The Execution of 10 Hubs

1. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   I'm contemplating the deletion of my 10 lowest traffic hubs. They'd be the political and poetic ones. The idea being the well known theory of lame hubs bringing down the reputation of the rest of one's subdomain in the eyes of Google.
   
   I'd like to hear opinions on the validity of this theory.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      There are all kinds of philosophies about this, but I agree that nonperforming hubs drag you down. I recently dropped 50 hubs, and my numbers are higher than they were before I dropped those hubs.  You can always save and delete them then bring them back later, but I've  tried that and those hubs still perform poorly!

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      1. 61

         imgreencatposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I have several hubs that I think might be better off elsewhere, can I remove my hubs and publish them elsewhere?  I know if I moved them, that publication would have to accept previously published material, but is it true that hubpages has no legal right to them if they are deleted?

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            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            That is correct; you are the sole owner of those hubs.
            
            Before republishing elsewhere it is a good idea to make sure they are no longer in the search engine index, which takes a couple of weeks.

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               Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               You can have the URL dropped within 24 hours via Google Webmaster Tools.  Google will drop the URL from searches and caches within 24 hours of your request.  I have done this on over 25 hubs that were idled here on HP.  I moved them elsewhere and did the above and verified each time that they were, in fact, dropped by Google within that specified time frame. 
               
               No need to wait weeks....Manually do it...takes only a moment.

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      2. 60

         paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         OK! We've got one  confirmation that the theory is valid.
         
         Come on folks, let's get more data here.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Be careful about assuming cause and effect.  There have been a few people reporting traffic spikes and drops lately so it could very well be coincidence.

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      tirelesstravelerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This has crossed my mind as well.
      Since HP is not highlighting (a.k.a.  idling) low performing hubs I don't see the point of deleting them. If I am correct they don't get crawled anyway, but they are linked to some of my well preforming hubs which would be a pain to change.
        I Deleted some hubs that were never finished or published and deleted them. My score went up significantly, and my income with it.
      Its a game to see what can be done to improve scores and I seem to be making some progress.

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2. 57

   tussinposted 11 years ago

   Testing the validity of a theory by polling people on their opinion of its validity?  What about, you know, testing the theory by putting it into practice?
   
   But if you just want opinions, I think that its only true unless the hub mentions pterodactyls.  The only exception to this exception is if the hub mentions both pterodactyls and triceratops, and no other extinct animals.

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   1. 60

      paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This is the second post of yours I've seen where you seem to be unable to comprehend basic concepts. Unless you are in to stalking, I humbly request that you consider me dead to you.

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         Sarra Garrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

           This person has been tolling HP

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3. 88

   Victoria Lynnposted 11 years ago

   And how low is considered low? If my scores go below 60, I tweak them to try to get the score up. But will hubs in the 60s drag things down?

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Google can't see the score; why would you think it would drag others down?

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4. 88

   Victoria Lynnposted 11 years ago

   Well, that's what we're talking about--our lowest performing hubs, so I'm just asking. I was just throwing out there the question of how low is low enough to delete.

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      expertscolumnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I believe if a hub score is below 70, outbound links are turned off automatically by HubPages so its best to first delete, then move those writings elsewhere like your own blog where you can monetize them.

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         wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Negative.  If a particular hub score is under 40 OR the hubber score (on your avatar) is under 75 a nofollow tag is put on the hubs.

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Victoria, I assume you are replying to my post.  Please use the "reply" button; otherwise others don't know what you are referencing.
      
      "Lowest performing" hubs.  But that has very little to do with hub score.  That is my point; that that score has little to do with traffic. 
      
      Personally, at this point I would (and am) looking at any hub that can't get double digit traffic in 30 days.  The problem comes in when I look at seasonal hubs, new hubs or hubs written for hubbers.  All of those can have low traffic, but should they be deleted?
      
      Example: one hub has 2 visits in 30 days, but it's about camping.  People don't camp in the winter - should I leave it until next fall and see what it does in the camping season?  It's already been through one summer and never got anything - is it ready for the axe or was it simply not mature enough to be listed well on the SERP's last summer?

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         agvulpesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Wilderness you seem to have forgotten the fact that camping around the world is a never ending recreational pursuit. eg  atm In Australia we are in the middle of summer as also is South Africa and many other parts of the world. (very large camping markets)
         In my opinion 'camping' should be regarded as 'evergreen' and if a Hub on camping is not doing well it would be for other reasons than purely seasonal?

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            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Very true, and I do get some traffic from the Aussies (good people there!).
            
            Unfortunately, they are few and far between.  26 searches yesterday as opposed to 2000 from other sources.  That's why I didn't really count camping as non-seasonal.
            
            Now if you would just arrange for, say, 500 views per day from Australia I would be a happy camper (pun intended).

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               Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Well, considering we have fewer people in the whole of Australia than there are in Greater London, don't hold your breath!

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      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Victoria, "lowest performing" has nothing whatsoever to do with "lowest scoring".   When you think about performance, look at your Analytics data not your score, which is irrelevant.

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      1. 88

         Victoria Lynnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I hear ya, Marisa. It just seems that  a lot of times they're the same thing. Not always, though.

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5. 88

   Victoria Lynnposted 11 years ago

   Who are you talking to, paradigmsearch??

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      paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm guessing you are set to threaded mode? Top of page, at right. Set to chronological. It is MUCH better. Trust me.

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         Victoria Lynnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Hey, thanks, paradigmsearch. I'll try that. :-)

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6. 88

   Victoria Lynnposted 11 years ago

   Good to know, expertscolumn. I've been thinking about that. Thanks for the response!

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7. 88

   Victoria Lynnposted 11 years ago

   Wilderness, I know what you're saying. I have some like that, too, that I look at. Most of my lower hub scores are the ones with the lowest traffic, though; that's why I lumped them together. For the most part, they seem to coincide. Probably because quite a few are poems.Sorry for any confusion.

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8. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   As a general note. My only criteria is traffic. To me, hub score is meaningless.

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      expertscolumnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yea paradigm with 90 articles, how do you check for plagiarism of the 90 articles..?
      I'm sure 1 or 2 is copied onto some health site/magazine.
      
      If you're looking to increase traffic. Use
      
      1. RedGage
      2. Pingler
      3. Google Sitemaps
      4. Stumbleupon

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         paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Deleted
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         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         These are pretty amateur tips.   
         
         Google counts only one or two links to a site per domain.  Note I said to a site (in this case your sub-domain), not to a page (in this case a Hub).  So once you've got a couple of backlinks to your sub-domain on a site, there's no point adding more unless they're seen and clicked on a lot by real people.
         
         If you're very active on RedGage and Stumbleupon, your links will be seen by real people in those communities - Stumbleupon especially can give you big spikes - but it means devoting time to those places, time which would be more effective spent on spreading your promotional efforts a lot wider.

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9. 65

   expertscolumnposted 11 years ago

   yep you're right, removed some..
   
   paradigmsearch edit your quoted msg

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      paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Actually, I'm going to delete the sucker. I hope the original poster does the same.

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10. 84

    Marisa Wrightposted 11 years ago

    As I've said on many other threads:  as far as I can see, there is absolutely zero evidence that "non-performing" posts will drag a site down. 
    
    If that's the case, why isn't every news site in the world doing badly?  Every day, the majority of their posts are "low performing", because no one looks at old news. 
    
    Google has said it penalizes sites for low quality posts.  That means too short, or keyword stuffed, or plagiarized, or full of irrelevant links, or - you get the picture.  But nowhere in their quality guidelines does it say a word about low traffic.
    
    HubPages is assuming that if a Hub has low traffic, it must be because there's something wrong with its quality.  I'm sure they know that's not the case, but with such a big task and so few staff, they've decided that's the most manageable way to deal with their problem.
    
    If the Hubs in question are getting idled, then I would certainly delete them and move them elsewhere - why give yourself the tedious job of constantly having to do minor edits to keep them alive?  But I don't see why you should make them jump before they're pushed.

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       tussinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Too bad nobody seems to get this.
       
       It's one thing to delete your idled hubs so that you can repost them on another site.  That strategy makes sense if your hubs are good by just aren't getting the Google love. Hubs I've taken off of this site because they get hardly any traffic here are doing really well on Infobarrel and some of my own sites. 
       
       It's stupid to delete idled hubs for the sole purpose of improving the rank of your non-idled hubs.  Unless those idled hubs are crap (poetry, rants, armpit hair styling tips, etc.) they're not effecting  your other hubs in any way. Good articles don't hurt a site, no matter how little traffic they get. I don't care that Hubpages staff think otherwise, they are wrong.
       
       At least if you're going to go through with this misguided plan, repost them somewhere else.

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          Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          +++++++++1

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          Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          So, poetry is "crap" ?  Amazing that you would even write that here.

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             snakeslaneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             +1

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             Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Poetry is not crap, but Google thinks it is, if it's just a single poem.  Google can't tell the difference between poetry and prose, so in its eyes, a single poem is just a very short paragraph.    In Google's eyes, a short Hub is a crap Hub.   
             
             I have always been amazed HubPages allows poetry to be exempt from the "low quality" rule, because Google has clearly stated that having even a few short posts on your site will incur a Panda penalty for the entire site.  It happened to me on my ballet blog.  I got Panda'd; I did my research and found out that short posts were anathema; I combined my short posts into longer posts, or expanded on them; I recovered from Panda.

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          mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          lol, one of my best performing hubs is one on armpit hair on women, it has never even been close to being idled (834 views in last 30 days alone) and I only wrote it to prove a point to someone who had negatively commented on another hub of mine.... result!!!

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             Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             

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                mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                I only wrote it in Feb 2012, and right now the views are well into 5 figures. I wouldn't normally share this depth of info here, but in this case it was relevant, and as it is only my 27th best performing hub in the last 30 days I am not overly worried about saying things as they are.

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11. 97

    DrMark1961posted 11 years ago

    PDS, if you do go through with this experiment please make another forum or post here so I can consider this action. Most of my poorly performing articles are medical (vaccination reactions, etc), and those that have seen thousands of views are just information (dogs that dont bark, dogs that dont shed, etc), so I am reluctant to delete information that I feel may be helpful to someone, somewhere down the road.
    Thanks.

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12. 56

    A Driveby Quipperposted 11 years ago

    You are joking, right? You don't actually sit around worrying about a couple of hubs. They don't pay well by the hour, regardless. Maybe, if you have a thousand of them you can get that "residual income" up there enough to make a good  Bangladesh wage.

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13. 97

    DrMark1961posted 11 years ago

    Driveby Quipper, it is hard to believe they let you out from under the bridge to make comments like that. Are you in my shoes? Can you judge my activites? The answer to both of these questions are no, so just mind your own business.
    It is about time to delete that account and start another one that is less well known. Your nasty little personas seem to last about a week or so. That avatar is used up.

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       A Driveby Quipperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks for the input, I'll consider your suggestion, but I don't remember saying anything to you that would indicate that I am in your shoes. I never addressed anything to you at all.
       
       I find it amusing that Hubbers spend so much time and energy on stuff like this. It's a loser's game.

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14. 60

    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    Paradigmsearch continues to muddle along...
    
    I've tentatively decided on a middle-of-the-road approach.
    
    I am going to continue to let my low traffic hubs collect dust. For now.
    
    However, once I reach the "magic" 100 hubs, that will change.
    
    Whenever I publish hub 101, one of the other 100 will be dragged out behind the barn...

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