptococcosis, the fungus invades the lungs, causing pneumonia and other breathing problems. In some cases it spreads to the nervous system and causes swelling around the brain. More than 1 million people with HIV/AIDS worldwide are affected with cryptococcal meningitis each year. The infection often is fatal in those with weakened immune systems, though it’s rare in people who are not immunocompromised.
The emergence of Cryptococcus gattii in the Pacific Northwest in 1999 raised concerns that a changing climate can increase the range of fungal pathogens. Map Courtesy of American Society for Microbiology
Then in 1999, doctors on Vancouver Island in Canada diagnosed six people with what appeared to be a more virulent strain of cryptoccosis. None of the infected individuals had medical conditions, such as HIV, that would weaken their immune systems. They were otherwise healthy.
Researchers tracked the new infections to a different species of fungus — Cryptococcus gattii — a fungus that is more commonly found in the tropics. How the fungus made its way to Canada’s west coast is anybody’s guess. But it colonized its new, northern environment causing infections over the next decade in healthy individuals across the Pacific Northwest before starting to wane.
The emergence of C. gattii in the Pacific Northwest raised the notion that changes in climate could potentially increase the range of some fungal pathogens, according to May, who studies why some fungi are more harmful to humans than others. Researchers are now trying to understand how long-term changes in weather patterns — temperature or moisture, for instance — might impact human exposures to C. gattii and other fungal pathogens in the environment.
Links to Climate Change
Very few fungi can survive extreme heat or freezing temperatures. Instead, most thrive in moist, temperate climates. As the world warms, that temperate range is increasing, says May. And the fungi are keeping pace.
Fungal diseases cause more than two-thirds of all crop losses worldwide. Photo Courtesy of DuPont Pioneer
Some of the clearest reports come from agriculture, where fungi cause more than two-thirds of all crop diseases worldwide. “Major fungal diseases such as rice blast, wheat stem rust and corn smut challenge the global food supply,” says Sarah Gurr, chair in food security at the University of Exeter in the UK.
She and colleagues have shown in the northern hemisphere that fungal pests are shifting poleward at a rate of 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles) per year. This means new fungal threats for some of the world’s most important grain producers, including the northern prairies of Europe and North America, says Gurr.
Fungal diseases are having their moment in wildlife too. Over the past 30 years, a chytrid fungus has led to the extinction of more than 200 species of frogs, leading to the greatest disease-caused loss of biodiversity in recorded history. Deadly white nose syndrome — named for the white fungal growth that characterizes it — has been spreading through bat populations in the eastern half of North America since 2007.
The proportion of plant and animal disease alerts recorded by the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases attributable to fungi has risen in recent years. Diagram courtesy of Nature Publishing Group
Fungal species can only cause disease if they can survive at host temperatures, explains Arturo Casadevall, a microbiologist and immunologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. Casadevall and others worry that global warming could drive the evolution of more heat-tolerant fungi — a change that could have big implications for human health.
“A major factor protecting us from fungal disease is the difference in temperature between the human body and the outside environment. As fungi adapt to living at higher temperatures, we may begin to lose some of that natural protection,” says Casadevall. For a heat-tolerant fungus, the human body might start to look less like a sweltering furnace and more like a balmy retreat.
Casadevall and colleagues have demonstrated that some fungi may already be adapting to warmer temperatures. When they analyzed thermal susceptibility data for several strains of yeast (a type of fungus) gathered since 1985, they found an increase in the past 20 years in the maximum temperature that some strains could withstand. The findings, say the researchers, are a “clear warning that global warming may cause fungi to become significantly more thermally resistant,” though it’s not possible yet to predict which species may become new human disease threats.
Non-Environmental Factors
The rise in invasive fungal diseases may be due to a number of non-environmental factors too, including increased susceptibility due to medical procedures.
“Advances in medicine have come with a few trade-offs, one of those being a rise in human fungal infections,” says Jack Edwards, a medical mycologist at Harbor/UCLA Medical Center in California. Edwards studies life-threatening infections due to yeast in hospitalized patients.
The CDC estimates there are roughly 46,000 cases of hospital-associated invasive candidiasis each year, a number that’s increased over the past two decades. It’s one of the most common bloodstream infections in hospitalized patients, and is caused by Candida yeasts that normally live in the gut and on the skin with few problems. But in patients with weakened immune systems — people on cancer chemotherapy or who have undergone an organ transplant, for instance — Candida can be a big problem, causing deaths in about 30 percent of patients with bloodstream infections.
“Every time you take an antibiotic, you’re killing off some of the good bacteria in your gut that keep the growth of harmful organisms such as pathogenic yeast in check.” – John PerfectOveruse of antibiotics may be another factor leading to more life-threatening fungal infections. The human gut microbiome — the living things within our intestinal tract — consists of a few trillion organisms, including bacteria, viruses and even fungi. It’s a whole community of microscopic bugs — some of them helpful, some of them harmful. Our health depends on just the right balance.
Most antibiotics don’t discriminate between good and bad bacteria, explains Perfect. “Every time you take an antibiotic, you’re killing off some of the good bacteria in your gut that keep the growth of harmful organisms such as pathogenic yeast in check,” he says.
Drug Resistance
Invasive fungal infections can be some of the trickiest medical problems to treat. A dearth of antifungal medications is one reason, says Edwards. There just aren’t a lot of drug options for preventing or treating fungal disease.
“We have vaccines for parasites, viruses, bacteria. But no fungal vaccines,” says Edwards. He’s working with collaborators to develop a vaccine against candidiasis that could be given to transplant recipients, intensive care patients and others at high risk to prevent the life-threatening yeast infection.
Drug-resistant fungal infections complicate the picture.
Some experts fear that rampant use of single-target-site fungicides — chemicals with one very specific means of killing fungi — in agriculture could translate into more drug-resistant fungal infections in humans.
Aspergillus fumigatis, a fungus that causes lung infections, is showing signs of drug resistance in the environment. Photo courtesy of Yale Rosen
In Europe, the Americas and Asia, researchers have found drug-resistant strains of Aspergillus fumigatus in garden soil, plant seeds, rice fields and compost. The fungus causes a disease called aspergillosis, which can cause breathing problems in both immune-suppressed and healthy people.
The discovery of drug-resistant aspergillosis in patients who have never before taken antifungal medications suggests that drug resistance in some cases could be coming from the environment and not from previous use of antifungals, says Gurr.
She says we should limit use of agricultural fungicides that are structurally similar to medically important antifungal medications. More research is needed too, she says, on the basic life cycle of fungal plant pathogens. Such knowledge, says Gurr, could lead to more judicious use by helping farmers to better plan when in the growth cycle to apply fungicides to their crops.
Perfect says fungal diseases have become a “silent” epidemic among certain groups — cancer patients, people with AIDS and the severely ill in hospitals. And the problem seems to only be exacerbating with time: Over the past year, reports have emerged of yet another — frequently drug resistant — hospital-associated fungal threat, Candida auris, in at least 16 countries around the world. As the environment around us changes and our natural defenses become more tenuous, Perfect warns, we need to take steps to protect ourselves, especially the most vulnerable among us.
UPDATED 04.29.17: Fungal diseases cause more than two-thirds of all crop diseases worldwide.
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