What to do with old non-productive hubs

1. 74

   carol7777posted 11 years ago

   Though I have been on HubPages only 4 months I have about twenty hubs that have not budged.  Is it better to keep them and wait or does it hurt your score to delete them?  What is the best thing to do?

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   1. 92

      Dbroposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Wow, great question! I'm pretty much in the same boat. Unfortunately I don't know the answer. I'll follow this conversation and see what I learn!

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   2. 95

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      If they have been there only 4 months, leave 'em alone.  HP indicates that it can take years (three, as I recall) for a hub to reach full potential.  A four month old hub is just a baby, still growing it's first teeth to take a bite from the web with.
      
      Leave them alone, changing them just enough to keep them from going to sleep.  At six months if they still aren't getting a dozen views per month you might try tweaking the title or text a little, adding a photo or other capsule - things that might help.
      
      At a year if you like the hub and it STILL isn't performing go in and change the keywords to something else.  Time consuming and a new hub might be better, but it's an option.

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   3. 61

      Brandon Tartposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Keep the Hub... heck with the score... maybe you'll write one that leads someone to go to your profile page and look deeper into the heart of who you are as a writer... who you were, vs who you are on that one very recent eventual hub you are soon to post!  Write for the passion of it!  Maybe an agent will read something and email you to turn it into a novel!  I hope that happens for you!
      
      Best of luck with the numbers game, but keep it mind... it is indeed just a game!

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2. 60

   Daffittposted 11 years ago

   I've seen similar question to this one before. The basic idea I came away with comes from HubPages' newest feature -- Idle Hubs. When a hub is not being viewed by very many people, Hub pages suggests that you shouldn't necessarily delete a hub, but rather, refine it with more quality content. The new Idle feature allows HubPages to place you hub in Idle mode where it will not be viable to search engines; thus not affect your hub scores in a negative manor. The Idle state is indicated by a special "Zz" symbol next to your hub. Apparently, HubPages would rather Idle your hub instead of deleting it. This allows their content collection to remain in a "growing" state which looks good to the search engines. You can find out more at this FAQ http://hubpages.com/faq/#IdleHub.

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   1. 74

      carol7777posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Interestingly enough of all my hubs I have not gotten any zzz.  So this has been a good indication to me that I keep the hubs.  I upgrade at least four hubs a day..check for grammar, read summary, tags, photos and keywords.  Thanks for all the great help...actually to everyone here.

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3. 83

   kathleenkatposted 11 years ago

   I recently deleted (though was sure to save the content onto my PC) all of my hubs which scored under 60. Typically, these were also low in traffic, and/or idle. My Hubber score went up a little bit. As you are new, like me, I'm going to go ahead and point this out: Did you add a summary to your Hubs? I just recently noticed that I never did that. I went back and added summaries to all of my hubs, and noticed an increase in traffic and ratings on them. I have a steady daily earning, now, or so it would seem.

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4. 60

   fpherj48posted 11 years ago

   Carol....The general consensus of opinion that I hear most, is to think long and hard before deleting a hub.  Editing is always a good idea, if a hub has sat idle for any length of time.   The reality is, I don't think any hubber has massive activity on every single one of their hubs.  Some are bound to be more popular than others.  The only other thing I will mention is that in my own case, I have seen a few of my hubs that did nothing for the longest time and had lower hub scores, when suddenly, they were read by hundreds and rose to the top and eventually had really high scores......All that tells me is, we never know......Go figure.

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5. 96

   cat on a soapboxposted 11 years ago

   I agree that a lot of thought should go behind deleting a hub. Some hubs become sleepers because topics are seasonal. No worries.
   Other hubs may need tweaking. Is the title catchy? Do you have an interesting summary? Perhaps a sharp new graphic or photo will revive interest. Update your text with references to recent events. These are some ideas to wake up those sleepers.

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