When people vote down your hub, can it have any effect on traffic?

1. 97

   Thomas Swanposted 11 years ago

   After writing about an ex-US President, two "patriotic folk" (to be polite), strongly disagreed with my negative slant and posted angry comments about how I should be ashamed with what I'd written. You know, the usual "we live in a free country, but your opinion is unacceptable" garbage. The nastiness escalated to the point where I just deleted the whole comments section.
   
   Anyway, one of these patriotic folk compared my work to a hub that he described with similar derogation. I visited this hub to find the patriot spouting the same vile and snide remarks there. In one of his comments he even said "I have voted this hub down" in an attempt to annoy the author.
   
   This brought up an interesting point. If you write on a topic that is clearly controversial, people like this will be voting your hub down. No doubt he voted my hub down too, and others who disagree for personal/emotional reasons will probably do the same. So I must ask, can this affect traffic to the hub? It surely affects the hubscore, so it should affect internal traffic. How does this affect external traffic from google? Less internal traffic is less traffic period, which google will interpret as a lack of popularity. Also, it will feature less on the hub category pages for sure, meaning fewer links.
   
   Might it be better to disregard votes, and rely on the quality of the written content instead? Perhaps it would be best to implement this in certain categories, like Politics and Social Issues, as that is where votes are likely to be personally/emotionally motivated.

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      NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I had the same thing happen on a different account on which I write some political hubs, but I don't even monetize that account; I was kind of testing the waters. Anyway, commenter got on one of my hubs, insulted me and said he voted my hub down. I think you're right, people are going to vote on political hubs in a biased way, not based on quality of content. Political and social issues are hot buttons.
      
      I think Randy's right, the downvotes are negligible. Seems like it would have to get a lot of downvotes to have an effect, and then there are the other factors that determine a hub's score that are taken into account.  I do wonder if some consideration might be given to hubbers who can show that there was bias in the voting. I don't know. I'm sure there's guidelines saying not to vote according to opinion, but rather quality.

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      Cantuhearmescreamposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I've wondered the same thing, but more than just traffic hub and hubber scores. Controversial topics should be written about and discussed and with any controversial topic, debates and differences in opinions will follow. I have no problem with someone disagreeing with me, but should disagreeing with an opinion justify a thumbs down? Personally, I think that if someone can influence traffic, hub score or hubber score, by simply clicking on the "thumbs" then there should be a similar approach like flagging an article. Who is going to complain about somebody choosing a "thumbs up" on their hub, even if it was a quick, thoughtless click, so no one is arguing that. However, if someone finds it necessary to give a thumbs down I think that a box should pop up and they should have to explain why they felt this way and maybe thumbs down shouldn't be such an anonymous action?

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2. 60

   Randy Godwinposted 11 years ago

   I think the votes down have a negligible effect on the hub, Thomas.  Don't sweat it! 

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      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That is, indeed, the case! Do what the honorable Mr. Goodwin says- don't stress!

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3. 72

   relacheposted 11 years ago

   Voting has zero effect on traffic.  Admin has said it has an extremely minor effect as part of the many elements that comprise Hub Score.

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4. 60

   Randy Godwinposted 11 years ago

   I believe there was someone from staff discussing this a while back and they said the up and down votes hardly affected the hub score. At least it didn't at one time.  Who knows what's going on around here these days? 

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5. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years ago

   Y, this comes up from time to time. It's inconsequential.

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6. 97

   Thomas Swanposted 11 years ago

   Thanks everyone. You have certainly allayed my fears!

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