Moving All Categories Today

1. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 8 years ago

   The autos category moved over very well.  It takes several days for everything to stabilize, so please be patient as your Hub settles in to its new home.
   
   Today, we will move all the other categories.  Please post any bugs or issues you discover.
   
   You will notice that your subdomain homepage redirects to a new profile URL as well.  The new url structure is like hubpages.com/@pauledmondson  We hope you like it.
   
   Thanks and Happy Hubbing,
   
   Paul

   replyreport
   1. 55

      paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      You weren't kidding. I see that it has already happened.

      replyreport
      1. 70

         Elsie Hagleyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Great! Like what I see, one happy customer, thanks, to all who made this change possible.

         replyreport
         1. 55

            paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            And our new profile URLs are "http://hubpages.com/@username"
            
            [edit] Oops, I see Paul E. already posted that.
            
            Meanwhile, both the new URL and the redirect from the old URL do indeed work.

            replyreport
   2. 83

      Venkatachari Mposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I find it okay. Just been checking all my hubs and see they appear good with new URLs.
      
      And my main page is now "hubpages.com/@venkatacharim". There is no http or anything.

      replyreport
      1. 88

         lobobrandonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         http:// hubpages.com/@venkatacharim
         http://www. hubpages.com/@venkatacharim
         Both point to your page.

         replyreport
   3. 94

      PegCole17posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Glad to see this transition happened so quickly. I like this move.
      
      I'm curious about what triggers the category that the hub is put under. (Business, Money, Food, Style, Autos, etc.) Is it based more on the content or the title? Most of my hubs seem to have gone into the appropriate place, but I do see a couple which might be questionable.
      
      For example, on one of my unpublished hubs titled, Overcoming Opioid Dependence, Chronic Pain and Pain Killers, it is listed under Literature. It is a personal story rather than a health guide, so that may be the reason it's not under Health.
      
      Another one is Navy Life in World War II, the story of my Dad's military service, categorized under Politics. My other Navy hub is under Family (The URL mentions "Dad"), although the title refers to finding military records.
      
      Understanding this will help me align my groups to match the main sub headings.

      replyreport
2. 61

   firstdayposted 8 years ago

   excellent .. I got this notice in my email.  It is time to start hubbing agin.

   replyreport
3. 97

   Glenn Stokposted 8 years ago

   Paul, we do seem to have one problem with the "autos" topic and this may be true with others too as they are moved to topic URLs. See my thread with Matt at http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2774470
   
   This report is still premature as it may be caused by something else. Matt is very helpful looking into it.

   replyreport
   1. 53

      janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      You can't stop progress

      replyreport
   2. 71

      Matthew Meyerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      It does appear to be related to an issue with Hub groups and not the topic.
      http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2774494

      replyreport
      1. 97

         Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, and you found the problem. Thanks for fixing it.

         replyreport
4. 81

   AudreyHowittposted 8 years ago

   Do I need to change anything for the posts that I have lodged out there on sites like Pinterest??

   replyreport
5. 55

   paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

   I've got a Pinterest-loved hub still continuing to go mid "viral" via Pinterest's users. I await to see what happens when Pinterest is suddenly confronted with redirects as opposed to the normal page landings. I'm pretty sure all the other social media couldn't care less and doesn't even check for such things, but Pinterest is Pinterest.

   replyreport
6. 55

   paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

   I've fired up Analytics Realtime. Everything looks to be working fine and dandy, seeing traffic and the new hub URLs as we speak.

   replyreport
   1. 96

      sallybeaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Everything appears to be working well, Pinterest links as well, also external links to and from my own website.  Good job HubPages staff.   Let's hope your hard work is rewarded.  Thank you.

      replyreport
7. 88

   lobobrandonposted 8 years ago

   Awesome! Thanks Paul and everyone else behind the scenes.

   replyreport
8. 96

   RonElFranposted 8 years ago

   I notice that all my Civil War hubs are categorized as "Educational." That would certainly be very misleading in a Google search snippet. Will there be an effort to reexamine categories and make corrections such as listing Civil War hubs in a "Civil War" category?

   replyreport
   1. 55

      paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Yep, I've got that same type of problem all over the place with my own hubs, as have lots of other Hubbers who warned HP about this. HP really should have done a category reorg before doing this. Oh, well.

      replyreport
   2. STAFF

      Paul Edmondsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      @RonElFran If you do this query on desktop you will see how Google uses the breadcrumbs.  https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Fal … p;ie=UTF-8
      
      On mobile it sometimes uses the URL or the breadcrumbs.  Not sure how they decide.  I think your Civil War Hubs are categorized fine, but I agree that the categories aren't perfect for everything.  I'm not sure there's a perfect solution for the entire site other than for folks to pick the best subcategory as possible. 
      
      Thanks for dropping by and happy hubbing,
      
      Paul

      replyreport
      1. 96

         RonElFranposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Got it, Paul. Thanks.

         replyreport
      2. 55

         paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         So what Analytics is displaying to us is not what Google is going to be displaying in the search results? Excellent! My worry-beads are back in the closet.

         replyreport
      3. 84

         tsmogposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you Paul for the information. That led to a learning experience with the title searched to see that result. I learned more why the title has great importance.

         replyreport
      4. 73

         brakel2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Can you explain breadcrumbs? I have read about it and heard it from you but would like yours or someone's expert opinion/explanation. What do you mean about selecting a subcategory? Does that mean that RonElFran needs to select a second category to follow education for his Civil War hubs?

         replyreport
9. 59

   Dwight GolidayJrposted 8 years ago

   Not all change is bad. That's a good thing.

   replyreport
10. 93

    LongTimeMotherposted 8 years ago

    It occurred to me this morning that perhaps I should change the settings on my profile to accept EC again before the changeover, thinking ECs might be automatically reinstated. However I logged in to discover the change has already happened.
    
    I note with interest that previous ECs are not showing the label.
    
    What is the plan there, Paul? Will you be switching the 'opt in/out of EC' over for all hubbers now that we are all under the main domain?

    replyreport
    1. 97

       DrMark1961posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       I also opted out of the EC since I wanted my hubs to stay in my subdomain. Now it does not seem to matter. I had about 25 hubs with that designation. Is it still going to exist? (There is no longer any way to change this under the profile.)

       replyreport
       1. 53

          janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

          I opted back in a day or so ago. I even got an award for 10 ECs. Wow!

          replyreport
          1. 97

             DrMark1961posted 8 years agoin reply to this

             How did you opt back in?

             replyreport
             1. 97

                Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                Everyone is automatically opted in to EC now.

                replyreport
             2. 53

                janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

                @DrMark with the little button

                replyreport
11. 87

    NateB11posted 8 years ago

    Cool. That was quick!

    replyreport
12. 55

    paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

    Friday. Friday. Absolutely no traffic problems at all. In fact, it even appears to be better than usual.

    replyreport
13. 73

    brakel2posted 8 years ago

    The Pinterest web entries go to Pinterest and then to the redirect URL very quickly. That is truly amazing.

    replyreport
14. 96

    Sue Adamsposted 8 years ago

    With the new URL change, I was checking that all my hubs are categorized in the best possible way. Being a choreologist by profession, I
    write many articles about the "Body", "Body Awareness" and "Body Language". There is no place in the Topics Tree for these subjects. The main topic "Body" does not exist at all and the topic "Body Language" only refers to the body language of cats!
    
    The following topic thread which has had zero reaction so far, explains the problem in greater detail.
    
    http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/133756
    
    Please Help

    replyreport
    1. 53

       janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Looks like HP ignored all the feedback about categories and inappropriate names. It would have been a great opportunity for a clean-up and ranking boost - going forward. Gone now, forever. I guess minor changes could still occur.

       replyreport
       1. 96

          Sue Adamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          Keep hammering. After all they did ask for feedback and suggestions. The Topics Tree (http://hubpages.com/topics/tree) doesn't make sense in many places, especially now that our URLs only show the main category and ignores all sub-categories.
          
          The Topics Tree needs to be revised. It needs to be expanded and simplified. By that I mean that we need many many more top categories and far fewer sub-categories, many of which now fail to fit into the current main categories.  For example, I have a few hubs originally under "Lifestyle", now labelled "Style" and the URLs no longer make any sense.

          replyreport
          1. 88

             lobobrandonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

             Yup we need many new main categories.

             replyreport
15. 55

    paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

    Bump.
    
    Looks like Google will indeed use and display the subcategories.

    replyreport
    1. 87

       NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       I noticed that. It's a good thing.

       replyreport
16. 0

    calculus-geometryposted 8 years ago

    There's a bug on some of the category main pages today.  If you look at Education, the suggested subcategories are all "Style" subtopics.
    
    
    Games Toys and Hobbies has a bunch of health topics mixed in too
    

    replyreport
    1. 0

       calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Entertainment and Media has recipe subcategories
       

       replyreport
       1. 92

          jansharesposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          I had a short-lived traffic spike on one of my recipe hubs today around 3pm (EST), according to GA. After seeing this post, I wonder if this bug had something to do with it. Happy for the traffic, though.

          replyreport
    2. 53

       janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Education and Science is a very mixed bag that includes
       ARCHITECTURE
       ART HISTORY
       + many education topics listed with science ones at then same level. Its a mess! All the SCIENCE ones have /education/ as top-level category in the URL.

       replyreport
       1. 0

          calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          What I'm reporting is a genuine bug.  If you hover over those subcategories you can see that they are all have /style/ in the url, meaning they aren't supposed to be on the page for hubs with /education/ in the url.
          
          Yes, I am aware that the "Education" category is a jumble of unrelated school subjects, as I was the one who mentioned in two different threads

          replyreport
17. 92

    jansharesposted 8 years ago

    What happened to the subcategory "Tai Chi and Qi Gong?" It is no longer under Exercise and Fitness. There are a lot of tai chi hubs so I hope this is a glitch. My tai chi hub URL only says "health."
    
    Edit: Actually, I know that main topics are on all URLs now for all hubs. My question is have some subcategories been eliminated?

    replyreport
18. 55

    paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

    Well, I picked 3 hubs at random this late Saturday morning for Google searches. All 3 hubs are still showing as being under my subdomain, though the subcategories are being displayed perfectly. My traffic also continues to be above average, almost as if Google is doing their infamous testing thing on various hubs before deciding ranking. The adventure continues...

    replyreport
    1. 88

       lobobrandonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       So far only one of mine has moved over

       replyreport
    2. 53

       janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       I have one new hub indexed using the new system (cache date 30). The crucial test will be when the old ones get re-indexed. So far most of my old ones show a cache date of 29 Oct - still show as subs.
       
       Early days, but the hubs indexed post-subs appear to not have the 'description' in the SERP.
       
       NEW
       

       replyreport
    3. 91

       Millionaire Tipsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       My traffic has gone down.

       replyreport
       1. 92

          SheilaMilneposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          Mine too, badly...

          replyreport
          1. 55

             paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

             The experience with the auto hubs pretty much confirmed Paul's statement about drops in traffic being temporary, plus there's today's Halloween lull. So far, I remain cautiously optimistic.

             replyreport
             1. 88

                lobobrandonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                That's true. Mine is down too, but I'm hoping it's just Halloween + Weekend. So it's going to be lower than the regular weekends.

                replyreport
                1. 91

                   Millionaire Tipsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                   You're right, it was Halloween weekend. Traffic is now back to normal. Yay!

                   replyreport
19. 60

    stuff4kidsposted 8 years ago

    Hi Paul,
    
    I notice one worrying thing in my stats: all my incoming links have gone. Hubs that had five stars now only have one and in the referrers section, the only referrers shown are google and internal, whereas I had lots of traffic coming in from teacher sites and class pages etc. That's all vanished - two years to build - and traffic slumped.
    
    Have I really lost all those links?
    
    

    replyreport
    1. 87

       NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       I've been wondering about this too. Some sites had linked to my content, hoping I didn't lose that. It's one of those things you earn for your efforts.

       replyreport
       1. 88

          lobobrandonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          Nope you won't lose anything as all the stuff redirects. Most people won't even notice that they're redirected

          replyreport
          1. 87

             NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

             That's what I figured, and that's good news. So, it seems redirects are permanent. I wasn't sure.

             replyreport
             1. 88

                lobobrandonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                Yup they are nothing to worry about

                replyreport
                1. 87

                   NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

                   Cool.

                   replyreport
          2. 60

             stuff4kidsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

             Okay, thanks. So those links are still alive and kicking, just not showing up in my stats any more? Traffic seems to be bouncing back already, too, so maybe that was just the Halloween slump. 

             replyreport
20. 94

    UnnamedHaraldposted 8 years ago

    I just wanted to note that over the last few months, HubPage's ranking in the US by Quantcast has risen from around 110th to 88th. It will be interesting to see if this improvement continues.

    replyreport
    1. 73

       brakel2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       If it rose by that margin, why are we fixing something that is not broken? I hope we get over this little hump, or maybe this is a good thing.

       replyreport
       1. 88

          lobobrandonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          It was in the 70's just some time prior to that. That's the reason we need to fix it

          replyreport
       2. 94

          UnnamedHaraldposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          Nothing stands still-- especially where search engines are concerned. My point is that, generally, it looks like some improvements are being seen on past efforts and it is to be hoped that the current changes will yield positive results-- or at least mitigate negative trends.

          replyreport
    2. 87

       NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Wow, that's great news!

       replyreport
21. 88

    lobobrandonposted 8 years ago

    Question: Direct Traffic is also traffic from other hubs to mine - right? Coming somewhere from
    
    EDIT: This is w.r.t. Google Analytics

    replyreport
22. 94

    Solarasposted 8 years ago

    I have found that Pinterest does not like redirects. It randomly throws up warnings after a rediriect has been applied to an article, "This link is suspicious; it is a redirect that may lead to inappropriate content."

    replyreport
    1. 53

       janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       That is terrible - a major problem likely to cause a huge drop in traffic.
       
       Worst aspect is that while you can edit the pins all the repins will remain - I hope this does not mean my account gets banned!
       
       From Pinterest Help
       
       Tips and Troubleshooting
       Be sure to link directly to the source. Pinterest doesn't allow redirects or URL shorteners like bit.ly.

       replyreport
    2. 55

       paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       The bad news... I was afraid of something like this. I even posted warnings here awhile back about the possibility of such.
       
       The good news... I just now tested three pins. None of the three had the "beware suspicious redirect" message. So hopefully there is hope.

       replyreport
       1. 94

          Solarasposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          I tested the same article that had been pinned numerous times. Some worked correctly and then I got that message.  So it seems random that some pins redirected while other pins to the same article threw up the red flag.

          replyreport
          1. 55

             paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

             Let us hope Pinterest is coordinated enough to know the difference between intra-domain and inter-domain redirects. Otherwise, I guess we are indeed in for some major cleanup work; what a pain.

             replyreport
             1. 53

                janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

                A pain indeed - I have started making 4000+ changes. My big concern apart from this is all the re-pins and social media. This is a potential disaster as half my traffic comes via Pinterest (+ mini-virals). A ban on HP could also eventuate with all the redirects. Sad!

                replyreport
23. 94

    Solarasposted 8 years ago

    Here in HP in the last 24 hours my pageviews are up 80%.  Is anyone else experiencing a similar increase?  Or is this a problem with the stats?

    replyreport
    1. 87

       NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Yes, Will Apse started a thread about increased views, a lot of people are saying they have significant increases in traffic.

       replyreport
       1. 87

          NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

          over here http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/133788

          replyreport
          1. 94

             Solarasposted 8 years agoin reply to this

             Thank you!

             replyreport
             1. 87

                NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

                No problem.

                replyreport
    2. 88

       lobobrandonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Similar here 70-80 percent increase

       replyreport
24. 40

    Vanu430posted 8 years ago

    Great

    replyreport