Still losing hubs at a rapid rate due to idling
I keep on getting hubs idled despite tweaking them, changing titles and adding better keywords. I have got used to moving them to other sites such as Wizzley, Xobba and InfoBarrel but it seems to be an ongoing problem. If I keep on moving my idled hubs eventually I will hardly have any left!
I don't get it either. How many times can you keep tweaking a hub. I have been qoing through mine and they needed tweaking I must admit, but to continually doing it - won't that change the dynamics of your hub eventually?
I have just had to accept that they are not good enough for here any more and move them.
Bard, there have been a few forum threads recently and it has been very, very clearly spelled out.
If an existing Hub is idled, it has nothing to do with it being "not good enough".
Existing Hubs are idled because they're not getting enough traffic. That's the only criteria.
If you tweak a Hub, it will come out of idle, but if it still doesn't get any traffic, it'll go back into idle again. Because the amount of traffic is the ONLY thing that determines whether it stays Featured.
HubPages acknowledges that poor traffic isn't a very good reason to idle Hubs, but they say it's the best they can do for the moment, because they don't have time to assess every single Hub for quality. Personally I find the idea most peculiar, but that's the way it is.
I'm having the same issue, which is odd because my views are higher now than they've ever been. I'm deleting the ones that idle and putting them on other sites. I just don't have the time to edit and tweak. It's frustrating, but do-able.
Does Idle just mean -- not featured?
Sorry for my ignoranceSame here this is the worst month I've had in 3 years. Something just doesn't seem right at all.
Once again, I am happy to read your work, even if it is in the context of this ongoing problem. I often wonder why we continue to give hubpages our best in creativity, and hours of writing the best that we can when it does not appear to be appreciated or rewarded. I don't know. I don't know what to say. Regards.
I still support this site because despite all the problems it is still my main source of online earnings and mine are actually on the way up again though nowhere near what they once were.
I had another hub idled this morning despite traffic in the last week/month. It is so discouraging!
And what is the down side of having a hub idled? Mine in such a state still get views.
A hub that is idled is eventually removed from the search engines and will no longer get traffic from google or yahoo, etc. Once that happens the only way people will find your hub will be if you give them the direct link.
My experience is similar to Eric's here - google wasn't sending traffic anyway, so idling a hub had no real effect.
It will affect any future possibility of jumping up in the SERP's, though. Older hubs that go idle I generally just unpublish but newer ones I'll work with some.
I just make some minor edits and change a word here and there, and voila! It's Featured again!
I don't understand why good authors have idled hubs, while many poor quality hubs are still here I guess they must have traffic and make money. I thought quality was a factor in idling. My best performers took a while to get traffic. I know good authors have left site already. It used to be fun to write what inspire us Now it must be a fast money maker. I understand it's a business, and HP has to do what they can to make it.
brake2: Yep, so much for QUALITY CONTENT! Kind of says that quality content means zip, at least on HP.
Guess it depends on your definition of quality. Let the world define it (via traffic count) and it will very likely vary from your own definition. I know it certainly does mine!
And there is some justification to that. HP can't pay their bills from a definition; it has to be paid from traffic.Traffic is the rain that sustains. Quality is a 'Furphy'
It is not writing quality but something else needed here now. I know top quality writers that have had enough, one of whom is good enough to get several books published and to write for well known newspapers and magazines but does not do well here!
Bard I feel your pain. Try writing a 400 word hub liberally sprinkled with spelling and grammar mistakes about taking a picture of your backside in a steamed up bathroom mirror or on how to choose a panty liner and you will have a winner on HP these days.
I wrote a light hearted hub on armpit whitening for a bit of a joke and a serious one on the Cathars . Guess which one got idled?WOW CM!! I just laughed out loud by that because it is so Right On the Money, Honey! I was away from HP for quite a few months, just caught-up in life & my return has been far less pleasant than I hoped due to the inexplicable changes & inane hubs that are getting "Featured." It is not the same place that it was, even a short 9 mos ago! I don't know how long I'll be here.
I think I can guess! It is as if this place is evidence of the "dumbing down of society" theory!
I have deeply conflicted feelings about the idling process. Since idling has begun, I have saw a slow but steady increase in traffic. I even had a Hub that was blacklisted by Google come out of hibernation and start getting the high numbers of search engine traffic it used to.
The problem is that Hubs that were idled that did decent traffic pre-Panda just can't seem to get revived. It is difficult to say whether that is a symptom of being idled or simply an ongoing Panda-related challenge. What I do know is that I have never revised a Hub and had it start getting traffic again which is disappointing.
I wish I had more info other than my own Hubs to compare with, but it seems that if my experiences continue to hold it would probably be better to just unpublish idled Hubs and put them elsewhere than try to revise them in the vain hope that they'll ever get attention on HubPages again.That is what I am doing, Len! In my experience I find that even if they get featured again not long after they become idled once more.
I transferred a few of my un-featured hubs to Squidoo. What was interesting is that they were 'featured' for a while on Squidoo - but eventually became non-featured on Squidoo too! So looks like HP had it right. The hubs were well written (IMHO), long, had good key words and phrases but simply were not getting traffic and/or engaging the reader.
I therefore take the idling process with a pinch of salt now - these hubs were not generating me any money and I have to learn how to write to engage and gain traffic - it's a learning curve for me and a sharp kick in the pants!
What I am trying to do (not very successfully sometimes) is to realize that this isn't an insult to me, it's simply a process that HP and other sites have - if I take out the personal element then I can focus on other things.
Do I feel the system is perfect - absolutely not - and where I feel there are hubs that will do well I will try and fix them to get the desired 'short term traffic'....It may be worth taking a look at the Hubs which are getting idled. Do they have a common thread?
If you have a bundle of Hubs around the same topic, it would be worth starting a blog for them.
The thing with a blog is that it needs content - the more the better. It really doesn't matter whether every single post gets traffic or not - Google still knows they are there, and counts them towards your body of work. So even if you've tested an article on both Hub and Squidoo and it's not attracting traffic, it can still do a useful job on your blog, and therefore won't be wasted.
The other thing to consider is time. As Summerberrie observed above, some articles just need time. I've had articles which took six months or more to start earning. If you don't have a suitable blog for them, move them to Infobarrel, ThisisFreelance, Xobba, Seekyt or Zujava and they will never have to face idling, so they will stand a better chance. Even if they earn just a few pennies, it's better than throwing them away.
Wilderness: When you see hub after hub, with poor grammar, poor punctuation, lousy written English over and over again, and decent writers having their hubs de-indexed, thrown into idle states, while the crap sticks around, I am assuming that crap is quality content.
I have good punctuation, grammar and use of English but many of my hubs get idled and so I now move them elsewhere a lot of the time.
.Lindasmith1, it seems a little disingenuous of HP, doesn't it?
My sentiments exactly! I simply barely publish here anymore. I have one idled hub that I need to move. It will be the 26th one that I have been forced to move.
As for the theory that you an edit an idled hub and it will be featured automatically, not true anymore. This 26th idled hub of mine had the title changed as well as some changes in the paragraphs.... It went into the 24 hour spin, then popped out, still idled. The heck with wasting my time tweaking anything here. I shall just move it and eventually as the OP states, I will have nothing remaining here.
Perhaps the whole idea of making hubs idle is to make you tweak them. Years ago I was advised to tweak my blogs and I done this and manage to get one of them, my mermaid blog up to over a 1,000 hits a day. Then Panda hit me and it is now down to about a 100 a day. But I am now starting to do the same thing again to my blogs and I seem to be getting the traffic growing again. I am now doing the same to my huppages whether they are idle on not, to see if that helps.
Traffic is King. Traffic is the rain that Sustains. The focus on quality is a furphy. It is driven by the notion that 'big momma' hubs will get traffic (the cream rises to the top). The main reason for QAP is that the quality threshold can be increased to satisfy what Google wants (from 5-5-5 say to 7-6-6). So, only tweak hubs to increase traffic ( title, Pinterest, links etc.) improving the quality will do very little, if its moderately good anyway, unless the edits will get more traffic quickly (less than one month). Traffic is King! The End!
I'm not really into tweaking hubs if they are idled...so yeah, why waste time tweaking them....best off removing them and testing them elsewhere like you are doing......
+1 - If the idled hubs were not getting traffic anyway, why waste time tweaking them. They will be featured for a short time and then back to idle. Such of total waste of time!
With two exceptions, I agree.
The first is a new hub. Some topics and hubs simply need more time. For example, a hub on an obscure, unsearched for topic may need 6 months or more to climb high enough in the SERP's to maintain a reasonable traffic level. A small pie means you need a bigger slice of that pie to get anything out of it.
The second is a seasonal hub. While HP recognizes this and has taken steps to work with seasonal hubs, if you publish an Xmas hub now (or Dec. 15, either one) it will likely go idle before it ever gets to see a full Xmas season. Publish it in October and it will gather enough visitors to last until the next season. So, a seasonal hub may need a little help to make through that first or second season.A third exception is a good quality Hub, on a topic that people do search for, that needs a little SEO help. I've had a couple of these where I've tweaked the title, maybe the text a little or a sub-heading, based upon search queries gathered from Webmaster Tools and it's as if I've breathed new life into these Hubs.
LOL Bard, love the dumbing down comment.
Luckily I haven't had any problems with idled hubs or traffic since I removed my content from my original HP account due to an attack from my past, and started other HP accounts that are named according to my topics. I laugh at the matter now, as the attack was meant to put me out of business, but it only made me rise stronger and work harder on developing my own article based community website.
I know you've been around a while, but maybe it's time to step up your SEO game a bit and do as I have with the multiple accounts, or help HP with the quality assessment of hubs through the MTURK program to help make sure HP gets back onto the quality track. Here's the link to get to the HP quality rater program in case you want it... http://hubpages.com/info/mturkped1Bard cannot apply to MTurk. Only people who live in the USA are allowed to work there.
Bard,
I am pretty sure that HP is now focused on "commercial" hubs, or those that will get good Google ratings and provide more customers for their ADs. I write two categories of Hubs, commercial one about RVs and Camping. These get a good steady audience and stay Non-Idled. The other half of my Hubs are creative writing, and I cannot do enough to them to keep them from dropping into IDLE pool, and thus get lower HP ratings.
I have accepted this hard fact about HP, and as I improve my "commercial" hubs, I am looking for another site for my creative works.
Good Luck!
DONNot necessarily commercial, but appealing to a larger audience.
Most creative works are like purely personal articles, they might be great but not many people actually are interested in them.
My guess is quite of the few poetry hubs are going to get idled. Not for low quality but because no one really is searching for them. You can still self-promote and link the heck out of them if you've developed a following.
If you want to write "serious" work then write it about something people are interested in. It's like James Earl Jones reading the phone book. If you are good enough at your medium you can make any subject a masterpiece.Melissa, Ihope you are right.
But, the simple writer that I am, does generate a few what I feel are heart-felt and worthy of reading pieces. But, when I go back, I have trouble attempting to turn them into less (or more, maybe?) than they are.
So I keep my new ones tomyself and I leave the others for the world to trip over.
DON
I have seen many hubs which were originally articles that were good enough for newspapers and magazines idled here. I have had articles about foraging that were commissioned by Permaculture magazine regarded as not making the grade at HubPages and many of my stories that went out in my column in the Tenerife Sun have met the same fate. It is not about the quality of your writing as far as I can see.
Exactly!
Look at your account listing of your hubs.
If you had a reader or two today that is good.
If you had several readers over the past week, then that is better.
And if you had a decent count of readers over the past month then even better.
But ........
If you have zeros in the Day, Week and the Month columns, then you are Idled!
Pretty simple system, Eh?
DonDon, you have just explained how this idling system works so thank you! I just had a look at the stats for my hubs with a good score and ones that are idled and it is as you said. It is all about traffic and nothing else it seems!
In one of the threads Simone indicated that if a new hub is idled it is probably due to quality. If an older hub is idled it is almost certainly due to traffic, and is those hubs that Dan is talking about. It's almost all about traffic.
Because of that, I have a hard time getting upset about it. A hub that gets no traffic isn't producing income anyway - idling it costs me nothing. HP is still working on fine tuning the idea of seasonal hubs as well as working to accept that new hubs may not see traffic for several months, but those are known problems and they're getting better there. I've only had to tweak a couple of new hubs to keep them "live" - I can live with that while they sort out the algorithm. The older hubs that have gone idle I've just unpublished - they will never produce traffic anyway; dump them.
How many people do you think were searching for the specific phrases you used in permaculture (I had to look it up) articles or the columns you wrote for Tenerife?
If only a few people are interested, then only a percentage of those people are going to get to your hubs.
It requires both good writing and interest to get views.
If you are writing for a magazine/newspaper you already have a captive audience. Those people are going to read your stuff whether or not they were specifically interested in it when they woke up.
On the internet, people are searching for one specific thing.
You want to write for magazines, then write for them. But don't assume internet writing works the same way.
My best article IN PRINT would fail miserably if I tried to put it up on HP. Try not to take it personal.So should we upublished idled Hubs.
Why can a idled hub still have a 79 hubs score.
Do the amount of idled hubs count in your hubber score (not hubs score)Personally I don't see any reason to unpublished idled hubs. Since they are not indexed by Google, they will not "harm" your subdomain, honestly I think a lot of idled hubs would not harm you even if they were indexed, as long as they are not spam.
The only reason I would unpublished an idled hub, is if I wanted to publish it on another site. But then you have to ask yourself what chance it has to get traffic somewhere else, or whether it would help your other sites by adding useful related content.
Honestly I don't think hubscores or hubber scores mean much. I think the algorithms of calculating them must be really outdated, I don't think HP staff have been paying much attention to them. I think if a hub gets internal traffic, or has a lot of comments than it will have a high hubscore.Hub Score and Hubber Score have never meant much, ever.
An idled Hub can't earn money, so what's the point in leaving it published?
I unpublish them immediately, even if I don't have a new home in mind yet. That way, I can be absolutely sure the Hub has gone from the cache by the time I think of finding a new home for it.
If the Hub is less than a year old, then it's worth trying it somewhere else. It may not have had enough time to gain traction on HubPages and could still do well on another site, given enough time.Marissa, Hubpages have admitted there are problems and issues with the idling process and they plan to work on it. One problem they have noticed is the amount of time given for hubs (seasonal) to gain traffic could be longer. So issues have been raised by hubbers and examples given and HP has responded to those issues. To just except something as it comes to you and not speak out if it is not being effective is not helpful to HP.
Idling changes the dynamics of writing here. Some hubbers are not sure these changes help HP in the long run.
Once hubbers could write a hub and have it sit over time without gaining traffic and then a year or so later it gains momentum.
Under the new idling system, writers now have to produce hubs which immediately(within two months) garner traffic. If they don't they have to tweak them and continue making changes to get the no-index tag off the hub while waiting for Google to re-index them again-not a pretty process and a lot of work to boot.
Idling = no-indexing. With or without views within HP limited time frame - not talking about years of a hub not seeing traffic - talking about a few months prior to going idle is not encouraging to me as a hubber putting in the hours to create a hub- I'm sure many feel the same as me while m
many others do not.
Having 4-5 year old poor quality hubs sitting in HPs backlog not being treated the same as hubs created by apprentices,and/or proven authors who have been here years should be removed from the MTurk system and these hubs added to it. I think they are doing it backwards. It would be much easier and more efficient to allow a MTurk review go through the backlog with hubs that have no words and can be removed at a glance- sometimes just looking at the title does the trick than have them spend the two minutes reading a well written 1000 word article properly attributed to pass thru QAP. Either use your overworked staff spending two minutes clearing out 20 5 year old hubs that obvious hurts HPs or spend those two minutes on an apprentices hub and pass through QAP only to have it go idle because it was seasonal (exclusive title) and did not have enough time to gain views. I think HP has it all backwards for their overworked staff. They can stop the exclusive title program for about three months and have that staff member go through the backlog. And stop sending quality hubbers through MTurk to free up the space for newer hubbers hubs who have not been established here on HP.I agree with every word you've written but I'm not sure why you wrote it.
I was saying that if a Hub gets idled, it makes sense to unpublish it and move it to a site where idling isn't done - for precisely the reason you mention.
If a Hub gets idled, it means it's not getting traffic. That could mean it's non-commercial, or that it needs tweaking for SEO, but it could also just mean it's a slow burner and needs time to get off the ground, as you say. Putting it on a site that will leave it "live" gives you time to find that out.
- summerberrieposted 11 years ago
0I am a follower of Bard of Ely and enjoy reading his work. I am sure he is satisfied with the amount of traffic he receives or he would not voice this frustration. I do not often comment these days on the hubs I come across and have passed on commenting on some of Bard of Ely's hubs- however I often give them a thumbs up. I am sorry about this now after noticing this hub is featured:
http://armanbd12.hubpages.com/hub/Hot-I … ure-Part-3
While my friend's go idle-
I suppose HP does not feel Bard of Ely's hubs have enough engagement to up his "heatscore" to feature here on this site. How very sad. This idling needs to have some kind of sense to writers (more than the exclusive titles that come with no guarantees) would be a step in a more positive direction.Thanks for your support!
I just had a look at that hub you gave the link for and I am amazed that is featured!
Well, Bard, you need to follow the example of the stellar writers here, who remain featured.
Just stuff in lots of keywords and downgrade your grammar, and you will be just fine, as exemplified by this featured hub: http://redfireenterprise.hubpages.com/hub/PinkSuitGotta love the grammar. If I close my eyes do you think I could do that well?
Can't say as I'm a member of the grammar police squad, but that does seem in need of help.WRITEANGLED WROTE:
Well, Bard, you need to follow the example of the stellar writers here, who remain featured.
Just stuff in lots of keywords and downgrade your grammar, and you will be just fine, as exemplified by this featured hub: http://redfireenterprise.hubpages.com/hub/PinkSuit
I am shocked that this hub which is stuffed with keywords and has grammatical mistakes throughout is featured! This is insane! I thought the idea was to improve the quality of hubs here and to get rid of the substandard ones that were pulling the site down?Wow...I'm so disgusted by what I've just read & actually became nauseous while reading that PinK Suit, Atrocity. I've started to wonder why I'm back here at HP but I guess it's because I've never published on any other site as I'm still very new to this "writing online" thing. I don't see me staying here with absolute trash sharing the same Umbrella site. I feel really badly for those of you who have been writing here a long time & built friendships & followers because the differences in HP from 9 mos ago are Enormous and not for the better in any way that I've seen since my return a few weeks ago. It is sad that any of us should feel that we need to seek another forum to share our creativity. What the H**L is wrong with HP & why aren't they working out these issues faster? I cannot fathom how on earth that hub got through ANY form of Quality Control Screening! And I had a hub on V-Day that took not 24 hrs but Several days before coming out of pending status at all. It started with a very low number too but my hub didn't murder the english language or have any egregious errors like that piece of crap I just tried to read. Holy Cripes!
The point is that no old Hubs have not been put through QAP - only new ones. That pink hub was published in 2010.
You would think HP would have a more auspicious outcome if they started with the older hubs going through QAP seeing there are so many rancid ones which have been pulling down the quality of this site for years and probably responsible for the site wide panda slap and not Bard of Ely's.
Wow. I couldn't make it past the first paragraph. My hubs will never be of this standard. I'm doomed.
Just spent half the evening editing a few of my earlier hubs, I was quite pleased with the results. Then I looked at my account, and found my second idled hub. Dang! Tomorrow is another day, so I'll look at it then. This passive income stuff is quite involved.
Presumably, Bard, pink suits pull in more visitors than permaculture does. As everyone is at pains to explain, quality = number of visitors and nothing more.
The hub is therefore stellar by the current "quality" standards operating here.Nearly all of the hubs on my account are now unfeatured.
That is because Google slapped my whole subdomain, and many previously highly trafficked hubs lost all their views.
I was proud of my newer subdomain, because with only 30 odd hubs, every hub garnered a view or 2 each day.
Then yesterday, one of those hubs got idled, even though it was getting 35 views a week.
That was the first hub I wrote on this account since the idling feature was brought in, and those first 24 hours cost it potentially hundreds of views.
I have since written another 3 hubs on this account, and they are getting zero views.
This happened since the while idling/featured hub thing came in.
Time to move on.IzzyM, I think this idling business hurts hubbers in the eyes of Google in the long run. If anything it discourages:
Natural backlinks
Hubs gaining traction over time
Hubber enthusiasm
Hubs going viral. (some hubbers have intuitiveness and research and predict trends and are ahead of the curve on topics they write knowing a hub can sit for a year and then all of the sudden a spike in interest is given to that topic rewarding the hubber with success due to all his/her research and insight) for example: I'm sure there was a hubber somewhere on this site who had foresight to write about the asteroid which recently passed close to our atmosphere a year or so ago and was just waiting....under this idling program this process is wasted. and discouraged..sad.+1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!!
Yes, all this and more, got it in one.
The web is built on links, but 2 short months is not long enough to build them, even if you are a black-hatter.
It seems to me that Hubpages no longer wants quality hubs.
They want hubs that will garner high traffic in the shortest time frame.
Now you need to be either very clever or very stupid, and word hubs towards the lowest common denominator.
So yeah, taking photos of yourself in the bathroom is in, posting photos of Indian aunties is OK, writing about cancer cures that don't actually work is OK, and even talking about French kissing is OK.
Spelling errors, grammatical errors, 200 words in total (or less) is all OK, so long as either you market it right, or you hit a space in the market.
This is not the Hubpages I signed up to 3 years ago.
Then, if what you wrote was against their TOS, they unpublished your hub.
If it wasn't against TOS, it was quite exciting waiting to see if Google liked it and would send traffic to it.
The fun is gone now. It's like every hub you ever wrote, as an experiment, is working against you. So, on top of having a Google bias, you have an HP bias who then idle the hub.
Folks, if you have enjoyed writing online, you don't need to leave. Take the experience you have learned here and apply it to a blog of your own. They are free, and you get 100% of the income. The advantage is that your work will remain 'featured', unless you break a Google rule.
Leave your hubs. You can rewrite them for another site or blog. Real writers can easily rewrite their own work.
HP, I really hope you will reconsider the whole 'featured hubs' business. It is killing hubs, killing traffic, and worst of all, killing authors.
Shocked. Megga-shocked. Plahhhb. The world's gone mad.
Summerberrie: You just took the stupidity of HP over the top. I thought I had seen it all here, until I opened the link on that hub which is featured.
hey guys, this is what you do to get a featured hub. Take a pic of a dog. Title it Picture of a Dog.
Put the photo in, zap you are done, and it gets featured.Naw - just write it several years ago. You might have quite a wait before it hits the QAP.
I wonder if this one will be the next Hub of The Day!
http://armanbd12.hubpages.com/hub/Hot-I … ure-Part-3The photo isn't properly accredited, otherwise it might have stood a chance. Sadly.
And the Hits just keep on comin'! Did you see what was available under the 'Discover More Hubs' portion? Is HP gonna start allowing soft-core porn too?!
Yea, enjoy. You would have thought this would have been HPs starting point.
HP has allowed soft porn from the beginning of its inception.
Yeah, at least in my opinion.
Setting aside my personal dislike of it on "my" site (cause it's not my site) is it much different that other "artistic" photo hubs, poetry, etc?Not a bit.
A half-naked chick is a half naked chick. Whether she's got poetry beside her or someone saying how hot she is.Pretty much. When it's my site I might disallow it (or might not) but until then I'll ignore it.
I don't like it next to my hub on things for kids to do in Idaho, but then it doesn't show up there anyway.wilderness, forget the half/nudity but recognize the lack of quality. I am sure these are pulling down the overall integrity of the site.
Actually the one on pubic hairstyles is fairly well-written.
Not necessarily a topic I care about but it is fairly well-written. It's not pornographic in the least and actually seems pretty well-researched.
I wouldn't want to click on it while eating dinner but if I had a burning desire to know about pubic hairstyles, I would leave satisfied with the information.
HP can't really take down hubs because you don't agree with their content.The hubber seems like a good writer and a nice person personally. I hope she gets it.
It would make up for her well-researched and written hub being slammed. I just hope she doesn't see these forums. People are just being mean for meanness sake.She wrote the hub tongue and cheek = I posted the hub tongue and cheek. If she does see it I'm sure she will take it in stride...she seems to have a sense of humor.
Hon, I wouldn't ever ask for anyone to delete a post. Everyone has a right to their opinion.
Everyone is just so angry and I hate for there to be collateral damage.
I'll argue with the best of them and I expect everyone to as well. I just get worried about stray bullets every once in a while.On this particular hub, your call was spot on.
The reason I am doing this is not out of anger, it is to make some noise. These hubs have been here for years and years (again the poorly executed ones) . I believe if HP has staffing issues they should put their energy into removing these ridiculous low quality hubs first and then move on to idling low traffic hubs of hubbers who have a high hubber score or who have proven themselves as quality writers.See, I would disagree with that line of action. I would think it better to stop new garbage than remove old while every one removed is replaced by two new pieces of junk.
Which one of us is right? Who could possibly have any idea except HP, with all the facts at hand? They can't possibly have first hand knowledge of what 2 million hubs have to say, but they can certainly know better than any hubber randomly surfing hubs.Well, I have done a disservice to the OP and caused a side step in the threads regional intent.
Hubs which have passed the QAP are going idle due to lack of traffic after only a few months. Hopefully, HP is sincere in working through this.It is frustrating to have QAP hubs go thru pending/idling while backlog filled with muck and mire remains- I just don't want HP to forget it is there because it brings in the traffic. Sometimes the higher moral ground would be if it does not pass QAP and brings traffic it should still not be featured. Even with a high "heatscore"
Wilderness it takes all kinds of opinions to make the world go around. We can differ in our perceptions of AP and still play our role in making it an effective site.
At the movement they've lost my trust in them (maybe I"m being unfair) but because I've lost this trust I take a more cynical view. I think HP will not process backlogged high traffic hubs through QAP which garner high traffic. I do not think HP are willing take the high ground.If they were concerned these hubs would not be 4 to 5 years old. They would have been cleared out by now. Now if they were 1 to 2 years old I'd by their argument.
I may be wrong in my opinion, but it does not hurt HP or fellow hubber to keep them on their toes and hold their feet to the fire.
However, not at the expense of fellow hubbers. Sorry for putting a high quality well written hub up just to jest.My mistake. and it weakened my argument.
You may be right about that. I probably would have started with the new ones myself had it been me, just because you always plug the hole before you bail the water. There are bad hubs on HP. There are new hubs that are being written that are just as bad. The task to go through so many hubs is monumental and even with MTurk there just aren't enough hands. So I'm not sure what the solution is, but I really do think HP is trying. And I really do think all the hubs need going through. I think they started where they thought was logical and are moving from there.
Yes good hubs are being idled. Yes bad hubs aren't being idled. Traffic is the only determination that they can do without QAP or flagging once a hub passes the automatic filters... which are applied at the time of writing, and which weren't around when some of these hubs were written.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but I see HP trying as a positive step. If there wasn't so much anger I think things would go more smoothly. But right now I think the frustration has caused communication shut downs on both sides.
So no one is really listening to anyone else anymore because the act of discussion is so unpleasant.
In reference to the photo hub, I agree. A bunch of photos does not make a quality hub.
Neither does a dozen words in a haiku. There are categories on Hp that bypass the whole concept of "quality" as far as I'm concerned, but with subdomains I doubt that G will slap the site hard for it. Could be wrong, though.*shudders* You have no idea.
I've wanted to poke my eye out with a fork on several occasions.Oh, I don't go that far. Just flip down the blinders I keep on my forehead when hub hopping. You really should get a set; it saves a lot of eye injuries. No more eye bleach necessary at all.
I understand the whole "Idle" thing is about hubs that do not get traffic, as people are not searching for whatever those hubs are about. But I also see a general "dumbing down" that has me very discouraged, and it's not only on HP. I am not a great writer, but consider myself to be a decent one. I go into too much detail for people with short attention spans, and that's not good online. But I research, my language is intelligent, and I know my subjects. I write on other sites, and was dismayed to see an article about a chocolate spread you put on bread (or whatever) on the "Editor's Choice" list for about 2 weeks now. That made me want to put my head under the blankets and never come out. I had written 4 good quality articles on that site that month, and they were all featured, but only for about 3 days. I haven't had the heart to go back since. Plus someone asked me a question about one of the topics I write about, completely twisted my answer, and wrote me a whole page telling me how I misunderstood her, and how she searched her soul for a week, sure she wasn't as I described her. That I hurt her beyond belief, and was callous and uncaring. Has everyone gone nuts?
I hear you. Sometimes it hurts to write at the eighth grade level our readers demand, and I simply refuse to write on 99% or the subjects searched for or questions asked about.
It's a part of the question of deciding what a "quality" hub is, too. Well written, erudite and with good grammar and spelling? Or something the targeted audience can easily skim and digest, thus coming back for more?
I don't like the obvious answer, but...it's what pays the bills.
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This might be a better match:
http://malebeautyforum.hubpages.com/hub/Pubian-Nubian
What not have a whole week of HOTDs on this--go for a weekly theme.
Another one that should not be here summerberrie. HP is going to keep on allowing this BS and they will get an adsense slap.
Worst of HP, you live up to your name. You have the worst profile page I have ever seen. Did you do that or is it another HP glitch. Your aunt, some beautiful starlets.
summerberrie; The more I see, the more I want to take my toys and go to another playground. I will never see payout anyway.
Sadly this site is still my only real source of income from revenue sharing websites! I have made nothing at Wizzley despite having a lot of wizzles there now and been on the site for a few months now. I cannot comment on Infobarrel and Xobba because I have not had much work on them for long enough to say. At Squidoo I have made nothing and got put off by having my articles there made into WIPs plus I really don't like the site for many other reasons.
The terrible hubs that are here should be reported and this was encouraged under the hub hopping system. I flagged the pink suits one.This idle crap is ridiculous This is a published hub that is nothing but copied content from the site that they gave the link to in their hub. http://cindalju57959.hubpages.com/hub/W … Make-Money
How do these people get away with this crap, while decent hubs are basically tossed in the garbage can by HP.Bard,
You really do need to think about what you are doing publishing here. Some of your work is not commercial and as such will never remain published by HP as it will just not receive the traffic that you need to get to keep it featured.
Take some of your niches and get yourself either a properly hosted website (it does not cost a fortune) or a blogger blog. You have other sites so do this for your niches. You will likely gain more traffic if you can convince good ole Google that you are an authority in those areas (such as tenerife or tropical fish or..)
Revenue sharing sites really are not going to do your work justice. Even if you rank number 1 for a search in google if no one searches for it you will still get no traffic. Your best bet is a niche site where people will find some of these articles by looking at related stuff on the same site.
HP is idling hubs that do not get much traffic so they are not the big earners anyway, the idea supposedly that by removing those hubs that perform poorly you boost the remaining hubs - personally I am not sure that will work.
However it does help HP eliminate many hubs that have been here a while that Google does not like - although even Google is not right always as to what a quality page is! The trouble is though by using traffic as the main indicator the system eliminates quality articles that only get small volumes of traffic also.I'm going to jump in here and probably jump right back out, but I feel compelled to add my two cents worth.
I understand that the idling system is frustrating for some, but honestly, when its glitches are worked out, it's not so bad. In multiple forums, Simone and Derek have said that some of the problems with it, like new Hubs getting idled too soon or seasonal issues, are being worked on. I believe they might also be putting some type of warning system in place so you know when a Hub is about to be idled, but if you sort your stats by 7 days or 30 days and see 0 traffic for a non-seasonal Hub, then that should be indication enough.
All my Hubs that have been idled have deserved to be. A few of them I deleted because their information was no longer relevant to anyone. Most of the others I tweaked a little with the intent of helping them get more traffic, not just getting them out of non-featured/idled status. I made genuine attempts to fix them - looking at valuable information from Analytics and Webmaster Tools, and using it to my advantage. Most of these Hubs seem revived, and I don't mean just out of idle, but revived in the sense that they are now seeing some traffic from search engines.
Idling/Featuring is a new system in place by HP, and I know from a technical development standpoint, that many new roll-outs have bugs and glitches. Give them a chance to fix them. It does take time, especially with so many criteria that need to work together seamlessly.
Aside from the issues with seasonal and new Hubs being idled too soon, I see no reason to shoot the messenger. And that's what HP is, a messenger, a framework set up to deliver our message. If no one is interested in the topic or can't find it in search results, then that's mostly the problem of the writer, not the messenger (HP).
The issue with there being other crap out there on HP is a separate issue. I can see how people can get upset when they compare their idled quality Hubs to it, but the best thing to do is to put your energy into turning quality Hubs that aren't getting traffic into quality Hubs that the online world can find.ktrapp- I think you have written a fair assessment and I agree with it at face value. The system does change the dynamics of writing here on HP. The playing field changes. HP wants fast quick views. With a collection of the totality of all the writers here producing hubs the odds are in HPs favor for the system to work for them, however, for one individual hubber the system can grow tiresome-
I agree with your general assessment ktrapp, there is an enormous amount of energy spent complaining about the changes at HP, but if HP didn't do anything about the falling traffic, there would be an equal amount of complaining about that.
However, it terms of the crap still being found on HP, it is possible that the stuff is pulling the whole site down through a Google penalty. If the stuff was removed, the penalty should be lifted, and then some hubs that can't make it to the first page of SERPs might start getting traffic and not get idled. So there is a real reason to be upset about it.
HP staff keep referring to the "backlog" of stuff to be moderated. At the moment it seems that only new or edited stuff goes through the Mturk process (whether you think that is the best way of assessing quality is another question, but it should be good enough to get rid off blatantly bad content).
The hubs that have been on site before the QAP was introduced aren't being assessed, the criterion of whether they are good or not is traffic. So if a good hub that is not SEO'd, like many of Bard's, doesn't get traffic it is idled, while a really poor hub that gets some Google traffic is considered to be ok. It is a very dirty and inexact system, but HP reckons that it is the best they can do at the time.
Which seems to me strange, rather than produce a complicated system of rating hubs, with 10 different "marks" on 3 different criteria, wouldn't it be better if HP put the initial effort on getting rid of the really harmful bad stuff?And this is the crux of the problem.
I have a few hubs that would probably be rated fairly low using the current rating system and could be considered 'crap' by some - I won't argue that - however they are addressing a need on the internet and 'helping' people - one of these hubs had 20,000 hits on its first day and continues to get 100s of hits weekly now - so how do we differentiate between 'crap' and 'useful crap' - that's what Google stuggles with and any QAP will struggle with - the problem is that it's not an objective thing - what may be crap to me and you may be superb to someone out there!SimeyC, I think we all agree that the 'pink suits' and 'Girl photo' hubs are crap so why are they featured and well written hubs with good word-counts, original photos and videos etc idled? If it is down to traffic and 'girl photo' gets traffic then being a good writer is of little help here any more and it is not true that "the cream will rise to the top"!
Absolutely - they are garbage - and that's where I see the problem - how can an algorithm tell the difference? Without some sort of program that can look at pictures and analize the text it comes down to human review - most of these have not been reviewed. If we simply eliminate them all then someone is going to be upset when their stellar hub gets caught in the net....
.as for decent hubs being un-featured - I do not know. In most cases it sadly comes down to traffic - and I disagree with this method as some hubs do take time to mature.Ok Bard, firstly I want to say that I really do enjoy your writing and this in no way is to suggest anything to the contrary..
With that being said, what exactly is your solution to having over a million hubs rated instantly to ensure fairness?
Complaining is understandable, but ultimately futile.
If you can provide a solution to instantly reviewing a couple of billion or so words of text then please let someone know.
If not then maybe cut the people who are trying to muddle through that a little slack.
This was addressed to you because you were the last person who posted. It's not really personal.I do not have any solution but then I am not skilled with running websites, I am a user of sites like this. I am mainly a writer! I am not necessarily complaining here either because I long ago accepted that this place has changed dramatically, and unlike a lot of hubbers who have left, I have no intention of doing so. What I am doing is getting this topic debated and seems I have done a good job with that because there have been a lot of responses and some very intelligent points made in this thread.
Bard,
Another argument I've heard presented is the idling of your hubs which do not garner traffic is for your own good----they should help your site as a whole.
Your hubs do not degrade the integrity of this site nor threaten HPs ad program in the eyes of Google so why not let you as a hubber decide which hubs you would like to idle if any. Put the control of ones sub-domain back into the power of the writers. If they want to idle a hub which has only gained 100 views per year then let them if they don't then let them keep the 100 views. The writer may know something HP doesn't about that particular hub.
This tweaking hubs seems precarious. De-indexing, re-indexing,-de-indexing-re-indexing seems a bit silly, however, if others don't think so then allow them to give HP the power to decide which Hub hurts their sub-domain, however there should be an opt out button for us hubbers who want to decide which hubs they think are not productive enough to keep on this site. That's my solution. If it passed QAP then let hubbers decide if it remains featured, de-indexed, unpublished or moved to a blog.ect. Give Hubbers a choice.
I've analyzed my hubs, idled and featured alike, and found that traffic has nothing to do with it. Any of my hubs that have the mention of a season or even a month have been idled (like a high-view ratatouille recipe, which I realize now I should never have mentioned was particularly good when tomatoes are ripe in summer...), as have any that mention "hub", "hubber", "hub pages", etc, regardless of HP or google visits. I will definitely avoid these terms in the future and would suggest people whose hubs are idle-prone eliminate them and see if that helps. Cheers
Wow, your observations completely don't agree with what HP tells us about the idling process. My HP-centric hubs have also all been idled, but I've always thought that was because they were only getting internal traffic, if any.
The 'time of year' phenomenon is even weirder. I do have one seasonal hub about Wimbledon, which has not been idled, which I'm very relieved about.
I think HP should be honest and express this policy on the home page that shows for non-members.
Instead of giving the impression that people can write about anything, they should have a statement along the lines:
"We are only interested in articles, which will bring us views. If you cannot do this, you are a crap writer and we are not interested in your garbage, so get lost!"I worked out some months back that writing about many topics I am knowledgeable in was a waste of time and stopped. Poetry and lyrics and creative writing do not work so users should be told not to waste their time on these.
I have found that philosophical questions do not work either and detailed botanical hubs are a waste of time and effort. If your subject is something too 'outside the box' it won't do well too, unless it is some bizarre conspiracy stuff that has been well publicised to the masses. My conspiracy hubs all do well for traffic still. People are searching for reptilians and David Icke, chemtrails, or anything to do with the Illuminati.
It seems to me that HP is catering for a dumbed down population that have been subjected to mass advertising schemes for stuff people are told to buy and subjected to successful memes. HP is not for intellectuals or scientists or academics to publish their writings on.
I was in a library here earlier today talking with a friend and we both thought it was sad that many a good book is never taken out because the authors or the subject matter is not known about much today or in any way pushed in the mass media. We found a biography of Alexander von Humboldt that had not been borrowed in several years. I said to my friend that that was a book I would be interested in but a terrible subject for an online article. No one would be looking for info on him in searches because most people do not even know who he was!
People are already upset, Simey. Personally, I would think the main thing to be concerned with would be the junk already on the site--not that we haven't been reporting it for years now--but I believe Simone or someone pointed out the flags are usually ignored. The only time they are removed is when they are posted on the forums when HP is too embarrassed to allow them to remain. And as I have proven, more replaces them faster than they are removed. This gets us nowhere fast. I suspect HP is making money on this junk and this is why they are reluctant to remove them, not because of the mythical "backlog."
Randy - good point - people are upset and this is causing a lot of unsettlement.
Perhaps a different solution would be to go through the process of identifying the hubs that would become un-featured but give everyone 3 months (or longer) to address the hubs? That would at least help a little with the heartbreak.
I agree that they are probably making some money on these too - I'm not sure what I would do if I was running the business - it's a hard choice - short term they probably need the money, long term it benefits getting rid of them!Yes, it is a dilemma, Simey. But I think honesty is always the best policy. I'd rather TPTB simply say, "sorry, we have no clue what Google wants and we are simply throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks."
And as for the junk still on the site, they should either admit they are making money on it so we won't waste our time pointing it out, or flagging it while nothing is done about it. As I said, I would have much more respect for them if this was addressed honestly. At this point, many of us would go elsewhere instead of wasting time trying to produce "quality"--not Simone's definition of the word, but the actual meaning--not wanted or needed here.Absolutely. I always want honesty and open-ness. Would it satisfy you if they said "We have a defined strategy but here are some metrics"? Sometimes giving away a strategy may give an advantage to competitors - but if you could see a definitive improvement in stats and metrics that may at least help you understand that it's not simply 'random' but is a quantitative method?
Of course I'm not saying they will say that to you.....Ha! What other site would want to copy HP's losing strategy, Simey? Helium used to use the same excuse for their crappy system, and still does, as a matter of fact. I ended up exposing how corrupt and dishonest they were before I left and forced them to admit they were lying to the writers.
Take a look at them now. I was attacked on the forums--similarly to the way I was on the forum last night--by the cheerleaders at helium. Many of whom personally emailed me later on and apologized for doubting me. So I am no stranger to controversy on these sites. I wish for honesty here, but apparently it is too much to expect. Ah well, que sera!
I have 13 idle hubs right now out of 53 published, and I'll be damned if I'm getting rid of them.
First, those 13 hubs represent about 600 page views, and it has been a goal of mine to reach 10000 page views within a year. I have already removed three idle hubs, and lost about 140 page views toward that goal.
Second, those hubs represent about 20 comments, and losing them would drop me below 100 total comments.
Third, some of the hubs are (in my opinion) very good and/or unique, including topics such as the Chicago Cubs curse, the architecture of Dwight Illinois (which includes the only remaining bank designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and the only train station by Henry Ives Cobb), ways to save money using public transportation, a photo gallery of ghost signs in Illinois, how to ride the Chicago "L," how to eat Ethiophian Food, and Billboard Top 100 Hits by members of the US Congress.
Finally, some of these hubs once had very high hub scores, were listed high up on search engines, and still have a dribble of traffic from outside links. Frankly, some of my less interesting hubs with lower traffic than my idle hubs are currently flying high and exist in the arbitrary good graces of whatever bizarre algorithm decides these things....
Pfffft.You do understand that the "dribble" of traffic from outside links will continue? Going idle does not affect those links or traffic at all.
A more important question is how much search engine traffic will it cost? The ones I've had go idle all had very low traffic, as in a few hits per month from all sources; the total loss of traffic from search engines was very small.
I really haven't had an issue with hubs going idle. I have a few times, but I provide the proper tweaks and they are good to go. The only hub to go idle often is my own hub on poetry. Otherwise this hasn't been an issue in the 50+ hubs I have.
In all fairness, I can tell which hubs will go idle, they have always been book reviews which get few views. Publishers advertise so much I can't compete with that, so unless it's a book everyone is talking about or loves, they are the first to go. So since I know that, I decide whether to take them down myself, and later try them on another site.
I never write holiday stuff, it's only going to get views one time a year.
Wizzley is OK, but it scares me a little. The people who have been there from the start say they "are making money in the 3 digits." That could be $100.00 a month, and three of them have written 300 wizzles this year! They are good writers, but its almost a full time job to write that much. So I put a few things there for variation, but really don't want to spend that kind of time there. I have been featured there though, and never once in the 2 yrs. I've been at HP.
I have written the obligatory ten pieces and been accepted on Infobarrel, and planned to make that my main site for a bit after January. But when I looked closer, a very few people wrote most of the stuff, and the forum posts were quite old. However, IB has put out info to say that they are moving over to a payment system like HP. I guess everyone is sick of making a few cents a day on adsense, and I've never had a payout from Amazon. So we should watch Infobarrel and see what happens, or I will, since I was also featured there when I wrote my 5th piece, again getting recognition I never got here.
I also have my own blog, which I like, but have not made one cent in a year now. So I don't know why people are saying to make your own site on Blogger like it's going to make a difference. I had a Blogger blog before they changed their format, and it was worthless. I do get 300-500 views a day on my own site, but it's not consistent, it goes up and down.
So I guess the soltution is to write on several sites, but I've dumbed down what I write, and since I write about a lot of people (I'm worried about seeming like I'm self promoting) I make sure now I write about idiots in their 20's I don't give a hoot or even know much about. It's very discouraging. The audiences just want fast info on their heartthrobs or a small, entertaining blurb.I have had book reviews idled here including one of David de Rothschild's recent book about the Plastiki. He was very pleased with this but it wasn't good enough for here so it is now on Infobarrel.
I have been featured at Wizzley too but have not made any money there as yet...at least I have not had a payment.
I took me four years to get my first Amazon payout of just over $100 and disappointingly my bank took 12€ for accepting the cheque and paying it into my Spanish account!
My Green Bard blog never makes any money.
You say: "I've dumbed down what I write" and sadly that appears to be one way of making any earnings and getting the traffic now! A sad comment on the state of the world!How fun is that? I followed this forum and did as suggested. Anything with 0 traffic in 7 has been unpublished or I am working on it.
I do not write for money here. I write strictly for ego (sounds bad huh/ and it is only a part)
A whole lot of traffic going on -- more than double usual. I have around 150 hubs now and yesterday I had over 200.
I have not and will not succumb to any program to change my words. That to me is a whore. And yet just doing what I like and my numbers are jumping. We can have it both ways.Do you have any advertising on your Green Bard blog? You can't make money if you don't have ads, and I'm not just talking about the sidebar ads that are there all the time. Are you getting visitors? Are you remembering to include a link to your blog if you write a "green" article elsewhere?
You know I've done my best to help you, Bard, but I think your fundamental problem is that you're just not suited to writing online. It's partly your topics - although I'm still convinced there's the potential for a huge following if you created a permaculture blog - but I fear it wouldn't make money because you can't get your head around how to advertise.
And can I ask you to please, please stop saying a Hub "isn't good enough" for HubPages if it's idled? I know it's your hurt feelings talking, and I know you understand the real reason (not enough traffic - which is Google's fault, nothing to do with HubPages). However, it's confusing for newbies who might read your post. We have enough trouble with people thinking idling of existing Hubs is about quality, let's not add to the misunderstanding.I have hidden ads in the text with words that link to products on Amazon but I haven't had any sales. I wasn't getting much traffic there anyway so have neglected the site and carried on with other stuff like moving hubs to Xobba and InfoBarrel. My problem everywhere is lack of traffic! This site is still the best for traffic and earnings for me which doesn't say a lot for the others as yet but I am giving them all a go!
The thing to get your head around is that it's not the site that matters, it's the topic. All sites, including your blog, rely on Google for traffic in exactly the same way.
Take a look at the topics of articles which have made money. Those are the topics to concentrate on. If the Green blog hasn't worked overall, take a look at your stats and see if there are any posts which have got traffic - you may find one or two have done really well. Another clue.But if it is the topic then surely we are back to the nonsense of 'pink suits' and 'girl photo' which are presumably examples of keywords for topics people search for.
Not necessarily. You're seeing things in extremes. I write about dance - that's not a hugely popular topic, but there are enough people interested that I can make money from it. But I think about my topics. What are dancers searching for? Stuff that helps them dance better. Advice on clothing and shoes.
They'll read reviews of performances or dancers' profiles if they're included in a dance magazine they're browsing, but they're not likely to search for them. So there's no point in me writing about those in a place that people aren't browsing (which is all sites like HubPages). I can write about those kind of things on my dance blogs, because people are more likely to browse around there.
There are plenty of people interested in nature and the environment, but perhaps they're not searching for things - that may be why "green Bard" isn't working. However I'm sure there are countless people out there who want to get better at permaculture. Otherwise there wouldn't be permaculture magazines. That's why I think that would be a good topic.My problem there is that I don't actually know much about permaculture. My four commissioned articles in Permaculture Magazine were on foraging which happens to be of interest to permaculturists. Foraging does not do well here though.
Not to butt in again, but do you mean foraging like in foraging for food/herbs?
I sent you an email, I hope maybe something in it will help.
This topic has gone astray. I have doubled my traffic (which is small) by just tweaking. In fact just saying hi! Maybe changing a word or two. The "idle" ones belong there until I fix them.
Overall hubscore did go up a point in just 12 hours. I am convinced "they" just want us to tweak.Tweaking was not in the original draw to get folks into this site and start publishing. It was the ability to work, create an article, and then sit back and let the time go by for it to move up in the searches and then you start making money. No changes, weekly or monthly should be needed on any article out there. I have never done that on any other site, nor on my various websites. I do not do that with our company website, yet we come up number one when one searches the product we sale.
Not all of us have the time to continually tweak. You mentioned what you have done and experienced, but I guarantee you, from my experience and the experience shared by others, if in fact all you did was change a word or two to get the hub out of idle and featured, well, in a short period of time it will be idled again. So it is a continual cycle of living here on HP if you have a lot of hubs. Some of us have a regular job that truly pays the bills.I here you! I just thought it was interesting for a holiday. Over 200 hubs would take way too much time. But the point is that it works.
I have to rest now to get ready for a regular job that pays the bills.
We all acknowledge it is a traffic issue, but we can not just blame Google. HP has said that traffic is not the main reason for idled hubs, however, like I said, we know different. So it is HP's decision to use traffic stats to idle a hub, not Google. Again, I had a seasonal hub that was idled. HP staff blatantly lied to me and the whole membership when they said they would not idle "seasonal" hubs. Last year, the Valentine's Day hub of mine did excellent...but the views were low during the rest of the year. This Valentine's Day it resides on my blog and got better views than last year here. That is with a new URL and the works.
I had a very informational and biographical hub up about a man, Chief Two Trees, and it ranked number one on every search. The views were low, but consistent. Not a whole lot of people would Google "Chief Two Trees", however the article was there for those who were seeking information. I had shared two years of my life working with the man, so my material was very unique. It was idled with a hub score of 81. Go figure.
It appears that the unique requirements by HP are meaningless, as they don't respect us when we abide by that. Our material makes them money. Or it used to.
I take being lied to very personal. Everyone feels that HP staff can do what they want, when they want, and tell us after the fact without taking a vote or having a discussion before the change. I do not condone being lied to and my outlook on HP staff is VERY, VERY low due to being lied to. It makes me wonder how much more I have been lied to by the same people.
For those who praise HP for providing us a place to write and how grateful they are, remember, HP is a business with money at the top of the list, not members. They need us, and get us, but do not respect us.I'm not clear where HubPages is lying. Both Simone and Derek have stated clearly that if an existing Hub is idled, it's due to lack of traffic. Derek has admitted that low traffic Hubs don't hurt HubPages, but they've decided to take the step because it's the only way they can think of to hide poor quality Hubs. They have also admitted that seasonable Hubs were meant to be able to survive but that's not working out as they predicted - they're still working on how to fix it.
I know it's easy to miss forum threads, I do wish they would announce things more clearly instead of just answering questions on obscure threads!
Please don't think I am justifying the idling process because I think it's a bad idea, personally. Just clarifying how it works.The main lie was the seasonal hubs, Marisa. To use the excuse that it is all automated and they can not control what gets idled, then I wonder who or what is running the site. It sounds like a science fiction story of sorts.
I have been in business for decades and been online for years and years....and I have always been in control....no bot or computer has ever taken that away from me. In order for that to happen, you have to allow it.
At the start of idled hubs, stats/traffic was not to play an important part in the idle process. This has since changed, the same as with the seasonal hubs. The lies were there.
And....even if now they are admitting they are idling due to lack of views, explain my Chief Two Trees hubs. There has been several others that I will not name that had views and a good hub score, but were idled....they were topic specific, and I will not name the topic as I got attacked for that before and threatened.Bard,
If you know a lot about band and music equipment, there are many people who could benefit from that. My son is 24, and he plays in two bands. One is classic rock, where he uses a huge 1960's tube amp that set me back about $2,000.00, when Sid Barrett was his idol. He belongs to a Martial Arts school, and he began a Surf band there, like the Dick Dale stuff, or the theme from Hawaii Five O. The guys in that band are in their 40's and 50's, except for him, but they are buying up all kinds of new instruments, trying to make it into a Japanese sounding surf band. I know it sounds ridiculous, but they sound great, and bought ocean drums, a harmonium (may be spelled wrong, it looks like a keyboard but you blow into it), all kinds of ornate chimes, and more. They needed advice about all these things. But even when it was just the classic rock, there are so many distortion pedals and wah wah pedals. If you advise people about that, in a sort of side niche, that would be useful. Guys seem to like being in bands and buying equipment no matter what age they are. Just a thought.
Yes, I the way I understand it is that IB will be paying for views. It's a nice site. The waiting process while they approve your article is the worst part, and then if you decide to make a change, you must wait while it goes through that process again. HP spoils us in that way, as we can go into our hubs and edit them to our heart's content.
I find that people aren't clicking either, even when I put pictures of nice products on my blog and all they have to do is click on the photo and it takes them to Amazon. I am an Affiliate of a fabulous jewelry store I would buy practically everything in it if I could afford to! Yet even though I put the inexpensive items on the blog, nobody buys anything. Metaphysical stuff is hard to find products for, as books are so cheap. I am even buying for my Kindle now and don't order real books much. But I was thinking maybe it's the economy, it's getting better in the U.S. but people are spending carefully. I have a hub on water bottles with BPA in them, and the traffic is always there, and people buy water bottles. It's just we get such a low percentage. I use hyperlinks shamelessly at this point, just to try to entice people to buy anything.
I've read the Bard's stuff, and think environmental issues are a big deal right now. Perhaps products for hikers would be appealing.That is interesting that your experiences echo mine and viewers are not clicking on your ads either.
Does that mean IB is going to be paying on views in the future? That could be good news.
One of the reasons people like Bard don't make money is that they don't see opportunities to sell something to their readers. So even if Bard includes Amazon or eBay capsules in a Hub, he doesn't think of how to encourage readers to buy it. The result is that even on a Hub that gets lots of visitors, he probably doesn't earn much money because no one is clicking on the ads. So he's much better off on a site that pays for views or impressions, not clicks.
Blogging is the same. I must seek out WriteAngled's blogs because she doesn't strike me as a commercial, lowest-common-denominator writer, yet she says she's making more money on her blogs than on HP. I'd like to know how she's doing it! But once again, it comes down to what you do with it. You can't make money from a few sidebar ads.I had until recently assumed that people would click on ads for stuff mentioned in the text and wouldn't need any more encouragement than seeing an image and text saying what it is. eg if I wrote a hub about a famous musician I thought that posting some ads for their best known albums would work. It doesn't. I have been advised to add words such as "Buy" or Best albums by..." and have tried doing this but it doesn't seem to make any difference.
I was basing my incorrect assumption on myself. I don't need someone to tell me what to do or to encourage me to buy something. If I see an ad that interests me I either respond to it or not depending on how much I want what ever it is. Generally ads have no effect on me though!I can get good Amazon sales, but only from pages that are specifically written to that. If I write an informational page, even if I add highly related Amazon products, nobody touches them. The pages that sell Amazon stuff are the ones that people, who already know they want to buy stuff, come to. Best midrange graphics cards in 2013, that kind of stuff.
I know a lot of people on HP think that "sales pages" are a sellout, but they don't have to be, if you really know the products you're writing about, criteria to think about when choosing the right product for you etc.
Don't you know a lot about "music hardware" bard? Couldn't you try some sales pages for recording equipment, amplifiers? I don't really know what I'm talking about, but the kind of stuff kids who want to form a band would need to buy? Perhaps finding well priced second hand products on ebay might be a good idea.
I don't know if you would think it is a sell out, but if you have the knowledge to really tell people how to choose wisely, and can offer practical advice while writing about something you like, that could be a possibility.
Your hubs have a lot of good original photographs. Do you give a lot of thought to buying a good camera, do you use binoculars for birdwatching? Just some ideas.I am afraid I don't know much about music hardware. I have always used studios I have had to pay for or studios owned by friends and I have never owned much more than a guitar. I have tried writing about guitars to buy but that hub didn't do very well.
As for cameras, again my knowledge is limited. I use what I have got. I have never had an expensive camera because I have never had the sort of money needed to buy one. I currently need another myself because the one I have has just broken.
Hi Bard,
I noticed, my worst hubs receive the most traffic and my favorites receive the least. I still like to believe that hubs that receive 1 or 2 views here and there, at least make someone smile of that my poetry makes someones morning easier As for the ones that get the most traffic, they are helpful, but in truth, they are soulless pieces of work, that I put together in list format.The time factor does really matter more than one would think. I had hubs here that got little attention for at least a year, and all of a sudden they had loads of visitors. So I would say give an article anywhere at least a year before you think it's not going anywhere. That's true of all the group sites, and maybe our individual sites as well.
I have also had the experience of watching a piece of writing that I thought was OK, but not so great, do really well, and had pieces I worked so hard on not do well at all. You never know who's going to be interested in what you write. Plus new people come around all the time on all sites. Patience is very important.
People also look for topics of substance and importance. It is a matter of finding the overlap between what is popular, and what you want to write.
Also, it is amazing that news sites remain top of the searches....with all that old archived material that is never updated. Google to blame........ I don't think so.
I think we're conflating two things here. Yes, HubPages is to blame for deciding to idle Hubs, which means they don't get any more traffic. But my original point was not about Hubs, but .about traffic to Hubs before they are idled. If a Featured article doesn't get traffic, it's not the fault of HubPages - it's the fact that Google isn't sending traffic.
And Google has looked at HP and decided to work against the whole site. That has been discussed. HP apparently fell out of grace with various changes and tactics that Google did not like. Like with the profile page...they had to go in and change that around after created the new one based on the fact that they did something that made their views, overall, decline.
For Google not be be sending traffic, one at least has to question how and what may have HP done to discourage it, if anything.
It will never be known. I don't get anywhere in the forums and never get straight answers from those that are in charge, but from time to time I do like to share "my" HP experience and thoughts with others.
I don't expect change. I have 95 hubs active and 26 that have been idled. I still make enough money to buy a name brand of Pork n Beans, lol. My views overall, are good, however, this is not about my overall account, but idled hubs.
Yes, I don't see it as Google being to blame either. I get a lot of traffic from Yahoo and other sites, sometimes a lot more than Google.
So doesn't that suggest it is Google's fault? It's not Google's fault that HubPages has decided to introduce its silly idling system, but it is Google's fault your Hubs aren't getting enough traffic to stop them idling. No question.
I'm of the belief the no index tag stays with the hub for a long time, perhaps prevents Google from taking the article seriously, as it were. I'm sorry, I still believe the pending and idle processes hurts us badly. But time will tell, even if HP doesn't. By then it may be too late, however.
I don't think the "no index" tag stays with the Hub, but I do think the effect lingers for a long time (which comes to the same thing).
If Google robots see a "no index" tag, they go away. They're not going to bother coming back every five minutes to see if it's gone. It may be weeks before they come back - so even if the no index tag disappears within a few hours, it has hurt the Hub for weeks. Which almost guarantees it will ultimately be idled for lack of traffic, because it only has two months to get visitors, and it's lost the first few weeks.
The idled feature hurts us in other ways. Our sub-domains are regarded by Google as individual domains, because each one has a separate author. Google doesn't like "thin" domains, i.e. sites that have very little content. If you end up with only a handful of Hubs still Featured, you have a thin website.
You won't find me disagreeing with you on the wisdom of the pending/idled/Featured process. I'm unpublishing my Hubs as they idle and I'm not writing any more.That is what I am doing as well, Marisa, unpublishing my idled hubs. I have just about quit writing here.
You bring up two very valid points here. The first one I had considered, but the second one about the "thin" domain had not crossed my mind. It makes sense as I think about it!
Suggestion to HP: Only Idle Hubs with low traffic that have Hubscores below 70
=> The low traffic rule is a crude way of dumping "Poor Quality" Hubs.
=> The justification is that low traffic for a quality hub in some way means Google has downgrading it and won't display it in the SERPS. This is a flawed concept.
=> This amounts to throwing out the Baby with the Bathwater.
=> HP wants to get rid of the CRAP in the backlog (old hubs), but this is likely to take several months. The reason for this is to lift the average quality rating for HP overall. BUT if high quality hubs are being idled this will be pulling down the average quality score.
=> This would allow the good quality hubs to strut their stuff for longer, and so to get traffic. The overall quality score would be higher.
=> Authors who write quality hubs would be happier, and their quality hubs would remain on HP.
=> It avoids the Authors having to go through the annoying grind of tweaking hubs over and over again until they can get traffic.
=> Programming in minimal as it simply requires a filter using Hubscore.Hi,
This is an interesting topic, since I am new to HP and still learning a lot. I appreciate all the posts. Good information to consider as I do this thing I am learning to like called writing. Thanks to all.Earlier I said that I didn't have this issue. I check just now and two of my hubs went idle. One was that piece of poetry, which didn't surprise me. Another was an "exclusive" which I thought was a great hub, it just hasn't received a lot of hits.
I made changes, and hope it works.
Maybe HP is getting a lot more strict on bad hubs? Then again, I felt like I didn't have any bad hubs.It's most likely related to low traffic - so Tweak the title ( using title tuner for the exclusive). Add some links, add some super images that you can Pinterest. Traffic is King, not Quality. IMO
The question that needs to be asked is what is a good hub? The answer appears to be one that gets a lot of regular traffic!
A good hub is created with a good chance of getting traffic (with popular and competitive keywords in the title and article).
A good hub has a Title and summary that says 'Pick Me, Pick Me' in the SERPS
A good hub satisfies what the reader wants, so that they will link to it and refer it to their friends.
A good hub is comprehensive enough to provide most of the answers the reader is looking for.
A good hub is written by an author who has authority and has a good portfolio.
But the greatest of all the requirements is TRAFFIC which is the rain that sustains a hub, and stops it from withering, and dying for a drink.
There is no point to a hub that does not get read, and to be read it must be ranked by Google and appear in the SERPS on page 1 or 2.
Traffic is the necessary criteria. Quality is secondary, and is only needed to help get better rankings and so get more traffic. The judge of the goodness or value of the hub is the reader, and Google tries to ensure the SERPS contain links to articles that meet the needs of the reader for a wide range of purposes. Google ranks articles using its own version of quality + other criteria such as links etc., to try to best meet the needs of the reader.If you're talking about the idled/Featured process, that's exactly what makes a good Hub. Though that's not an appropriate word to use, because it has nothing to do with good and bad.
Just thought it would be worth adding this forum post to this thread:
http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/109894#post2338785
It explains the idling process, and Simone has confirmed that what I said is an accurate explanation.How long have they been idled? They will stay on Google until they are crawled again by the robots.
Many over a month. Really strange if you ask me. I do not yet write here for money. I decided I would write 200 before stuffing and promoting.
So I am wondering.
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