Does unpublishing your sleeping Hubs improve traffic?

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   Ms Deeposted 11 years ago

   Read here that when one hubber did this, traffic improved. I thought the formerly called 'sleeping' hubs, now those not 'featured', would be pulled off Google, anyways. So I'm curious that when someone unpublished their 'sleeping' hubs that this improved traffic. Has anyone else found that doing this improved traffic? Thanks!

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      Sarra Garrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Ms. Dee.  I unpublished all of my sleeping hubs and have seen an increase in traffic.  I don't know if it's just a fluke or not as one day I'll have more traffic and the next not so much.

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         Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Sarra, Good to hear your experience. So do you think though there is an up and down that overall your traffic has increased since then?
         
         Hopefully more will stop by and share their experience, too, and more of a sense of whether this helps traffic can be gained.

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            Sarra Garrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Traffic is up after deleting my sleepers but i'm writing better too 

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               Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Sarra, Thanks for letting us know better writing is also a factor!

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      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I've unpublished all my sleeping Hubs and it has had zero effect on my traffic.
      
      It's always a good idea to be careful when drawing conclusions about traffic surges and drops.   Google issues updates regularly, and Panda is run once every month, and any of those can cause dramatic changes in traffic levels.  So it's quite likely the change in traffic has nothing to do with the removal of sleeping Hubs.

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         Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Marisa, always good to get your take on things like this--thanks! So, you see zero effect. May as well not unpublish them, it sounds like.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Unpublishing them may not help my traffic, but the idled Hubs are invisible so they have no chance of ever getting traffic again.  So there's really no point in them sitting there, published.
            
            I'm unpublishing them to move them to other sites.

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               Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Marisa, right, I thought I remembered 'sleeper' hubs are invisible to Google. I think they are visible to other Hubbers, but that's all.

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  That's right, and our community is really very small - so having a Hub which is visible only to other Hubbers isn't really worthwhile.

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      Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I have unpublished 21 of my hubs that were "sleeping"....I have since published them elsewhere, but leave the originals here unpublished.
      
      In response to your question, no, I have not seen any increase in my stats by unpublishing "sleeping" and/or "idled" hubs.

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   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   When I got rid of my clinkers, things did seem to improve somewhat.

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      Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      paradigmsearch, helpful to know you saw somewhat of an improvement. Thanks for letting us know!

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   EndaMacposted 11 years ago

   Like many people I also created poor hubs. I thought they were great at the time but when I now realise what is actually required they looked like something a baby would do. Still we all have to learn. I did delete them because they were rubbish and I had done no keyword research at all. My traffic didn't change at all and my overall Hub score improved a little though not a great deal.
   
   Be careful though as I had done 5 hubs on ringworm and they barely got any traffic. Recently though the traffic to these has exploded. I am talking a few hundred a day. There must have been a breakout or something and it has now eased off again.
   
   So you just never know but I have deleted other useless hubs and I honestly don't see any traffic increase.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think this is more than just a matter of getting rid of your sleepers.  What remains has to be well written, something people want to read and easily searchable.  If those ingredients aren't there, you could pull hubs off forever and still won't get views.

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      Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      EndaMac, thank you for sharing your experience!  This gives me pause on the 3-4% of my hubs that are 'sleepers.'

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   divacratusposted 11 years ago

   What might not work now would work later, which is why I haven't felt it necessary to delete my sleeping hubs as of now. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow when Google brings about an update, they will be popular again..

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      Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      divacratus, A very good point to take into account. Thanks! I'm inclined that way, too.

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      Laura Schneiderposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I, too, have left my sleepers because I find, all too often, that a hub that was sleeping yesterday got a ton of traffic today. <shrugs> For now at least I'm not deleting any of the sleepers.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         See my answer to Divacratus.
         http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/106971#post2280191

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      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That worked before HubPages introduced Featured Hubs. It won't work now. If your Hub doesn't have Featured status, it has a "no follow" tag added, which tells Google to ignore it.  So no matter what updates re released, Google won't send any traffic to that Hub and therefore it can never recover.

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         Laura Schneiderposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, but Google and other search engines are certainly not the only ways traffic comes to your sites. Links from other hubs you've written or someone else has written draw traffic, links from social media, and word of mouth (say, I answered your question in an article I wrote). If everyone publishes and unpublishes stuff constantly, that makes us look flaky and wreaks havoc by causing broken cross-references and makes us look bad. I question why hubpages is doing this at all. Some hubs aren't bad, they're just topical or seasonal and therefore will get plenty of traffic at certain times of year or when certain things happen in the world. For example, and article on volcanoes might become a sleeper until a new one appears and that author hits the jackpot. I think I still will wait and see what happens to hubs and what seems to cause sleepers to "wake up". One day last week I had 5 sleepers (i think it was, maybe 6) and the next only 2. That says to me that you shouldn't delete hubs unless you're truly sure they're awful, regardless of whether they are sleepers or not. Let's not rush into this. Google isn't the only thing driving traffic to our sites.

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            Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Laura, Yes, there is one 'sleeper' have links to from other hubs so wouldn't want to unpublish it. That is good to know that some of your 'sleepers' have 'woken up.' I assume you to mean that you did not edit these 'sleepers' at all in order for them to be re-evaluated and re-featured, right?

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            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            That's true, but how much traffic are you going to get that way?  Considering you need several hundred views to make even a dollar, traffic from other Hubs/social media/links is just not enough to be worthwhile.  Especially if I can move the Hub to another site where it will stay visible to search engines. 
            
            
            
            I find that interesting because HubPages has said the Featured/Idle thing is about quality, not just traffic.  So if you didn't edit your Hub, there should be no reason why it would ever come out of idle.   I can only assume they are still tweaking the system.

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               Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I refuse to fall for them saying the unfeatured hubs are low quality. Mine that have been idled had low traffic because they were for keyword phrases that just couldn't compete, because there was too much competition.  I have a few recipe hubs that just aren't that great and they remain featured.

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                  Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  The formula is secret I reckon.... I certainly can not figure it out.  Some of my idled hubs had far more views and higher hub scores that ones that are still sitting as featured.  Go figure.  Or....try to figure, lol.

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               Laura Schneiderposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               No, I made no changes to the articles other than observe, one day on the stats page, that several were "idled" and the next day none were and the following several were again. The articles of mine that were listed as idled vs. non-idled were somewhat random, I thought, and not related to the quality of the article itself. I just don't understand it yet so I'm going to hold steady so as to avoid creating broken links right and left. It's very annoying to me when another hubber unpublishes a hub that I've linked to, thereby making my hub look bad.
               
               I'm not in this for money,fame, or glory, it's just a fun thing and personal outlet for creative ideas and such--a different kind of writing that I enjoy in a (mostly) friendly community.

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   HattieMattieMaeposted 11 years ago

   I agree...so I guess Hattie has a lot of of them to pull! lol Guess that is what happens when you're a prolific writer and thinker. lol

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   brakel2posted 11 years ago

   A hubber' said he removes hubs that viewers do not stay on for two minutes. He has had no idled hubs. Interesting.

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      Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      brakel2, This is a good fact to learn of from one end of the spectrum. Thanks for mentioning this!

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      Laura Schneiderposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Brakel2--very interesting! But, how can you tell how long your readers stay on your pages? (Sorry if this is a dumb question.)

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   alanrammelposted 11 years ago

   Sorry what are sleeping hubs? Are they the ones that have a low score as well as low traffic?

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      Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hubs that are not indicated as 'featured' in the far right column of your account. They used to be called 'sleeping' hubs, but now just are not featured.

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   LindaSmith1posted 11 years ago

   Dale once you unpublish and then publish elsewhere, you should delete them completely here. For one thing, once you publish them elsewhere, they can not be used here again.  Once you unpublish and delete, HP takes em out of search engine.  I also use the webmaster removal tool too!

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      alanrammelposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      yes I had a few articles on other sites that I wanted to transfer to my Hub account. I removed them first and then uploaded them to Hub Pages only to find that before I removed them someone had copied the articles on to their own sites. This meant that Hub Pages flagged them up as duplicate and therefore the people who copied my articles now technically owned copyright of them. You've got to be very careful!

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