Have the requirements for being featured changed?

1. 96

   wildernessposted 9 years ago

   Today I find two hubs have gone unfeatured for lack of engagement - the half circle symbol.  This seems odd as the 30 day traffic is 78 and 89, they have 48 and 82 comments and score 83 and 100 respectively.  Has there been a change I'm unaware of?  Anyone else getting unexpected de-featuring of hubs for lack of traffic?
   
   If 3 views per day and a long list of comments isn't sufficient any more I'm in trouble.

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   1. 88

      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I had one go unfeatured a week or so ago and it was similar to your situation. The traffic was fairly decent to that particular Hub. I edited it and got it featured, but don't know why it went unfeatured.

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      1. 96

         wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         One I've updated and it is in the QAP, but the other is a finished product with nothing left to say.  But I've never considered a hub getting nearly 100 views per month as "lack of engagement"!
         
         Although, come to think of it, neither of those get much from search engines - it's all HP traffic in one and nearly all in the other.

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         1. 32

            Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            It makes no sense to me, but HP will unfeature a Hub which doesn't get search engine traffic even if it gets traffic from other sources.  But, I think you can just edit it, change a single word, and it will be featured again.

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            1. 96

               wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Pretty sure that's what happened.  I looked at the traffic source for these (as much as is available) and it's very nearly all from HP and has been for a long time. 
               
               Which in turn means that it doesn't matter if it becomes unfeatured as it never got any search traffic anyway.

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   2. 74

      Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I wonder if the whole thing hasn't gone bonkers. With my other account, I got a warning that the hub was out of line with the new rules for too many Amazon/Ebay products. It had 1 Amazon and 1 eBay. The hub was over 1000 words. The hub wasn't unpublished and it said it was just a warning.

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   3. 79

      colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Someone on the HP Team has said the filters aren't perfect.
      Maybe that wasn't meant to be funny?

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   4. 84

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think the number of comments ever counted in the "engagement" measure.  It's traffic and nothing else (Paul Edmonson has talked about including other measures but I don't believe that has ever happened).

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2. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 9 years ago

   I am 99% certain  this is HP's way of poking us with a stick to update our hubs.

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   1. 96

      wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      You may be right, and if so I'll lose quite a few hubs.  Many of them are not something that lends itself to a simple update, but are finished products with nothing more to say on the topic.

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3. 60

   Ken Bradfordposted 9 years ago

   I've just begun my journey on HP.  Seems a little more complicated that it really needs to be.  My first hub was rejected because the HP genie said it was a duplicate, but it really wasn't.  I have read several pages of FAQs and also much of the "Learning Center".  Could someone briefly describe a hub that would be featured (one sentence)?

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   1. 61

      gamers prophetposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi I had a hub that said it was a duplicate, but when I copied and pasted the words I had written into google, something similar popped up onto a different website and that was what was causing it. That being said i re wrote everything and it was featured

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4. 92

   Ramkitten2000posted 9 years ago

   Sorry if someone said this already. I just skimmed the thread. But I recall HP staff saying that social media and possibly even direct link traffic doesn't "count" when it comes to staying featured. One person in particular had a hub with something like 400 visits for the week (or day!) that was unfeatured for engagement, simply because all or most of that traffic was from Pinterest. It's search engine traffic that "counts" 'round here.

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   1. 96

      wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I vaguely recall something along those lines as well now, and it is probably the correct answer.  Thanks.

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5. 54

   janderson99posted 9 years ago

   One of mine got defeatured due to low traffic and after edits got the 'full monte' - the bullet hole. Not sure why. I definitely think the rules have changed. the Total Number of Pages on HP has declined by 10,000 in a week, and so it appears there is a lot of weeding out afoot.

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   1. 79

      colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Holy cat bubbles, -10,000 hubs in a week!
      That's kind of scary.

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      1. 61

         paradigmsearchposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Good One!

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   2. 93

      jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Yep, wilderness, what janderson99 said. There are a bunch changes and updates going on simultaneously where our hubs are rated more harshly. It's part of the "improve this site" movement. I've had hubs with scores in the 50s for the first time since the 2-1/2 years I've been here.

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6. 72

   relacheposted 9 years ago

   All I can say for sure is that HubPages is still reviewing and editing the Squidoo imported lenses.  I've purposely left an entire account untouched when it was brought over and left it that way so I could watch their organic processing of it.  All I can say is that it's extremely slow process and they do not appear to be reviewing entire accounts, instead moving through their content by some other grouping or ordering method. 
   
   From what people are saying here, I think HubPages is now reviewing all their "top content" in some sort of from-most-to-least ordering which they have determined, regardless of the age or prior status or "anything" of the Hub.
   
   Standards have changed, and from what's being said in this thread, they appear to still be under some sort of process of refinement and are still changing.
   
   tl;dr yes

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