Idle Hubs & Profile Pages

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  1. Simone Smith profile image87
    Simone Smithposted 11 years ago

    Hey everyone!

    We have just released the ability to choose whether or not you showcase Idle Hubs on your HubPages Profile.

    By default, Idle Hubs will not show up on your Profile, so if you would like them to appear, visit My Account > Profile > Edit Profile and check “Yes” under “Show Idle Hubs on my profile”.

    http://s3.hubimg.com/u/7235422_f248.jpg

    Before making that change, do keep in mind that if search engine traffic is important to you, it would be best for you to leave Idle Hubs off your profile, so that they are not indexed by Google and running the risk of draining the search-engine-related clout of your other, more successful Hubs.

    While it is possible to change your setting now, we will not actually stop showing Idle Hubs on Profiles until Monday, so as long as you make any desired switches before then, any Hubs you do not want to disappear from your Profile will not disappear.

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    1. K9keystrokes profile image83
      K9keystrokesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the update, Simone! I really like that you explain the reasoning for and against making any changes. I also appreciate that the HP team continues to develop improved methods for the site. cool
      HubHugs~

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    2. profile image0
      Tina Trueloveposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, thank you for the explanation. I'm loving all the improvements!

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    3. Simone Smith profile image87
      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks y'all! We're all about moving onward and upward!

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    4. Marcy Goodfleisch profile image83
      Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the update, the new feature, and the helpful insight into the ramifications of using that new option!

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    5. IzzyM profile image86
      IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Is this why idled hubs are continuing to receive Google traffic?

      The fact that they are featured on our profiles stops them from becoming deindexed?

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      1. Simone Smith profile image87
        Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        As I understand it, that has something to do with it, yes. I mean, the noindex tags are still on those Hubs, but because they're on Profile pages, they're still getting crawled.

        Note: I;m really bad with comprehending SEO-related things; I might have mis-interpreted this. But that's what I understand to be the case.

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    6. livewithrichard profile image73
      livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, I appreciate HP allowing us to make that decision... Since HP has provided us zero proof that poor performing hubs were affecting our more productive hubs, I've made the switch with my couple dozen idled hubs.  My traffic has already been decimated so I doubt that it can do any worse.

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    7. profile image0
      ateinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      @ Simone Smith

      OK , let me get this straight .
      What you are saying is :

      After Monday all the hubs that have been idled by HP will disappear from HP users profile . But these idled hubs would not be deleted and still be available in the HP users account . Right ?

      Prior to Monday an HP user will have the ability to show his/her idle hubs on his/her profile, as a result of which these idled hubs will have the possibility of getting indexed by Search Engines.Does this mean that the noindex tag attached to idle hub will be removed ? because the hub will be indexed only if the noindex tag is absent . Right ?  So basically HP is giving it's user an option to choose if he/she wants to go by HP's decision of idling an hub or use his/her own judgement. 

      Is this option of  allowing an HP user to show  an idle hub on his/her profile permanent or is it available till Monday ? What I mean to say is , Can a HP user de-idle his  hubs idled by HP after Monday ?

      Thank You .

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      1. Simone Smith profile image87
        Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Right! Those Idle Hubs will also be available via the Feed and direct URLs that can be shared via email, social media, etc.

        This does not mean that the noindex tag attached to Idle Hubs will be removed.

        What we're doing is removing Idle Hubs from Profile pages, but giving Hubbers the option to leave them there if they want them there.

        Hope that helps!

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        1. livewithrichard profile image73
          livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Well then how is this a benefit?  If the noindex tag is left on them then the SE's can't see them anyway so why remove them from the profile page where the only traffic you will receive is from internal traffic...

          Option A:  Leave the idled hubs off of your profile page where nobody will ever see them (might as well delete them)

          Option B: Allow them to be on your profile page where only internal traffic may see them and since the noindex tag remains there is no possible way that they can have a negative affect on your entire portfolio.

          Option C: (<------Choose this one) Fix the idled hubs by creating an engaging title, adding or updating content (nobody wants to read old news), removing stuffed keywords/unrelated or slightly related tags, have at least 5 modules with at least one good picture (properly attributed), Use the Ratings module which I assume is a rich snippet that will add value to your hub, get the hubs circulated through your social networks.

          Remember when writing use to be fun?

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          1. tillsontitan profile image83
            tillsontitanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Sounds like a plan!

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  2. jpesch1 profile image77
    jpesch1posted 11 years ago

    What if you want to completely delete a hub?

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    1. jpesch1 profile image77
      jpesch1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Never mind, I just figured it out.  Duh!

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      1. Simone Smith profile image87
        Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        All's well that ends well. wink

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        1. emilgen2011 profile image58
          emilgen2011posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I hope there is a like feature here too like in FB... so that I could give huge "like." Thanks a lot for being kind at all times HubPages staff. (:

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          1. Simone Smith profile image87
            Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Shucks, thanks!

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  3. janderson99 profile image53
    janderson99posted 11 years ago

    Why not state the obvious - Idle hubs are dead wood - update them or dump them - if there are no links to them on your profile no one will find them or know they are there. If they pull down your subdomain rank for searches - time for them to be killed off. RIP!!

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    1. Simone Smith profile image87
      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Well, there are always exceptions, aren't there? For example, I like to use HubPages as a place to store recipes I've developed, and even though some of them are Idle Hubs, I just like to keep 'em around because it's nice to know they're all in one place.

      Also, say someone has a poem he or she loves that isn't at all search-friendly, but is something this Hubber likes to email to friends and family occasionally when they need cheering up. The Hub may be Idle, but it still has value, and so long as it's outside the roving gaze of search engines, it's not going to hurt this Hubber's reputation.

      So yeah... I can see why they sometimes work, though I'm all for reworking or killing off for the most part!  You make a very good point.

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      1. K9keystrokes profile image83
        K9keystrokesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Nice! I really like the way you think, Simone!

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        1. Simone Smith profile image87
          Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Ah, but if only the world WERE black and white!!

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          1. K9keystrokes profile image83
            K9keystrokesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Even as I am getting accustom to the grey and gradient tones, a black and white world would make for a straight forward scenario. smile

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            1. Simone Smith profile image87
              Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

              YES!!! Ugh. T_____T

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      2. Pearldiver profile image66
        Pearldiverposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Why Then Simone....  Did ALL my poems - (Some of which I personally as the author, believe to be some of my best works) - including the poem that placed 2nd in your Poetry Comp all become Idle and thus now are about to be killed within your 'Onward and Upward' system?  Lesser works that were not entered into any of your comps all rate well in SEs and still get enough traffic to not be subjected to this new system.

        The problem Was Not the work.... the problem must therefore have started as a result of what happened After the work was submitted.  And at the time I found it interesting that they appeared to have been withheld from the SEs.... Whether there was a bug or not only you guys know... but what I know is that nobody has answered the question above - even though it is Extremely Relevant to the situation.

        You must excuse my questioning of this issue... But I consider it somewhat logical to the issue - Can't help that I'm afraid... I'm an analytical and logical minded person who has 25 years experience at Independently Trouble Shooting Businesses...  smile 
        Understanding logical answers is also something that I'm quite good at...

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        1. Simone Smith profile image87
          Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Because, Pealdiver, poems and search don't go together.

          Hubbers who have a lot of poems are going to have a lot of Idle Hubs because poems don't drive search traffic. We are offering this option to keep Idle Hubs on Profiles because we know that, for some, search traffic doesn't matter so much, and we know they just want to be able to display all their work on their Profile pages. So it all works out! big_smile

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          1. Pearldiver profile image66
            Pearldiverposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Oh really.... I don't believe that I'm sorry.

            I don't accept that is a good enough explanation as to why ALL my work submitted into your Poetry Comp never had a chance to gain traffic as a result of submitting it into that comp.

            NONE of My Hubs are solely poetry!!

            All have a subject lead-in to which a poem is attached.  If I took the poem out of the article - the article in itself would list and hold a readership on it's own quality!

            Maybe if you actually looked at my work before you assume that it is simply poetry and therefore Not Good Enough to gain SE traffic then you may understand what I'm saying.  The poem is actually the value added portion ... but you guys seem to know best at what value is smile

            Why would a well researched,formatted and written article and poem called "The Song of the Salmon" about the pacific salmon run in Canada not gain any traffic on this site... It is an excellent example of educational writing that is superior to other articles I've seen on the subject.. But you guys call it a poem... and therefore 'unsuitable' for search engines... and that would tend to indicate that it has (sometime ago) been removed from being crawled perhaps...

            What tags have been applied to my 'poems' I wonder?

            I'm sorry if you find my concerns irritating, but they are highly valid concerns and represent a lot of time, effort and loyal support of this site over 3 years of my life.. I'm merely asking for a credible explanation that relates specifically to those hubs that were submitted within your management and on the basis that they were to be published in a manner which did not undermine the efforts put into them in any respect.  So far, clearly they have.

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            1. profile image0
              summerberrieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

              Pearldiver, is it possible to place your hubs in different categories-based on the subject of your poems

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              1. Pearldiver profile image66
                Pearldiverposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Hi thanks for that... I thought I had done that.. however several of them were changed after I had done that.... It wasn't me who changed them into obscure and irrelevant groups - it was done internally and intentionally, without my knowledge which is why I am so bristly about this issue!  eg: A hub on relationships got changed in Eastern Religions FGS.  I changed it back and it immediately got sandboxed..

                It probably all doesn't matter anyway, I know the value of my experience here and after my post all my hubs were manually moderated and 5 of them have now been ripped down and unpublished - that's a quick way of screwing up someone's relationship with Google! big_smile
                So... cheers HP  - 27 Idle Hubs including those only just published - For Not Driving SE Traffic smile
                                  And  -   5 Unpublished - For clearly equally serious reasons! smile
                                          _ 32__  Hubs or 40% of my work that has been ripped out of the system! sad

                I don't believe that I don't have reasons to be concerned as above.... I'm not that obtuse, nor is my work of such substandard quality..... I merely asked for a viable and honest explanation.. WHY?

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                1. aa lite profile image84
                  aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  I am curious Pearldiver, what kind of keywords do you think people would be typing into Google to find your poems?  If you expect to get Google traffic, you must have an idea of how people would find you.

                  It's just that you seem to blame HP for not getting Google traffic, most people generally blame Google, but if you want Google traffic you have to have an idea of how people would find you for Google.  Incidentally I usually have the idea, it frequently doesn't work.

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                  1. Pearldiver profile image66
                    Pearldiverposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                    I'm Not playing a blame game here.. I have been asking and asking for Help from those who are stated as being in charge of the problems that I have been experiencing.

                    Factually, 78% of all my traffic here has been from SEs since inception - So Realistically, I don't need anyone telling me that My Work is Not Suitable for search engines!

                    Factually, I am a very widely read poet and write under more than this HP entity. - So I understand my craft and what is required to write quality, with authority. - I also have a pretty good understanding of SEO etc, although here I have not fully exercised it... and given all the chops and changes here, I'm pretty glad I haven't.

                    I don't use social media tools or extensive backlinking.... and still my work has featured well on search engines.... So, I am aware that I can develop higher volume with those mediums when I so desire...

                    What I wanted to do here was to grow Pearldiver exactly as I have... which is why I am frustrated by the fact that I know some of my best works have effectively been tossed aside, without so much as a logical reason why!  That's what I'm asking for and now I'm getting my works ripped down by manual moderators - Yawn.....

                    I have hub keywords that drive traffic and are constantly copied and Pearldiver usually holds the 2nd or 3rd page on a Google search under that brand... and under various poetry references I also measure well. 

                    The Problem.... Until Simone's Comp all my works gained ample indexing and SE traffic... After that... I believe 90% of my hubs were perhaps 'noindexed' - Note 'I Believe'  - If so, I'd like to understand why.... wouldn't you if yours had?  At the time I thought there was a bug in the works...

                    2nd Problem - Realistically, if a 'Moderator' could manually find the time directly after my previous post, to go through all my hubs and to find fault with 5 of them... then surely having previously asked Simone to view them as Subject Hubs with word counts on average of 850, as opposed to merely poetry hubs... that same person/moderator could have also used the time to find the answers to my questions as to why they wouldn't make the grade with search engines... (as Simone had stated!)

                    I'm not trying to be or come across as a jerk.... I am as I have stated I'm merely asking a question on an issue that effects me and I'm sure, many others!  Happy with a straight forward practical understanding.... how hard could that be? sad

                    Cheers for your help.... clearly with 40% of my work at risk (32 hubs +) and with the inability to have access to the facts that are needed to make crucial informed decisions, in regards to protecting my writing interests.... I surely don't have explain the importance of trouble shooting this problem either professionally or ethically sad

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  4. LucidDreams profile image65
    LucidDreamsposted 11 years ago

    Simone, thanks for the option anyway. Now that we know it was a combination of things including a Google algo update, I have started to unpublish hubs while I am working on them. Maybe making the perfect hub will please Google and maybe not!

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    1. Simone Smith profile image87
      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm rooting for the 'maybe so' outcome. wink

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  5. Denise Handlon profile image85
    Denise Handlonposted 11 years ago

    Thanks Simone, great advice and clarification on this topic.

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    1. Simone Smith profile image87
      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Denise! I love announcing straightforward updates like this... hehee!!!

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      1. Denise Handlon profile image85
        Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        smile  2 thumbs up

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      2. vespawoolf profile image92
        vespawoolfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Thanks Simone! We know you're all doing your best to fix the problem. We have faith it'll all work out. :   )

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        1. Simone Smith profile image87
          Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          As do I. smile

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  6. Peggy W profile image95
    Peggy Wposted 11 years ago

    Thanks Simone,  I know that you and others at HP headquarters are working to make this the best Internet site ever.  We appreciate your efforts!

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    1. Simone Smith profile image87
      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks! We're happy to have the acknowledgement. The folks at HPHQ really are giving it their all. It's inspiring to witness.

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  7. Cheeky Girl profile image66
    Cheeky Girlposted 11 years ago

    Idle pages can still get traffic despite not appearing in Google search index. Hubs can still be liked, tweeted, pinned, Plussed, Stubbled, Digged (or is that Dug) (!) - Dribbled, Yelled. touched up, talked up, shouted (I made these ones up, as some names are plain silly!) or otherwise promoted socially. And if they get more traffic but they are not supported by one business on the web - namely hub Pages..... er... that might be a problem. Personally I would love to see my hubs being socially..er... "Hubbed". That would be so cool, guys. So so cool...

    Wikipedia has lots of inactive pages, thousands of them in fact. But they get traffic just fine, thank you. And Wikipedia is very happy for this. So what are we all missing here....

    We all love Hub Pages and that's why we're here. On a day when another Panda update and an EMD update arrive together - I would like to receive some good news for a change. Okay, coffee time.

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    1. Simone Smith profile image87
      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Very good point, Cheeky Girl! Never underestimate the power of social traffic!

      Thanks so much for pointing that out.

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  8. aa lite profile image84
    aa liteposted 11 years ago

    I am confused.  The initial announcement about idle hubs didn't suggest that we had a lot of control about whether they would be de-indexed or not (except that people discovered that they could bring them out of idling with a minor edit).  Idle hubs were going to have the no-index tag which would prevent Google indexing them.

    Now it appears that if we choose to have them in our profile, they will still be indexed, so the 'idle' is just a way of HubPages letting us know that the hub is under performing.  This seems like a major change of plan.

    I guess the hope is that most of the spam and really bad content will still be de-indexed, just because spammers are not involved enough with HubPages to realise that they need to change the option in their profiles.  It might actually work.

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    1. Simone Smith profile image87
      Simone Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Idle Hubs still have noindex tags. Featuring them on your profile doesn't change that. It just makes the 'hiding them from search engines so they're not considered as part of your online portfolio' element more effective.
      Most people who have a bunch of spam on their accounts aren't going to be checking the forums and seeing that this option is available. wink
      Hope that clears things up a bit.

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      1. aa lite profile image84
        aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Ok thanks for the clarification, what confused me was you saying:

        "it would be best for you to leave Idle Hubs off your profile, so that they are not indexed by Google"

        I did notice that my idle hubs appeared in Google index even a month later, which I thought was strange.  It's like Google is ignoring the no-index tag if the hub is linked to. 

        What would be really great, is if we could choose to keep some hubs on profiles, but not others.  For example seasonal hubs, that we are pretty sure are high quality, just go dead out of season, could stay on profiles.

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  9. cclitgirl profile image91
    cclitgirlposted 11 years ago

    Thank you so much for all the work and clarification.  I know that we want to put our best foot forward, so it's great that HP is helping us along with this.  Awesomesauce.  smile

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    1. tillsontitan profile image83
      tillsontitanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Totally agree!  You've said it best CC!

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  10. sunforged profile image71
    sunforgedposted 11 years ago

    If you want to make your own informed decision on whether the inclusion of the noindex pages (idle)on your profile are possibly damaging you would want to look into "page rank sculpting" and "dilution"

    Not really an easy or definitive answer on this one.

    I dont feel like looking, does anyone know if the noindex pages are also nofollow?

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  11. Greekgeek profile image78
    Greekgeekposted 11 years ago

    Ergh. I don't know what to think, Simone.

    I've done experiments with trying to get new hubs indexed by Google. I can't. If Google sees the NOINDEX tag on a new hub while it's still in "Pending" status, it's sunk. After two weeks, those new hubs still aren't appearing in Google's index at all.

    Some hubbers have managed to overcome this barrier, but I haven't.

    Incidentally, one of the ways Google found those new hubs is that it saw them on my profile. The day after I posted the test hub -- September 21 -- Google had indexed Tweets pointing to that hub, "group" links pointing to that hub, and showed the title of that hub on my profile.

    Google followed all those links straight to my hub, saw the NOINDEX tag, and dropped it like a radioactive maggot. Googlebot hasn't come back yet. It was scared away good and proper. Even submitting the URL manually to Webmaster Tools hasn't yet lured Googlebot to return after two weeks.

    So that's the power of a noindex tag on an idle or pending hub.

    So now you're saying we have the choice whether to hide or show our Idled hubs on our profile...but if we pick "show," they're still noindexed? Which means that they will not only be dropped by any search engine that sees them, but may not be recrawled for a long, long time.

    However, according to this new change, if we hide idle hubs from search engines to try and prevent them from falling into Noindex purgatory, this setting also hides them from visitors browsing our profile? That means that they're not only artificially blocked from getting search traffic, but also from getting one kind of social traffic.

    I'm not quite sure how this helps. Obviously, I am not understanding what this change entails!

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    1. Marisa Wright profile image85
      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Me neither sad

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    2. IzzyM profile image86
      IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I've only published one or two hubs since they brought this feature in, and it takes all the fun away.

      Seeing those first Google views used to give me a kick, but now we have to wait at least an extra 24 hours, and I can see that what you have experienced can and will happen.

      I fully understand your problem, and think that more successful subdomains will be hurt more by this issue than less successful ones.

      This is all because Hubpages knows they can't keep up with the crap published on the site, and don't have the staff to cope.

      As they have stated quite forcefully before that they refuse to change from their 'open publishing platform' which allows anyone to post a hub, I can only suggest that they train up volunteers to closely monitor new content.

      Oh, wait a minute, don't the 'elite' do that?

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    3. Dale Hyde profile image82
      Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I have experienced the same as described. It is frustrating. 

      I do know that my Google Analytics is the worst ever. There has been a steady decline, not a sudden drop, over the past 30 days. I was just there reviewing it with the webmaster of two of my other sites.  My other sites are showing pretty much a solid straight line.  A third site is actually showing an uphill swing.  HubPages is like a roller coaster.... a month ago sitting up at the top, no dip, just a straight shot down.

      The idle hubs? Well, I can understand the reasoning to a point, however, as stated, once a noindex tag is seen by Google, they will shun the material. I have seen it happen quite a few times already.  I can Google some material and find backlinks to it, but the main page does not appear under my sub-domain.

      However.... with the assistance of some well versed people, I am moving forward with my plans. Not to give up writing and sharing, but simply to move my material elsewhere.  I am averaging less than one page view a day,here on 115 hubs.  These were hubs that were doing well over 30 to 100 plus views a day for months until the rollercoaster downhill swing started.  I have one hub (1), that is getting views that remain acceptable. That one hub will probably become the only resident here with the possible exception of one other that will pull in views in 2013.

      For those who continue to do well here, I give kudos to and say "keep up the great work." 

      Before someone hops in and asks about keywords and such...remember, these hubs were proven hubs with few exceptions, of drawing in decent traffic until "something" changed.  Was it Google? I am doubtful as my other sites do NOT verify the same trend.  Same types of material and all are there as well.

      At this time, over the past few days, I now have an additional 7 idle hubs.  In the past I had around 5 or 6 that I did minor edits to and they popped back up as active after that wait of 24 hours or so.  Now, if Google happened to visit my sub-domain at the time those were idle, well, Google saw the noindex tag on it, and basically that killed the hub from Google hits. As for the seven, they will sit. I will not edit them. There were good to go in the past and I will just let Google de-index them.

      Now, if I am missing something in this picture, please point it out in a sensible manner.  Proof of some upcoming positive change would be nice for a change.  Speculation, hopes and guesses? Well, I just don't have a whole lot of faith in that when it comes to online business.

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  12. janderson99 profile image53
    janderson99posted 11 years ago

    Here's my take on the matter
    Idled hubs or Pending Hubs have the NOINDEX tag.
    => If you choose the option of NOT displaying links to hubs with the NOINDEX tag, the googlebot won't find them unless you link to them in some other way. The implied penalty imposed by Google for having such links will not apply.
    => If you choose the option of displaying links to hubs with the NOINDEX tag the googebot will crawl them every time it visits your profile. They will NOT be indexed and the implied penalty will apply. It may be a lot harder to awaken them
    => The simple take home message is Don't have any Idle hubs - delete them or modify them to awaken them. Choose the option of not having any links on your profile to hubs with NOINDEX Tags. If you publish a new hub, don't advertise the page on social media etc. , until it becomes 'featured' and will be added to your profile. If a hub is made ZZZ edit it as fast as you can (or delete it) so the Googlebot has less chance of seeing the 'NOINDEX' TAG.
    Keep your SUB awake - no sleeping allowed!

    PS submitting new hubs to webmasters tools to get them indexed - works for me once featured. Also submitting to social media immediately during the 'pending' period does not seem to harm things - if you submit to webmasters tools as soon as they are 'featured' => indexed within 2 days once featured.

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  13. rebekahELLE profile image85
    rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago

      Pearldiver's hubs are amazing.  So much detail is put into them.  I really hope someone from staff can assist him. 

    I have to say, this thread is not sounding too inspiring to publish new content.  Is anyone publishing on a regular basis who is not suffering from idle hubs?  I guess I don't understand idling new hubs from established writers on the site.

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    1. janderson99 profile image53
      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I've had the Grim Reaper visit me regularly - about 40 hubs ( of 625 ) => ZZZ - deleted 10 as they were 'no hopers' - the rest I edited by adding an extra image ( large one near the top which I Pinintered), some extra text, etc (5 minutes work). All got the Prince's kiss and awakened. I've has 5 waves of ZZZ, some 2011 subs related to traffic less than 1 hit every 2 days, the rest (published in 2012) appeared to be triggered by links to my external sites. Some of these were only published in March-July 2012 - but all were awakened with a KISS.

      My approach is to edit them as soon as they pop up and have NO IDLE HUBS in the SUB (no slackers here).

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  14. rebekahELLE profile image85
    rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago

    That is hardly any time to gain traffic.  It takes time for hubs to get noticed and start receiving 'airplay'.  I haven't published for a few months and have made it through the P & P updates, etc., without drastic traffic swings,  only have had two ZZ's which quickly came back to life.  But I'm concerned with some of what I've read here.  I can understand ZZing hubs which truly need help, but I don't understand ZZing brand new hubs from established hubbers and ZZing them only after a few months.  Is it really helping the site overall?

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    1. janderson99 profile image53
      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Agreed  -- HP has a war on against links at the moment - links in Profile removed, links to idle hubs removed. Their 'Grim Reaper' algo seems to pick up any page that sniffs of being a 'links' page - created solely to get links for external sites. Its a very blunt, dumb test and simple picks on pages with external links - Of course that is pure guesswork as they don't tell you why a hub was ZZZ after 2 months????

      replyreport
  15. cameciob profile image80
    cameciobposted 11 years ago

    After the idle hub program was introduced, I published 2 more hubs. One of them was for weekly topic inspiration. None of them is indexed by google. Both have been in idle stage when they were first published for about 24 hours. 
    2 days ago I published another one, a kind of joke, my only poem, with only 2 tags no keywords and it was indexed right away.
    I think the idle status of a new hub may have stopped google for crawling the page the next time it came around as well. Or maybe it was not indexed because, with the weekly topic inspiration, there we too many hubs on the same theme and it found another one more relevant?
    It looks odd that these 2 hubs have been in the same boat at the same time.

    replyreport
  16. Paul Edmondson profile imageSTAFF
    Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years ago

    I thought I'd add a little more color on why we think it's best to not link to idle Hubs.  Since we moved to subdomains, each profile page is viewed as the sites homepage.  For the vast majority, this page has the most seo importance for linking. 

    A simple way to think about how "link juice" spreads through a site is to take the "total link juice" and divide it by the number of links on the page.  By reducing the number of links that effectively increases the link juice per link. 

    Before we make SEO changes like this, I try and get two or three expert opinions.  In this case, they all agreed that this is a good change.  Therefore, we don't recommend changing the setting to display idle Hubs on your profile, but you can if you prefer.

    replyreport
    1. janderson99 profile image53
      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      But isn't the point beyond simply reducing the number of links. Isn't linking to pages with 'NOINDEX" tags bad, because it sends the bot onto  wild-goose chases every time it visits?

      If we have large subs, and having a large number of links is bad, then maybe the number of links should be limited to less than 100. Please be more definitive on this.

      replyreport
    2. jellygator profile image89
      jellygatorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This seems like a good starting explanation. I'd like to learn more about how to estimate these kinds of things but I don't know where to really start. For instance, how many views does it require before a link adds or takes away value  on our Google rank?

      replyreport
    3. IzzyM profile image86
      IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Paul, I set mine to allow the idled hubs to show, because my traffic returned in the same week Google crawled my account after the change was made, and each day, more and more of my idle hubs are getting sent Google traffic, some for the first time ever.

      It may only be one or two views, but I am then editing those hubs to take them out of idle mode, with the belief that within a month I should have a clear picture of the hubs Google doesn't want to send traffic to, which can then either get a major makeover or unpublication.

      I have a feeling that not allowing them to show on the profile will ultimately be a good thing, especially for newly published hubs that at the moment are suffering from the early visit of the Googlebot that then fails to return for ages after seeing the NOINDEX tag.

      replyreport
  17. brakel2 profile image73
    brakel2posted 11 years ago

    I think it takes a day sometimes for it to show

    replyreport
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