Has anybody else deleted content? If so, why?

1. 0

   ryankettposted 13 years ago

   I've almost finished working through my entire portfolio, to improve aesthetics, declutter for CTR, and to comply with Hubpages TOS.
   
   It was a valuable exercise, as whenever I do this I find Amazon products which are no longer supplied or are currently unavailable, small formatting errors, comments with external links etc which I have accidentally approved (page leaks), and I have changed titles on hubs which weren't even performing pre-crash.
   
   Ultimately, I deleted 33 hubs, for a number of reasons. A fair few of these I deleted because they were very low quality (there you go, done my bit to raise the bar), a few were duplicate content (my own content), a few were extremely good quality but have just never worked on Hubpages (will be reposted on my own domains to see if I can make them tick), and a couple required a complete rewrite as per the Amazon rules, and to be honest I just couldn't be bothered to rewrite them.
   
   I found the process quite liberating to be honest, my portfolio feels cleaner. It can be hard reading really old stuff, a few cringes here and there, but if you are harsh with yourself it be a nice feeling when you skim off the bottom layer.
   
   In addition I have earmarked around 20 hubs which I will rewrite, as they are valuable enough to justify it. I am much happier with my stuff now, I may even go through it all again, one more time, and may even find a few more to banish.
   
   Has anybody else deleted content, and why? Did you also find this liberating?

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      Hestia DeVotoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I'm new enough that the few Hubs that might have been ripe for deletion weren't yet published, and I'll be able to adapt them to fit the new standards still.  I think I had about a half dozen that had to be edited, mostly for product amounts, but I can always up those later when I come up with more content.

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2. 79

   earnestshubposted 13 years ago

   I have removed quite a few and am reworking others. I like the idea of picking up silly errors I made and fixing them, updating information and cleaning shop, but some of my rubbish hubs just had to go.

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I couldn't believe just how crap a few of them were
      
      Mainly a throwback to the 30 in 30 thing that was in full swing when I arrived!
      
      Mine I mean, not yours

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3. 61

   SiddSinghposted 13 years ago

   I have not yet got down to cleaning and stuff, but I have decided that product focused hubs would go to own websites.
   
   I will write only informative and non-product hubs from now onwards.
   
   And yes, the earliest, mostly rubbish hubs will be deleted

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Sounds like a lot of your portfolio will be gone? I am not moving much of my stuff, I believe that I can get most of it back up the SERPS.
      
      I will probably slow down publishing a hell of a lot, but I am committed to making my Hubpages stuff work again.
      
      I will do this by backlinking, basically. Internal links are not as strong, and as such we all need to build more external links. I'm happy with that, in April I will be backlinking religiously.
      
      I will be backlinking all of my Hubpages, and I will also be backlinking my users content on Excerptz for them when I find appropriate places.
      
      That is going to be my April, backlink mad.

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         Hubman007posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Thats a lot of hubs to backlink. You got a plan of how to backlink ALL of them?
         
         How many links are we talking per hub?

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            ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            In my latest Hubpage I talk briefly about how my strategy differs from your typical Hubpages heavyweight, but has been shown to work for me.
            
            I tend to pick a phrase, publish it, backlink it 5 or 6 times and see what happens. That differs a lot from picking a high competition, high value phrase, and then backlinking it like mad to try and get on the front page.
            
            Effectively a small number of high value clicks v a high number of small value clicks. The latter works for me. A fair number of my Hubpages fail, but this is the approach that I have taken on Hubpages.
            
            Off-site, I tend to build small, and backlink excessively, in order to rank for something special Because, I don't have to disclose my top few niches then. The algo actually pushed one of my most valuable micro-site pages to the front page of Google. The problem is that I didn't have enough micro-sites to counter the Google slap.... it came 6 months too early for me.
            
            If this slap occured in September, I probably wouldn't be bothering with my Hubpages too much. But, of course, there are Hubpages which I will throw a few backlinks at, and there are some hubpages which I will need to backlink A LOT.
            
            I have identified 20 hubpages which I will launch an assault on, potential breadwinners, obviously I am not going to disclose them

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         2. 0

            ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I must add, I work from home full-time, and tend to work 70-80 hours per week, so I will manage it

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               Joy56posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               i could not make out your avatar, so i made it bigger.  Your lovely dog.  She looks so peaceful, like butter would not melt in her mouth...

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      2. 61

         SiddSinghposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I should have qualified that as "hubs that CAN be moved to own website will be moved". That will actually mean that some product hubs will stay - even if they are not particularly successful.
         
         Trouble is I have put my fingers in too many pies at once - so I will find it difficult to add something worthwhile to HP anyway.
         
         Oh well! Let's see how this pans out.

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4. 74

   barryrutherfordposted 13 years ago

   I deleted over 20 hubs recently actually felt good afterwards. Ones that were crap, Hubs that had zero visits for over a month and were under 100 for the past 12 months

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah I had a few like that, some were just damn awful and didn't deserve traffic, but a few were good quality and evergreen and are now saved on my desktop for reuse sometime

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I bet that you just wanted people to congratulate you on reaching 300 hubs again
      
      Just kidding.

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5. 74

   barryrutherfordposted 13 years ago

   I was worried about losing the 300 badge

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6. 66

   emievilposted 13 years ago

   Haven't deleted anything yet though I think some of my hubs need to be deleted . Don't have time right now to analyze everything with the tax season in full swing.

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      There is no rush

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7. 71

   sunforgedposted 13 years ago

   70-80 ha! I owrked 20 hours today alone .. wait, that actually kind of sucked
   
   
   Ill be deleting around 100 hubs when the hammer drops ...

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      What happened to your 4 hour working day?
      
      I probably do at least 80 most weeks, but then some weeks I take a day or two off, having a girlfriend and a dog dictate that
      
      So it probably averages out at around 70-80. Until recently I was also doing 15 hours a week for a part-time degree. That wasn't working, so I ditched it.
      
      I already have a first class degree (UK system different, that is the top 11%), and I could see myself scraping a 2:1 (50% take a 2:1 or higher) so I would just be undermining my existing achievement.
      
      Well, that and the course was purely cack.

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         sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Now with the baby crawling - my "working" is far less productive - and I have two dogs and a rabbit also to keep me on my toes (or distracted)
         
         My 4 hour work week still exists in a way.. Ive have a bunch of  3-4 day weekend trips coming up now that the weather is turning in NY ..actually heading up to the Roc for Stephen Marley and Barrington Levy april 2nd
         
         
         work hard, play hard

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         frogdroppingposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         A wife. You have a wife nowwwww
         
         I am musing on deleting some. Did bin one right from the off, others are under consideration. Not so much that they were badly written they're just silly nonsense.

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      lakeerieartistsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I deleted a few hubs, Ryan, not as many as Sunforged is doing.  Most of them were written in a hurry, and got little or no traffic.  I had to cut down the amazon/ebay in more than half of my hubs, and that took a really long time.
      
      Currently waiting to see what happens over the next few weeks, then will decide what the next step is.
      
      I have a few different strategies in mind, but not sure which way I will go completely.  Testing the waters in a few ways.
      
      Since the Google algo change my traffic has been steady at a lower level but no changes since then.  My earnings dropped out much more than the traffic, and now has come back some, but not proportionally.
      
      I can't really tell what the extra change to the sales capsules will do now.  Nor how well the new ad program will perform.

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8. 79

   Uninvited Writerposted 13 years ago

   I deleted my poems that were part of a long-gone poetry challenge, I also deleted two articles that I had on other sites.

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9. 0

   Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years ago

   I have deleted all Amazon hubs and a lot ebay hubs. No ebay hubs have been written in many weeks. I'm devising a strategy to move all ebay-centric keyword strategies to niche websites. (It's too easy for them to axe a program that the majority of hubbers aren't using.)
   
   If traffic returns I might write more adsense related hubs. But only after I see how they treat adsense versus the HubPages Affiliate Program. I have no desire to be a second-class citizen. For example, if hub and ad layouts are redigned to accommodate the HP program over plain adsense. I'll have to wait to after June when most hubbers qualify for the program to see the true impact.
   
   I'm still deciding if I'll continue to use my name here.

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Nelle, I do believe that you may be misunderstanding how the HubAd program works.
      
      If AdSense is the highest bidder for a hubs keywords then AdSense is still displayed in the four HubAd units. AdSense is not displayed when another ad network is paying a higher rate for the ad spot.
      
      I believe that earnings from AdSense in those four ad spots are reported in with the HubAd programs. In other words, AdSense has a monopoly over one of the five ad units, for the other four it has to compete on price.
      
      That is why it is a requirement for HubAd members to have an active AdSense account. AdSense actually plays a huge part in the program, and the only AdSense ads lost are those which are not offering enough at any given time, if AdSense does not play a huge role in the future then it will be because other networks - frankly - are paying more.
      
      For me, that is a massive development, and thus I am 100% behind it.
      
      If you are not a member of the HubAd program then AdSense is retaining a monopoly over all of your ad units, and as such can pay what they like.

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         Barbara Kayposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I didn't realize this. This is great!

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      rmcrayneposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      I for one think it would be great if you continued with your name and avatar in the forums.

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10. 87

    Paragliderposted 13 years ago

    I have a few that I would like to delete to re-use elsewhere, but what's stopping me is the comments. When people take the trouble to join a discussion, it seems a bit heavy handed to delete it.

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       Sufidreamerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Paraglider: Shibashake made a script for importing Hubpages comments into a Wordpress blog. It might be worth a try
       
       http://hubpages.com/hub/Import-HubPages … -WordPress

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          Paragliderposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          OK, thanks for that. I've always used Blogger, not Wordpress, but I've been rethinking that as well!

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       Aya Katzposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I copied the entire hub, comments and all, and then published on another site. One caveat: remember to remove the IP addresses so that they don't show on your new page.

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          Paragliderposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks Aya. That's another good idea.

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11. 82

    Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

    Despite several emails from HP, and a number of adverse comments from viewers I have decided to leave my rubbish up until it brings down Google and all it stands for.

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       Will Apseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Thats the spirit. You are courageously representing all those people who find changes in their environment too challenging to face up.

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          ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          It's actually part of his marketing masterplan, he constantly refers to his content as awful, and as a result it tricks people into seeing just how sh*te his actually pretty good content is

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             Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Ah Ryan, that's the trouble with you marketing experts - too damn clever. 
             
             It's safer, ego wise, than saying "hey guys I have just written a very good page".  And as you say, sometimes more effective too.
             
             Although there are always occasions when people then join in helpfully and say "yes it is rubbish", or "don't worry you'll do something good one day I expect".
             
             Anyway, what was the topic?  I am sorely tempted to delete some stuff - but I think reworking is an option.  Or just ignoring.

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                Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Just ignore, Mr Ewbie. If there is one thing they can't condemn you for, it is duplicate content. No-one has ever been more unique and original than you.

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                   Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Problem.  If I respond to this it will look like I bumped it just to show off.
                   Solution. Do it anyway.
                   
                   Karanda, you are very nice and I thank you. 
                   
                   Dammit.  Can't think of anything funny to say.

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                      lyndreposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      Mark Ewbie lost for words NEVER.
                      
                      

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                      prairieprincessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      Mark, I am one of your biggest fans.  I love how you're so humble!

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                         Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                         I was going to leave this for 24 hours then bump it but I'm tired of those games.  And anyway, another forum post might tick me up to 100 for a few minutes.
                         
                         Thanks PP - you, and everyone else who is nice to me is so kind. 
                         
                         I am just pleased that despite the constant adulation and huge amount of money I have earnt - I am able to still retain some perspective and mix among the common people on here.

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                            shoganposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                            We feel equally blessed.  So much so that I'm bumping this for free.

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12. 87

    Shil1978posted 13 years ago

    I've deleted about 24 hubs in the past week, although HP just wanted me to review 5 hubs. The hubs I took down were amongst the first few that I wrote when I joined HP. Most of them were hubs written in response to a question asked and hence were quite small/low quality.
    
    I was actually quite embarrassed by those hubs as well, when I reviewed them. I should have just written an answer to the question instead of making a hub on it. Those are the kind of hubs I would flag on Hub Hop now, so good riddance! I might take down some more - plan to re-review in a few days!!

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    Will Apseposted 13 years ago

    I read a couple of pieces by Mark and thought 'misplaced talent'.

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       Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks Will.  A couple is usually more than enough.
       
       Could you suggest the best place for it?

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14. 77

    barrancaposted 13 years ago

    I deleted 3 or 4 that were basically just youtubes with short introductions.  Although they introduced interesting videos, it wasn't worth my while to write more content on the subject.

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15. 80

    Bard of Elyposted 13 years ago

    I have only ever deleted one and that was because the person named in it complained to me that she didn't want any publicity on the Internet any more so respecting her wishes I removed it!

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16. 69

    lrohnerposted 13 years ago

    I've only deleted one, and mainly because it was a stupid topic to begin with and I simply didn't want to waste any more energy on it. I've got a bunch that I will probably be moving to one of my sites sometime in the next month.

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    Karandaposted 13 years ago

    I'm not sure who said it, but one writer noted: re-reading and editing my work is akin to a dog returning to its vomit. I do recall it was one of the masters of literature, so there is hope for us all.

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18. 62

    SunSevenposted 13 years ago

    I have moved around 3000 hubs to other places during my life at HP so far.

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       Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I may move close to that number myself in the coming months.
       
       My newly-edited ebay hubs are not generating enough revenue here with the current configuration.

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19. 67

    ThomasEposted 13 years ago

    I deleted roughly half my content. Once I replace it, I will delete the other half. I don't intend to have any sales hubs on hubpages within the next three months.
    
    Basically, I was using a strategy with my hubpages content which was rely on the internal link strength of the hubs... to give niches a try without investing too much time in them.
    
    I've come to the conclusion that the internal link strength is much lower than it used to be. So I intend to change the content I have on here to stuff much more easy to backlink.

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20. 70

    Cagsilposted 13 years ago

    I have removed about a dozen or so hubs. Changes that needed to be made them to me were unacceptable and the explanation I received from Staff was subjective to say the least. So, I deleted some of them. It's unfortunate that I had to, because three of them were my most heavily trafficked hubs, which cost me over 20,000 views a month.
    
    I've others that I'm thinking of re-working, but might just delete them and create new URLs for them instead. Plus, try to make them more ON-PAGE SEO friendly. But, then again, I would need a refresher course on that information anyways.

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21. 63

    kiwi91posted 13 years ago

    I haven't deleted anything yet. I've been adding more text content to hubs that didn't meet the quality standards for the number of Amazon/Ebay products, which seemed to spring back a little bit of traffic once I did that.
    
    For me, it's not worth the while to delete and move it elsewhere. I've never had much luck with transplanting content.

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    cre8tiveposted 13 years ago

    I've deleted a few, as quite frankly they redefined the term 'rubbish' - and there are a few more that I think are probably destined for being dumped (though I may try and rescue them with a few backlinks)
    
    Onward and upward:)

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    WryLiltposted 13 years ago

    I used it as an excuse to delete a good handful. Is my "200th hub" still legitimate if it's more like my 190th?

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    Stacie Lposted 13 years ago

    I'm still on the fence about deleting the zero views.
    I've been trying to "fix" them; improve seo,add,subtract,divide..lol
    I'm not sure if they aren't  hopeless cases..

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25. 67

    Michael Willisposted 13 years ago

    I didn't go the delete hub route past 2 hubs, but did make some aesthetic changes.
    I removed any News or RSS feeds that didn't produce information that I thought was very important to the hub.
    
    Deleted some Amazon capsules, even though I was way in line with the word count. And some of the Amazon capsules I changed to one or two items only. A couple of times I even moved the Amazon capsule to bottom of the content. It does make the hub more reader-friendly since the Amazon product was not the focus of the hub.
    
    I made changes with the Links capsule by deleting the auto-generated description on most hubs and left only the link Title. The few hubs that still have the description have not lost views, so it may make no difference.

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26. 70

    Cagsilposted 13 years ago

    Yes, I've just deleted 20 more hubs, as of last night. All my apparel hubs went the way of the trash bin. As did my 60DC HubLog.

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27. 59

    humagaiaposted 13 years ago

    I wish you guys would stop deleting hubs. It makes for an awful lot of adjustments in my hubs where I have linked to the ones that have been deleted. Those black arrows keep cropping up and I just can't keep up with it.
    Like always you just don't think of the effects on others, just like HP, you just think of yourselves!!!!
    
    I have deleted just one hub. The only one that HP raised an issue upon. And that one no-one would have linked to.
    If I had looked at it earlier I would have realised that all of the Amazon products I linked to were no longer available - so how HP came to the conclusion that there was not enough content for the number of products I do not know.
    
    Oh well, gonna just let the other hubs do their thang for a while and I am off to greener pastures.
    
    Disgruntled of the UK.

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       Michael Willisposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       "Like always you just don't think of the effects on others, just like HP, you just think of yourselves!!!!"......We are? Just like you are when condemning us? 
       
       
       

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          humagaiaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          It was a tongue in cheek comment - not supposed to be taken seriously. But then I have found that our British humour falls on stony ground elsewhere.
          But seriously, all these deletions seem to be a bit drastic. It seems that the rats are leaving the ship. Does this predict the demise of HP?
          I hope not - especially as the new HP ads mean that there is no longer a reliance on Adsense income. First 2 days on the program have shown that HP income exceeds Adsense income (with a lowering of adsense income, obviously).
          Amazon hubs should still do well as long as the quality of the writing, SEO and backlinking are done to the same level as those that are "Adsense"-centric.
          I just countenance thought before drastic action - adjusting hubs is much better than wholesale removal to alternative sites.
          
          Nice cartoon though!

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             Michael Willisposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Thanks for clarifying that.
             
             I have only deleted 2 hubs in the past couple of months. And they were not doing me any good anyways. My biggest move has been reviewing each hub and looking at how I can improve the "reader-friendly" format to make readers stay longer or want to read more hubs.
             
             My main cleaning of hubs is more aesthetic. Maybe re-writing a capsule or deleting a text capsule, limiting feeds such as News and RSS...just to make the Hub more appeasing.

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28. 0

    SilverGenesposted 13 years ago

    I've moved all my poetry and fiction to my own personal writing site and have retained nonfiction articles that do have consistently good traffic through search engines. I will be publishing non-fiction only on HubPages from now on. Why? Because I had to make a choice about duplicate hubs. I also deleted another 'username' after combined the hubs. Yes, there have been some major changes. Friends weren't coming to read recipes, how-tos and biographies as much as they were coming to read fiction but HubPages isn't about friends or community. It isn't Facebook. It is about algorithms and business. I can adjust - and I did.

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    N. Ramiusposted 13 years ago

    I just reworked all my Amazon product selling hubs to make them compliant plus some extra amazon ads were deleted to clean it up even more.
    
    I've no plans on deleting any hubs though. I'd like to see what happens with all the changes I made. As most of these product hubs are less tan a year old and seasonal, I need to see what happens when summer gets here. Time will tell my results.

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    MM Del Rosarioposted 13 years ago

    I am not deleting any hub but I have remove some amazon and ebay ads, news capsules and some rss feeds.

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