Hubs, traffic, bounce rate, crawling, unpublishing, deleting
I have hubs within a couple of niches which I don't cover all that much; meaning, I don't have that many hubs in those niches. A good number of those hubs have a high bounce rate. So, I'm considering unpublishing those, putting them somewhere else. However, some of them get a good amount of traffic and are crawled regularly. Is it worth it to keep those at all, to see if things get better for them? Or is it better to just get rid of them? My thinking is that it would be better to get rid of them to bring the bounce rate down. However, I see potential in the ones getting traffic and that are crawled.
- Vickiwposted 11 years ago
0Hi Nate,
I cannot advise you on this, being very new myself. Possibly this is the very reason why sometimes it is better to wait until you make the decision! In other words, is it possible the Hubs haven't been on long enough to give them a fair chance? Hope you get comments from others, as it would be nice to know.Good luck.I agree. I have been noticing the hubs are successful on some days and might improve in terms of traffic and bounce rate. I think it is wise to wait, especially since I haven't even been on here a year; mostly what I've read is that it takes 9 months to a year to start seeing significant results; it takes time to have success with Internet writing, or with any venture it seems.
Yes, I think that would be wise. Such a lot to learn that the time will go very quickly. Just focus on writing more high quality Hubs and the rewards will come. At least that is what I tell myself! Meantime I am just focusing on learning whatever I can. It is a lot of fun though, and great to meet fellow Hubbers. Patience might be a virtue in this case!
How much time people spend on your page before bouncing off to somewhere else
The percentage of visitors to your page that do not view another page on your site.
A bounce can be:
a click back to search results
a click to an external website (including another HP subdomain or the HP main domain)
an ad click
a click through to amazon, ebay or other affiliate
closing the tab or windowVery good explanation. It took me awhile to understand the meaning of bounce rate, I couldn't find anything clear or definitive about it, with any kind of detail; you clarified it very well.
NateB11,
Google registers a bounce when someone clicks the back button to go back to the search listing to choose another selection from their search results. This indicates to Google that they are looking further for an answer to their query. Google interprets this as if the reader didn't find anything of value from your hub. So they send less traffic to you over time.
The trick to avoid this is to give the reader some reason to click to another of your hubs. Of course it has to be another hub that is related to the present subject. So if you have several hubs that you wrote in the same niche, then you can do this by making statements in your hubs into hyperlinks that point to another of your hubs -- one that elaborates on the item you mentioned in the first one.
Don't worry if this makes the reader click to the other hub before finishing the present one. The point is that you no longer have a bounce, but rather a continuation of a visitor staying in you subdomain.
This shows Google that readers are motivated to see more of your writing. This indicates that you have some authority on the subject. This is what Google looks for. Eventually they send more traffic to your hubs based on this lower bounce rate.
Just one thing... You need to be sincere about your efforts. What I mean is that you can't just make a reference to an unrelated hub or a hub that doesn't satisfy the reader with more information. So you have to work at this a little. Otherwise you'll just have a higher bounce on the second visited hub, and this will defeat the purpose.
Give it a couple of weeks after making these changes and let us know your results.Thanks, Glenn, for the very detailed and informative response. I think it could be I should re-work those hubs, as you suggest, and see if I can link them up appropriately to the other hubs. I have done this in a way, but the links are a bit vague like, "If you're interested in this subject see also", etc. While the hubs they link to are relevant, I think I could do something in the text to point more clearly to what someone might be looking for when they see the link. Also, I have other hubs in which I could change the links to be more relevant so I can keep visitors on the page; what you said here reminded me of that and helped me realize the importance of keeping it relevant so visitors don't just bounce out even when they go to the links I've provided. I think it's a good idea to work the hubs a bit more to link them up and see if it brings the bounce rate down. Thanks for the good explanation of what google does with pages with high bounce rates and why they do it; clarified it for me and gave me a better idea of how to proceed.
A high bounce rate is not usually a problem for a subdomain on Hubpages. If you're here to earn some money you want visitors to click on ads or affiliate links which are all counted as bounces.
As Glen said you don't really want visitors clicking back to the search results quickly as Google *may* decide your page is not relevant to the search query, but it can be pretty hard to tell a lot of the time what causes a bounce. You can't assume that all, or even most, bounces are back clicks (unless you find your page suddenly on page 20 for a phrase you had started to rank well for, Panda aside of course)! Maybe they're ad/affiliate clicks or clicks to external websites, both of which are "good" bounces.This is good to know, I didn't think about a bounce actually being good; I kind of wondered about links to external websites and how it might affect my page.
A bounce is never good. It indicates to Google that the answer to the person's query was not found in your hub. If this happens too much Google will send less traffic to your hub.
You'll notice in your Google analytics that Google lists two different things... "Bounces" and "Exits"
A bounce is a return back to the search results. But if someone clicks on an ad, or any other link to another site or subdomain, they are exiting, which is totally different. Exits do not count against you.
Here's how the finances work...
If you have links to other related hubs of yours, which cause the reader to follow along and read more of your hubs rather than clicking ads, then it is true that you will make less money in the short term. But you are reducing your bounces, and this makes Google react more favorably. Since the reader stayed with you, Google recognizes this as meaning that you are providing useful information and that you have a satisfied reader. So Google will end up sending more traffic your way over time.
Eventually the extra traffic makes up for less people clicking ads. Let's say you reduce the number of ad clicks 10% or 20% by motivating visitors to read more of your hubs instead, as I discussed earlier. But you quadrupled your traffic. So you actually have a larger number of people clicking ads, and you make more money.That makes sense, and that is what I wanted to do is bring the bounce rate down, have a favorable position in the Google search engine, and get more traffic; I was figuring, like you said, that decent traffic is the important thing and increases chances of visitors clicking on ads.
Hi Nate. I dont mean to interupt, but I am very new to this site. I have had a maintenance business since 2001. Two years ago my children and others convinced me to get the company a web site. And since then i am constantly confused. Honestly and just last week in an effort to hopefully boost my site traffic I have started to try and learn about and post articles pertaining to my type of business and knowledge. That is what interested me about your hub. I was curious about the bounce rate that i keep seeing on my web site stats. You and others in this hub have actually given me a little better understanding. I just wanted to take a few seconds and say thanks for the info.
Dunrite -
I know you referred this to Nate. But if I may reply, I'd like to start by saying that you're definitely not interrupting. I am sure I speak for all when I say that you are very welcome here. After all, this thread is under the "Help for New Hubbers" category. For that matter, your comments can be very useful to others. I am sure there are other people who write online for the same reasons as you. So let me give you a few thoughts to get you started.
Think about questions that your customers ask you about your business. People may be searching for the same things on the web. Write some hubs elaborating on the answers. Don't make anything a sales pitch. Just right information readers will find useful.
This is how you get search engines to bring traffic to your hubs. If anyone is interested in knowing more about your business, they can click to your profile where you can have a link to your website. HP provides a field in your profile where you can enter the URL so it becomes a hyperlink.
Good luck and welcome to HubPages.Thank you Glenn. I appreciate the words of hubber wisdom. I am hoping to get a hub published. The first attemp was evidently to promotional. I only put one web site address in my content, but I guess thats not allowed. I will try again. Because as I said I am simply trying to give some useful information while getting some more traffic to my web site. Thanks again.
You are allowed to put website addresses in your content, so if you had a problem it might have been for another reason such as the hub being too short 'and' including your link. The key is to make your hub at least 500 - 800 words long and only use a maximum of two links to the same domain. Perhaps your hub was very short and made it very obvious it was solely written to attract readers to visit another site (which is a no no).
No problem, I'm glad that information on this thread is helpful, and it's good that this forum is here to let people in on how to get things done online with their writings and sites. I learn a lot here at HP.
According to google help in analytics:
"A bounce is calculated as a single-page view or single-event trigger in a session or visit.
The following situations qualify as bounces:
A user clicks on a link deep into your site sent by a friend, reads the information on the page, and closes the browser.
A user comes to your home page, looks around for a minute or two, and immediately leaves.
A user comes directly to a reference page on your site from a web search, leaves the page available in the browser while completing other tasks in other browser windows and the session times out."
It is a bounce if and only the visitors leaves your subdomain from the same page they arrived on, and without visiting any other pages. Or lets it time out - same thing as leaving.Thanks wilderness. That text you quoted from Google's site confirms why I said earlier to give the visitor links to other related hubs we wrote on the same subject. This helps to keep the visitor in our subdomain rather than leaving from the first page they hit, which would count as a bounce. We need to avoid a "single-page view".
That's right - if we can get them to check out even one more hub, or our profile, it isn't a bounce.
Unfortunately, most visitors (at least to my stuff) come looking for a particular answer to a particular question and aren't interested in anything else. Maybe they want to paint a bathtub - while I can (and do) offer a hub on making a bathroom vanity, installing a bathtub door, fixing a leaky toilet or putting in a new bath lighting fixture, that's about it. None are about painting a tub, so why would they stay? Presto - a bounce that I just can't stop.
Sure, we could make every hub a gateway hub to another one (and I've got one of those) but do it very much and you'll find yourself at the bottom of the SERPs.
I actually think I'm about as successful as I can be - visits from my own subdomain are higher in number than anything else but google dot com. Higher that HP, higher than any other google, bing or yahoo. Nevertheless I still have about an 85% bounce rate and can only hope that big G realizes that not all articles are candidates for a low bounce rate.This is another reason why your own blog or website has an advantage, IF you've got a specialty subject. You have to work much harder to lower bounce rate on HubPages - because on your own site, the reader has only three alternatives: click on an ad, click on another post/page, or leave. So long as you're providing good content, the odds are on your side!
On HubPages, if you look at a Hub, the reader has only two chances to click on your sub-domain - the two grouped Hubs at the end of the Hub. They have no reason to click on your tiny photo, in fact they probably won't even notice it. They have lots and lots of reasons to click elsewhere ont the site - all those other Hubs on the same topic.This is very helpful and relevant to me right now, because I'm going to start my own website soon, and I was wondering about the advantages of doing it. Makes sense. Thanks again.
I always say to people - if you have a specialist subject, write a blog. If you like to write about a variety of topics, write on rev-sharing sites.
I've learned to moderate that advice more recently, because two of the people who've followed my advice have made very little money on their blogs, in spite of having great expertise on their topics. So now I'd say, if you are going to create a blog, you also need to be prepared to study how to monetize it effectively. If that sounds daunting, maybe rev-sharing sites are a better bet because they take care of monetization for you.
You're getting some conflicting info! Not surprising as it's a pretty complex topic. Here are few great pages you might like to read to help you get the information you need:
An HP forum thread that goes into bounce rate in detail >> http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/89783 Pay attention to what Peter Hoggan says! He is extremely experienced and knowledgeable.
Two excellent hubs by Peter on the topic:
http://peterhoggan.hubpages.com/hub/Goo … Exit-Rates
http://peterhoggan.hubpages.com/hub/Bou … -And-Panda
A proper test of how bounce rates are measured in google analytics:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/tick … ent/21439/
Another good article:
http://engeeno.com/blog/analytics/bounce-rateThanks, Susanna. Again, very good and detailed information. I currently don't have time to look at each link, but I definitely intend to; I did read most of the forum thread that you posted a link to, and learned a lot; it seems some of the metrics in Analytics is meaningless in the short-term, and bounce rate is less important than we might think; though time on page has significance. I notice Paul Edmonson makes the statement that time on page is more significant, and according to his standards that he gave on the forum thread, I'm doing alright. Here's a funny one too; on many of my hubs, the time on page is rather good according to HP stats, though Analytics doesn't show the same stats--meaning Analytics shows less time on page than HP does. Here's one thing I gathered, especially from Peter's info: Look at the metrics over long-term. At least, that's how I'd paraphrase what he said; I notice the stats can change drastically over time. I wouldn't want to make a drastic decision based on a temporary "problem".
Nate, I think your martial arts hubs are really good and you should concentrate on that niche. I think you will see a lot more page views/traffic from the search engines if you become an expert on that subject, as opposed to writing on several different areas. I know this goes against the common practice here at HP, since most of the writers move around from subject to subject.
If you are an expert on that subject, I feel your readers will have a lot more respect for your articles too, and you will have less readers bouncing around, looking for another article on the subject.I absolutely agree with you, and I discovered this fact after I had written on a few different subjects; then the hubs on the other subjects received relatively decent traffic and I didn't want to lose the indexing. But I almost feel the need to start deleting non-martial arts hubs and moving the content elsewhere, after de-indexing them, of course. The idea feels a little painful, though I think it might be worth it in the end. I'd rather have a page on one subject than several, it would look better if I concentrated on one thing; martial arts happens to be something I've studied for years, so that's the bulk of my hubs, and I could probably go on writing on the subject for quite some time. Your advice is really good and it's something I've been thinking about for awhile, but I've had a conflict about doing it. Might have to bite the bullet.
Edit: However, I've been thinking of starting my own website/blog, and this might be the thing to help me do it; delete those non-martial arts hubs and transfer them to my own website (on a specific niche, of course.)
It's almost like it would be a relief to delete those hubs and get them off my page. I took a look at your hubpage and it's very clean, and I think you're right to concentrate on a niche. I've read a bit on what's successful on the Internet and it is said that authority sites are more successful.I had a bunch of other hubs (recipes, religion, etc) but I deleted them and my page views went up, considerably. I opened a second account for those hubs but, in all honesty, still have them on my computer and have not posted them since my main account takes up most of my time.
That is very interesting. It's been known for a long time, that if you have your own blog or a website, you must focus on one topic. It's far less clear-cut on HubPages.
Originally, when HP was one huge site, it was easy to write on a mix of topics and do very well indeed. When HubPages split the site into sub-domains in 2011, I wondered whether specializing would become important and we had lots of debates about it. Mostly we came to the conclusion that HP was different, perhaps because of the size of the site and the heavy interlinking between domains. You're the first person I've seen who has tried specializing and found it improved traffic. Things are changing all the time with Google - maybe something has changed again.
Mind you, if you have the expertise to be able to specialize in a particular topic and do it thoroughly, I always recommend starting your own website rather than using HP.I saved your comments from another forum so that when I get around to opening a website (hopefully next month) I will do so correctly.
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