Introducing Idle Hubs

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  1. IzzyM profile image83
    IzzyMposted 12 years ago

    Yesterday some of the CPMs were really low, but there is an asterisk beside them which leaves open a window of opportunity.

    Maybe one of the advertisers have still to cough up the dinero. We can but hope smile

  2. profile image0
    Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago

    I'm new to Wizzley and have a lot to learn.  Wizzley itself is fairly new.  2011?  I've only been in for about a month.  But since my writing goals don't involve supporting myself (how sad that would be!) and making the big online bucks (LOL), I like writing for the site because I like writing new articles and stepping into straight writing mode.  So that's what I do at Wizzley.  I don't have any distractions here.  I have not moved any of my unpublished Hubs because I don't care for my "reruns."  But, down the road, I may change my mind once I begin the deleting process.  Now I know what happened to a lot of Hubbers and former Hubbers.  Many them are at Wizzley and are doing just fine.  In fact, a Hubber suggested the site to me, and I followed her over there.  Anyway, I keep my HubPages account and visit, but my goal of making a year and payout has been completed.  I have updated my 230 Hubs down to the 100+ on my HubPages new profile.  I fixed the one Zzz that I had.  With this green dot system, all I can do is fix future Zzz's until something else happens with Google.  What's left for me to do?  My views here have been a constant 130+ here.  My Hubs have not completely dumped or gone to zero, but at the same time, despite all my hacking and tweaking, the views seldom improve.  I plan on giving Wizzley a year to see what happens.  As for views there?  I won't really know until I start pumping out the articles.  I only have six right now, but that's going to change real soon.  For Wizzley, you are probably looking at 50 articles or more to get an idea.  I'm retired, so my writing needs are different from most folk.

    1. SmartAndFun profile image95
      SmartAndFunposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your input, too, Arlene. I don't need my article $$ to live on either, but at the same time I would like to get the most I can from them.

  3. profile image0
    Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago

    So true, SmartandFun!  LOL!  I don't normally do anything for free, but when it comes to online, I am so slow when it comes to learning.  Right now, I am backed up when it comes to the writing.  No shortage in that department.  It's all about sitting down and writing.  But starting a new online account requires setting up the Amazon, Adsense, referrals, and whatever Wizzley has to offer so that you at least there is a chance that you are rewarded $$$ for your work.  I don't remember how I ever established Amazon and all that on HubPages.  So, I am still struggling.  On Wizzley, It's nice not to see blocks of white space.

  4. Charles James profile image68
    Charles Jamesposted 12 years ago

    It is a truism in business that the rule of 80:20 applies to most situations. 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your customers.
    We all find that 80% of our viewings come from 20% of our hubs, often significantly less than 20%.
    For HP the 20% of hubbers who make money for HP (and themselves) need to be cherished because they keep the HP ship afloat. And those 20% still have an 80% wastage rate. So the productive hubs are maybe 5% or maybe even 1% of all the hubs published.
    HP now believe that the 80% of poorly performing hubs are dragging down the good hubs. As a capitalist organisation what should HP do?
    Taking no action is not an option. Idling hubs is the least drastic action HP can take.
    And if some of us take our zzs elsewhere HP loses nothing because they were non-performing hubs.

    1. Terri Meredith profile image68
      Terri Meredithposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Charles:  You're correct in many ways, but here's another tidbit.  Most businesses that offer a "menu" of services, food, etc. also know that those low sellers still have a place on the menu, because they are items that add value.  For instance, in a restaurant, dessert items aren't the top sales items or the big money makers.  In fact, many times, carrying desserts actually loses money,  but they continue to be offered because they add to the dining experience when ordered.  And when it's between meal times, they are often featured for their ability to create "incremental sales."

      HP is no different.  There are certain hubs that are the meat and potatoes for HP and their authors.  They are the ones that bring in the views (the moneymakers), but the desserts are the ones that are found afterwards when the reader clicks on links within the hub or at the bottom.

      There are quite a lot of writers on this site who have very little understanding of SEO or rather HOW to use the tools.  I am one of them.  Perhaps if more focus was made on helping with the marketing aspects, more good quality, well written hubs would be getting traffic.   I've read many from authors who are great writers, but the low quantity of comments would seem to indicate that they aren't getting much traffic.  I've also read a lot of hubs that are absolutely a chore (for me) to get through because of poor grammar and spelling, yet they may have 100 comments.  I don't wish to offend anyone, but I've seen mediocre writing and content from authors who have top numbers for views on pieces that wouldn't even earn them a D in a college course.  That's a sign of good SEO, not good writing.

      1. Charles James profile image68
        Charles Jamesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Thank you Terri. You are absolutely right. The "other" hubs people read after they have found a hub via a search engine are where HP can score. That is why HP offer other hubs (and of course why we usually link to other hubs).

        I can understand that a hub that does not attract a hit a month drags down the general offering. Keeping it as a link from an existing hub which zzing does without putting it on search engines is intelligent.

        Yes I am a bit cross that some hubs have been zzed but I can tweak them.

        There is I think a problem around poetry but fortunately I do not write poetry.

        1. Terri Meredith profile image68
          Terri Meredithposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I can't imagine that anyone has a single hub that hasn't gotten at least one hit a month.  Maybe they skip months, but on average?  Again, a lot has to do with SEO.  When a hub is first published, the only views it gets are from hub leaping and postings on social sites.  Those first days it may see 50 or 100 hits and then fizzle out as it's no longer visible.  Some hubs take time to "age".  I've seen hubs zzz'ed that have an average of 10 to 15 hits in a month.  Surely, nothing to write home about, but certainly not covered in dust.

          1. Charles James profile image68
            Charles Jamesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Sadly of my 40-odd zzd hubs over 30 have not had a hit in the last 30 days.
            If I take that business elsewhere I doubt HP will notice!

      2. Marisa Wright profile image86
        Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        This is an excellent point and one Sunforged was trying to make earlier.

        It's well-known that Google will punish you if you have "poor quality" posts on your website - e.g. too short, too many links, too many ads, keyword stuffed.    But they will NOT penalize you for posts that aren't attracting traffic, or for older posts which haven't been updated - if they did, news sites would never rank in the SERPS, for instance, because old posts rarely get traffic and are never updated.

        On the other hand, Google is now favouring "authority" sites - sites which are information-rich.  So having lots of pages is a good thing, even if some of those page aren't successful in their own right. 

        What the Idle Hubs feature does is wipe out Hubs which aren't getting traffic or haven't been updated, neither of which are doing any harm  to our sub-domain.  And the result is that to Google, our sub-domain appears much smaller than it really is, which counts against it.

        Makes no sense to me.

        1. MyWebs profile image77
          MyWebsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          ditto makes no sense to me either.
          As many have said low traffic does not equal low quality.

  5. rebekahELLE profile image84
    rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

    I think in many cases it depends where the traffic is coming from.  If most comments are from hubbers, it doesn't necessary indicate good search traffic and good SEO.  I've seen high traffic hubs with most comments coming from search views.  The ones I noticed were mostly 'how to' hubs. 

    Most of my steady search traffic hubs rarely receive outside comments.

    1. Terri Meredith profile image68
      Terri Meredithposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      rebekahELLE:  I agree that comments from hubbers don't necessarily mean good SEO or high search traffic.  How To hubs will definitely get hits, but I would hope  this doesn't become another eHOW site. 

      The fact that there are few outside comments says something to me.  So many sites require "membership" that a lot of internet users don't even bother to try to leave comments.  They also don't know that clicking on our image will take them to a page  with a listing of all our written works.  I found this out when friends and acquaintances began messaging me about hubs they'd read.  When I asked why they hadn't left a comment, they told me they didn't want to have to join just to comment.  I had to educate them.   I started getting a lot more views when I began putting a notice at the bottom of hubs to make sure viewers click share buttons and where to find them.  Maybe if there was a little blurb under our images like "click image to see more by this author" it would help new visitors to find more.

      1. Marsei profile image93
        Marseiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        I think that's a great idea.  My friends are simply not going to do it if they think they have to take time to join and because so many sites require it, it's an assumption.

      2. DzyMsLizzy profile image91
        DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        You know, you're right, Terri--
          I have links to my HP profile as part of my e-mail signature, and I also promote my new hubs.  Yet I have very rarely gotten any outside comments, even though my stats show a reasonable amount of outside traffic.

        I believe the reason for this is the way the non-signed-in comments section looks, giving the  appearance that you must join in order to comment.  We hubbers know that is not true, but it is not at all clear to guest commenters.

        That is something that should be addressed, as well--make the comments section more outside-user friendly, with a much more obvious, "comment as a guest" link, instead of having the 'join to comment' link so prominently displayed.

        1. Terri Meredith profile image68
          Terri Meredithposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I also think new comments show Google that the page is active or being "refreshed" so to speak.  Sometimes it seems that once a hub receives an outside comment, I start seeing a bit more traffic.  Maybe I'm imagining it, but it truly does seem this way.

      3. MarleneB profile image91
        MarleneBposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Terri, you are a genius! You're right. I get very few comments from outsiders. My own daughters visit my hubs and don't leave comments. Now, after looking at my own habits, I realize I only leave comments when I don't have to sign up to leave a comment. I think it is helpful to include a little blurb. Thank you!

        1. Little two two profile image85
          Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I have people who are not members leaving comments now and then. You can set your comments to allow non hubbers to comment. You can still have it set to have to be approved by you, but still allows the non hubpages member to leave a comment.

          Go to your hub stats page, then to comments down the black sidebar.

          Click on the settings button inside the Global Comment Capsule Settings.

          I think its the the third setting down that says only allow signed in users to comment. Pick no and voila, problem solved.

          1. Terri Meredith profile image68
            Terri Meredithposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            LTT:  I don't think the problem is with how we have our hub's comment settings.  It's more about the fact that people assume they'll have to join and don't bother.  I have my comments set to allow outsiders, but they have no way of knowing they are permitted right off the bat, unless I leave a little invitation to comment with the promise that they won't have to join first.

          2. MarleneB profile image91
            MarleneBposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Little two two, I'm so glad you gave me this information. I am so doing what you suggest.

        2. Terri Meredith profile image68
          Terri Meredithposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks Marlene!  I think I've been called a genius all of two times and that was in the last year or so.  Either I really am getting smarter in my old age, or it's senile dementia and my mindless babbling has actually produced something intelligent by accident!  hmm

          1. Charles James profile image68
            Charles Jamesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            You should be called "genius" more often.
            We should cherish each other more than we do.

            1. Terri Meredith profile image68
              Terri Meredithposted 12 years agoin reply to this

              Charles,     you're my hero!     big_smile

  6. mactavers profile image92
    mactaversposted 12 years ago

    Good way to explain the fact that some "sleepers" mean the world to a select few.

  7. Len Cannon profile image84
    Len Cannonposted 12 years ago

    How are stats doing? Are the non-idled Hubs improving? I had a pretty significant swing downwards for a week but it has actually surged up quite a bit since Saturday. If it lasts, maybe I'm more on board with idle hubs. If I'm just going to rubber band constantly I'll probably go insane though, haha.

  8. CyclingFitness profile image87
    CyclingFitnessposted 12 years ago

    Part of the lack of comments must be because when you comment on a hub it doesn't allow a commenter to link the comment to their own blog or website.

    1. Terri Meredith profile image68
      Terri Meredithposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Maybe, anything is possible, but I think it's more because people simply don't know it's not necessary to join before commenting.  My own daughter wasn't leaving any comments until I explained that she didn't have to join.  Let's be honest, joining sites often brings a mailbox full of unwanted email and most people don't want to waste time sifting through all that "junk" mail.  They'd rather forego stating their opinions or thoughts.

  9. paradigmsearch profile image60
    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    Any new hubs I publish, I will immediately do the Fetch-Index thingy when it is un-pended.

  10. DzyMsLizzy profile image91
    DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years ago

    I can understand hubs going "idle,"  and I also understand that it's no big deal, if they weren't seeing much traffic anyway, then the income isn't going to move much one way or the other.

    The thing that gets my goat, however, is this new "pending" status.  All of a sudden, those of us who are established with good reputations are penalized by a 24-hour 'hold' before our articles can be indexed.

    Then, once that hold is off, should we go back in and make a simple correction, (say we found a spelling error or wrong word usage we failed to catch prior to publication), we are once again in the penalty box for another 24 hours.  I don't think this is right.

    If, as Hub Pages claims, they are interested in cutting the chaff, then perhaps these holds should be more selectively applied--to new writers who have yet to prove themselves, and/or to those who are turning out the low quality writing;  and I"m quite sure HP "has a little list" somewhere.....

    1. cactusbythesea profile image74
      cactusbytheseaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I agree with you, and this is one of my biggest issues.  If you make an error or two on a new Hub, you are presented with two unpleasant choices: Let the errors sit there for 24 hours (and fellow Hubbers can read your Hub before it's out of "Pending") or edit it and then have to wait another 24 hours for it to clear.  This method doesn't help to encourage quality if people are penalized for improving their Hub during the first 24 hours after posting it.

      1. IzzyM profile image83
        IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        This is spot on and worth bringing to the top again.

        I have only published one new hub across all my subdomains since this new change came in, and (as usual), despite all my pre-publish checking, I missed a badly worded phrase.

        Most fellow hubber comments are made when a hub is new. That is a great time to re-read the hub, even though it was only published hours previously.

        Nearly every time I publish a hub, I see an error or a correction to be made through hubber comments.

        I can now no longer make that correction for 24 hours.

        After that, as traffic and interest dies away, and there is no search engine traffic because the hub isn't indexed, I have no immediate desire to go back in and edit.

        This is a step backwards.

        I think new hubs should be allowed to be indexed from publication, unless the hubber has previously published something of concern.

  11. thisisoli profile image78
    thisisoliposted 12 years ago

    How do you think the eCPM is calculated?

    Non-buying visitors dilute the value of each visit, so advertisers pay less for each visit.

    Having a random internal hub view compared to somebody who searched for 'cheap blue widget' obviously gives you a completely different value lead.  one is likely to buy, the other isn't.

    If you get more random, and less buyers, then the overall value per visitor goes down, advertisers pay less, less sales are made.

    On our end we see it as earnings per thousand visitors, however quality does still have an impact on what advertisers are going to pay for each visitor.

    1. mistyhorizon2003 profile image89
      mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for this, it makes a good point I had not thought of.



      Again excellent points. Do you agree most visits are from external rather than internal sources in general?

  12. janderson99 profile image52
    janderson99posted 12 years ago

    The Idle Response from HP staff on this topic is simply outstanding!
    There's no point providing feedback!

    1. Reality Bytes profile image73
      Reality Bytesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      It instills in us the false sense of empathy!

      1. janderson99 profile image52
        janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

        empathy =>  pathetic
        Love to see a Hub from HP on Customer Relations best practice
        The Ents have progressed to their final form.

        1. Reality Bytes profile image73
          Reality Bytesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Gotta have respect for a fellow Tolkien fan!

          Whoop Whoop!  smile

  13. livewithrichard profile image73
    livewithrichardposted 12 years ago

    I see that roughly 10% of my hubs are idle right now and of those that are idle none of them have the possible copyright infringement symbol on them, however now that they are de-indexed I did a cursory plagiarism check and found that nearly half of them have been copied. 

    This idle hub crap is a boom for thieves... content is just sitting there and nobody is earning from it except the thieves.  It makes no sense to even move the stuff... Thanks HP for providing a no positive benefit feature... So much for the idea of our hubs making or breaking on their own with the sub-domains.

  14. Writer Fox profile image40
    Writer Foxposted 12 years ago

    According to Alexa, the percentage of HubPages traffic from search engines for the past 30 days is 27.6%.  That means that 72.4% of the traffic is from other sources (such as links, advertising and about 148,000 Hubbers). HubPages has lost about 80,000 Hubbers in the past three weeks.

    1. aa lite profile image84
      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      You've lost me there Writer Fox, where did you get the losing 80,000 hubbers from?

      More than 70% of my traffic is from search engines, this means that if it were not for my terrible social skills, I could triple my readership sad

      How is the hub about why Google doesn't like hubpages coming along.  I'm looking forward to reading it.

    2. prettydarkhorse profile image63
      prettydarkhorseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      But the number of hubs is almost the same even though they culled lots of authors! There are new registrants and their hubs add to the total number. smile

  15. WriteAngled profile image81
    WriteAngledposted 12 years ago

    According to Alexa, the most popular subdomain on Hubpages currently belongs to someone who joined 2 months ago and has 7 hubs.

    I find that very hard to believe.

    1. aa lite profile image84
      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Well that person has already got 10k view, in the 2 months she's been here.  I think we need to investigate and imitate!

      1. IzzyM profile image83
        IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        10k in two months is pretty something. Got a link?

        1. aa lite profile image84
          aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Deeper digging showed that she went from 1k to 10k in 19 days, check out cameronconner.  I think we are in presence of genius!

          1. IzzyM profile image83
            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            An ex-marine - he deserves it! lol

            No idea which hubs is getting al those views, but well done that person!

    2. mistyhorizon2003 profile image89
      mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Any idea how many views a day it reckons this hubber is getting in order to be 'the most popular subdomain' WriteAngled? I just find it hard to believe that a relatively new Hubber can possibly be getting (and exceeding) some of the highest viewing figures longer term Hubbers get. Suspect (as you clearly do) that Alexa is not a reliable source of such information.

  16. mistyhorizon2003 profile image89
    mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years ago

    That is not all that surprising if you happen to accidentally hit on the right keyword. I had hubs that suddenly started to get 1500 to 1700 views a day, (this dropped over time) but I never worked out exactly why they suddenly took off.

    1. snakeslane profile image82
      snakeslaneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Just wondering if it has anything to do with this situation.
      http://hubpages.com//forum/topic/102606

      1. mistyhorizon2003 profile image89
        mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Interesting idea, but I don't know if I am convinced by it yet. My gut instinct tells me this is more likely to be a keyword thing, but you might be on to something. I guess we will have to listen to other opinions in order to form a full judgement of our own, (in my case I was getting multiple comments per day on the hubs in question over many months, mostly external readers who had found the hubs through search engines)

      2. IzzyM profile image83
        IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        It is very bad etiquette to put your personal referral tracker in a forum link. I have removed it from this reply.

        1. snakeslane profile image82
          snakeslaneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Not sure what you are referring to IzzyM, this is a link to a recent forum post on large number of slide show views.

          edit: Ok, got it now oops.

      3. aa lite profile image84
        aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        I don't think slide views are counted in the views that go into making accolades.  I think we are in the presence of somebody who really knows how to get traffic.  The interesting thing is that this happened with 7 hubs.  That must be really lucky keyword choice. It could be an image going viral on pinterest I guess, or perhaps reddit.  Reddit can bring you a few thousand views in a couple of days.

        1. snakeslane profile image82
          snakeslaneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks aa. Also the name of a fictional character on the Fox television series 'Terminator'.
          Edit: Probably enough speculation on my part, way off topic now.

        2. Writer Fox profile image40
          Writer Foxposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          The statistics on Alexa show that the Hubber's subdomain is raking in 0.88% of all visits to hubpages.com.  In other words, the #1 subdomain.  (This could only be achieved with automated visits.  Google last crawled this site on September 4 when there were only 6 Hubs and 32 followers.  Remember, it takes time to rank #1 or #2 for a keyword - especially for a new subdomain with no authority signals to Google.)

          #2 on the list with 0.75% is anamikas who, after 4 years on HubPages, has packed up her Hubs and her profile picture and split.  A Google cache of her Profile page from August 26 shows: 399 Hubs and 2,264 followers.  (Looks like HubPages just lost its best Hubber in the traffic department.)

          #3 is ksohang at 0.74%, who has been Hubbing for two years and has 197 published Hubs. 

          So, about the new guy:  There is a saying in the fox realm:  If you smell a skunk, then there's probably one around.

          1. rebekahELLE profile image84
            rebekahELLEposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Those Alexa rankings are not necessarily how they appear.  I wouldn't take too much from that list.  The rankings don't come from search traffic.  The ranking comes from data derived from users that have the Alexa toolbar add-on.  I think it's used more for the sake of advertisers, but I could be wrong.  But pro advertisers don't need Alexa rankings to find quality sites.  They may or may not use it to indicate worthy sites.

  17. moonlake profile image88
    moonlakeposted 12 years ago

    I was looking at the hub with all the views and has only been on here for 2 months. I was surprised by that. The hubs are nice but nothing grand about them. I think her keyword is blog.

    1. psycheskinner profile image76
      psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      The slide views stat has been hinky for months, showing unfeasibly large numbers for some hubs.  i would not assume all those views are real.

  18. Kangaroo_Jase profile image72
    Kangaroo_Jaseposted 12 years ago

    Fixed 27 Hubs with a Zzz and deleted 5 more hubs that have not had a view in over 12 months. The deleted hubs were no prize winners, were quite short and were topical of the day of a year ago and not evergreen enough for now or the future.

    I have not had a Zzz on a hub in 4 days now.

    What I am not understanding is the amount of flak appearing on this forum post for what is obviously very little return in views on your lowest viewed hubs. Are you really wanting to fight hard because your hubs that have less than 5 views a day will with a Zzz may or may not re-appear in Google.

    Seriously, thats just crap. If your hubs are NOT appearing in Google to begin with, who cares?

    If your hub is getting 500 views a day, I would relate and understand if its taken out of action. But if your fighting because your hubs were getting no views, you weren't getting them in Google anyway.

    Google may be a large part of traffic for you, but it is not the be all and end all either.

    Gone are the days of writing a decently written, researched and great article put together in about 500 words and let them fend for themselves to earn a few dollars courtesy of Google.

    The game has significantly changed. 3 years to mature content on HubPages is gone. Panda ensured that no longer happens.

    Noone knows yet how this change to idle hubs is going to pan out for months. I am also pretty confidant that HubPages have some theories and ideas, but also nothing concrete until it all plays out for several months. But a good indicator is Squidoo have had this philosophy for gee I dunno, 3 or 4 years now?

    1. psycheskinner profile image76
      psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Some of the idled hubs did have quite a few views or received them at some point int he year, and brand new hubs are idled for 24 hours, this has been the major issue.

      1. Kangaroo_Jase profile image72
        Kangaroo_Jaseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Receiving large amount of views earlier in the year is fine. But unless your getting Google views now, you may end up with idled hubs.

    2. mistyhorizon2003 profile image89
      mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I think a large part of the problem is that sometimes an article suddenly 'takes off' for no apparent reason, and this may not happen if it can't be found because it has been 'Zzz'. Some of my articles that for months only had maybe 50-100 views a day, suddenly jumped up to over a 1000 a day, (I can only assume they were featured somewhere like a relevant website). This obviously bumped them up in Google's eyes, and the traffic at this high level lasted for months afterwards.

      Another thought to consider is what happens to the hubs of hubbers who have sadly died. If their family are now receiving the income from their hubs, but are not familiar with Hubpages themselves, how are they going to know to do anything about 'Zeed' hubs, or even how to? This is just a random thought (not really closely related to your comment Jase) but it could be relevant to any of the higher earners here.

      1. Rock_nj profile image84
        Rock_njposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        I am also concerned about the reality that some Hubs suddenly 'take off' for no apparent reason, but if they are idled this will not happen.  I have seen some of my Hubs that are receiving little or no activity suddenly spike when the topic they are about is in the news and people are searching for more information.  They will no longer find these Hubs if they are idled.

      2. Kangaroo_Jase profile image72
        Kangaroo_Jaseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Now these Misty, are relevant and extremely important points. What you outline here are important points to spark suitable debate. smile

    3. thisisoli profile image78
      thisisoliposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      You are misunderstanding rankings and traffic.  Some of my hubs get one view a week, if that, but they have over a ten percent conversion rate, and each conversion is worth well over a hundred dollars.

      Most people I know who earn a lot online spend a significant amount of time on micro niches such as these because they are intensely profitable.  Their low traffic has absolutely nothing to do with quality, but snoozing them can have a massive impact on profits.

      1. Kangaroo_Jase profile image72
        Kangaroo_Jaseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        No Oli. I'm not misunderstanding the impact affected by profitable micro niches. This is one area that is a game changer for Hubbers with these.

        The point I didn't make clear is that the shit, dross, crap and other garbage ( Ive had some myself ) on this site needed to lose its ability to rank on searches, enmasse.

        Micro niches and other specialized hubs will now dramatically penalized.

        This is indeed a game changer.

    4. Marisa Wright profile image86
      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      No they don't, actually.   Squidoo's philosophy isn't quite as harsh, and it's the small difference that really matters.

      Squidoo's "idled" Hubs (they're called Lenses over there) are not given the "no index" tag - they're still crawlable.  They just don't get included in Squidoo's site navigation.   

      So if you still have links on other sites pointing to your "idled" Squidoo Lens, Google can still crawl it.   That means Google still knows it exists, and it will go on building age and have some chance of climbing the SERPS some day if the subject suddenly takes off.

      Whereas with HubPages version, even if you have links on other sites pointing to your "Idled" Hub, it's marked "no index" so Google won't crawl it, and will decide it doesn't exist any more and wipe it off the record.

      It's true that you can get a Hub out of idle easily - just change a sentence or two. But that means I have to check my account every few days, to catch Hubs as soon as they go into idle and get them out before the Google robots do their next crawl.  That's not what I call passive income!

      1. Kangaroo_Jase profile image72
        Kangaroo_Jaseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Marisa,

        Apart from a couple of instances of which Oli pointed out with specific and lucrative micro-niches, a few hits on a Squidoo lens may happen, but Squidoo works on the popularity principle.

        If your Lenses over there are not seen enough socially, getting likes, visits and continued comments, then lenses rank badly with their internal systems process. Low ranking = low income.

        Unless those Squidoo lenses are getting much Google love, as well, which in turn also means that those lenses would rank well on Squidoo's internal ranks.

        If one has a look at a few hundred Lenses, I don't see much that will suddenly take off in Google. Traffic increases seem to come from other ( links ) places over there.

        Relache and GreekGeek are long term Squidoo'ers and can advise me If they see different.

        1. Marisa Wright profile image86
          Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Greekgeek sees different, my post is based on what I learned from her Hub on the subject.
          http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/what- … tatus-mean

      2. Paul Edmondson profile imageSTAFF
        Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        @Marisa, I don't think you have it right.  Squidoo, no indexes and no follows pages, and makes them accessible only by URL for pages they call WIP. Read their page on WIP - http://www.squidoo.com/wip

        HubPages, no indexes and follows, plus makes the urls available from a Hubber's profile. 

        HubPages Idle and Squidoo WIP are both crawlable, although we make it a bit easier to find the URLs.


        Google can crawl any Hub or Lens if it's no indexed with a meta tag.  We both do it and they'll have data it exists.  Any page with a No Index tag will eventually fall out of Google's index, although they hold on to them for several weeks in our experience, so there is usually a substantial period from when a Hub goes Idle till it's removed from Google.


        Unless your're comparing Idle Hubs to WIP lenses, this statement isn't right.  Both Squidoo and HubPages use no index tags.  No indexed pages are crawled and archived by Google unless a no archive tag is used.  That way they get data about the page.  Both are not shown in the search results.

        1. paradigmsearch profile image60
          paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          To any who may be interested:

          That's what I suspected. Thus, when I get Z'd, and I decide not to resurrect, I go to WMT and get that thing de-indexed within 24 hours. I figure the sooner I can start reaping the benefits of its absence, the better. smile

          1. MarleneB profile image91
            MarleneBposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            You're cool, paradigmsearch. Your approach is my first response. After thinking about it, I feel that if the content is "Zzzed" here at HubPages, then that's a flag that the content might be substandard in some way, shape, or form. If it's low quality content here at Hubpages, then it is likely going to be low quality content anywhere else. I like that I still have control of the content and I can decide what to do with it. I like that it is my choice. In any event, whether I choose to keep the hub at HubPages and let it sleep, or if I choose to wake it up, I will revise it so that no matter where it is located, it will be enhanced and able to work for me.

            1. Marisa Wright profile image86
              Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

              If the "ZZZ's" are based on the fact that the Hub is low quality in some way, then why does changing just one sentence wake it up again? 

              That's how simple it is to bring a Hub out of idle.  Clearly, "freshness" has an enormous amount to do with it.

        2. Marisa Wright profile image86
          Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I've read that page and there's no mention of using no index or no follow.  Greekgeek has an article here where she explains the difference, perhaps you could comment on that:
          http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/what- … tatus-mean

          1. Living Well Now profile image60
            Living Well Nowposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Squidoo keeps content from being indexed. In a comment on jongales.com Seth Godin claimed, "Of the 2.2 million pages on Squidoo, we expose less than half of them to the search engine robots."

            You can read the exchange of comments between Seth and Jon Gales here:

            http://www.jongales.com/blog/2011/02/14 … ment-36977

            1. Marisa Wright profile image86
              Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

              There's still no mention of no index or no follow in that exchange.  As Greekgeek explains it, Squidoo "keeps content from being indexed" by removing all links to it on their site - but that doesn't stop the owner of the lens promoting it in other ways.

              1. profile image0
                EmpressFelicityposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                I have a handful of Squidoo lenses, and the "WIP" ones have both noindex and nofollow tags in their code.

                1. Marisa Wright profile image86
                  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks for that.  Greekgeek has now checked and found the same thing.  I think that's the first time I've ever seen her make a mistake!

    5. Little two two profile image85
      Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      And they are never going to see how this change would pan out because how many people are openly playing the system ... tweak this, move a picture ... resubmit. The point to idling and no indexing hubs was to see if it improves their ranking with google, how can you see that when nearly all idled hubs are gamed and tossed back into the system with no real improvement?

      I had 50 hubs, I now have 10 and I make essentially the same pennies as before, sure I could have moved a few modules around, made 'it is' a 'it's' and republished, but that defeats the entire purpose of this little experiment hubpages is running with our hard work. All my seasonals have been moved to squidoo, sure they may not get submitted by squidoo, but google can still find them if there is a sudden or seasonal rise in interest ... I don't have to wait up to 48 hours to get them back online and then wait further for google to visit them. I am not expected to go in to my articles on a daily or weekly basis and move a photo or switch a paragraph or add a link.

      Hubpages also works on a popularity principle now, only difference is they don't support or help the unpopular in any shape way or form, you can't even submit your articles yourself, instead you have to go begging or unquestionable backlinking. I would like to see more programs that help writers who appear to struggle with seo have a chance to learn. Have you been to hubpages forums? I feel like I walked into a church of the judgementally damned and am not all that inclined to ask for help, clean up the forums maybe it can be used to actually teach and help rather than a dumping ground for preachers. Maybe hubpages needs to go the high ground, put their foot down and state that only product based articles or money making articles are welcomed and supported, the rest of you can manage your own account and submit your articles yourself.

      1. aa lite profile image84
        aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Actually I think the worst spammy offenders will not take their hubs out of idle.  This forum thread represents a tiny, very unrepresentative sample of hubbers.  There are a lot of "hubbers" out there, who come to the site, publish one or two utterly terrible articles with backlinks to their other site, and never show up again.  I suspect they are the ones who really hurt the site, and I don't think they will be tweaking their idled terrible hubs.

        I do think that some people's reactions to the experiment have not been completely rational.  For example, updating all the hubs to get them out of idle immediately.  Why not let them sleep for a bit, see whether your traffic improves after then next Panda update, and if it does, slowly wake them up in small groups, and observe the effects on traffic.  I actually doubt that the reason good writers appear to be sandboxed or Panda'd has anything to do with their content, it's probably an effect of being linked to junk hubs, but you never know, Google algorithms really don't always work the way they should be in distinguishing spam from good content.  Perfectly good hubs might be giving off some "spam signals" and getting the whole subdomain penalised. 

        On the other hand, people who are deleting their idled hubs because they don't see any way of improving it.  Why? Unless you think the hub is really bad, and you are ashamed of it, why delete it?  The whole point of this feature is that even if the hub might be disliked by Google, for example a short poem, it can stay on your account, Google will not see it, and it will do no harm to your subdomain whatsoever. 

        The rational response to the experiment is to do nothing for a month or two, see what happens to traffic, and if something good happens then think about waking up idle hubs, to see if they are innocent.

        1. snakeslane profile image82
          snakeslaneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Personally, I like this idea. I've decided to leave idled hubs idle for now. Waiting to see where creative writing  (poetry and such) fits in to the big scheme of things on Hub Pages, but I am getting prepared to abandon ship if that looks like the best way to go.

  19. Greensleeves Hubs profile image91
    Greensleeves Hubsposted 12 years ago

    DzyMsLizzy said:

    I agree 100% with the points that are made here. Unless there is some practical reason why such a common sense approach cannot be applied, then this is certainly something which should be attended to.

    1) If a writer amends a page during the pending process, then clearly they are unlikely to be making the hub worse - they are are only going to be amending it in order to improve it or correct it. So why on Earth punish such amendments with a further 24 hour delay? The present pending policy discourages refinement/improvement of the hub for 24 hours after it is published. That cannot be right.

    2) HubPages must have an idea of which writers publish consistently good articles and which do not, and vary their approach according to the standing of the author. They could always review the author's output again at a later date if they wish, but to catch everyone with this 'pending' rule as though everyone is under suspicion of writing substandard work, seems wrong.

  20. prettydarkhorse profile image63
    prettydarkhorseposted 12 years ago

    HP staff can't check hubs individually, when their algo is applied it is automated.

    I assume it is the same thing when applying the transition from Idle to Featured Hubs.

    When you edit an idle hub, it will be subjected to an automated filter again. smile

  21. Rock_nj profile image84
    Rock_njposted 12 years ago

    I am still confused about the impact of this Idle Hubs policy.  One of my "Idle Hubs" (Educational Children’s Gift Ideas) that is supposedly deindexed from Google just received 3 hits from Google yesterday.  Is this deindexing due to being "Idle" going to take a few months to work through the Google system?  I am still seeing my Idle hubs when I search for them in Google and the hits to my hub yesterday are proof that the general searching public is also seeing them.

    1. IzzyM profile image83
      IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Google hasn't updated your site yet.

      Its bots need to come by to see the 'noindex' tag. Until then, your work is still indexed as normal.

      1. Rock_nj profile image84
        Rock_njposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Thanks.  Is there a workaround to this noindex thing, such as submitting our own site map of our HubPages domain to Google?

        1. IzzyM profile image83
          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Apparently if you update the hub it will become featured again.

          I'm leaving mine until Google visits again, because my site has been penalised by Google and I don't know which hub(s) caused that.

    2. psycheskinner profile image76
      psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Going idle leads to eventual de-indexing, it is not immediate.

    3. Charles James profile image68
      Charles Jamesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      With Christmas coming up I think you need to get that hub up again!

      1. Rock_nj profile image84
        Rock_njposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Thanks Charles.  I was just thinking the same thing and updated it, so it should be out of jail soon.  It also made me think about other Hubs that may get hot this winter/holiday season.

  22. Pearldiver profile image68
    Pearldiverposted 12 years ago

    No matter what is said, promoted as a new found way of adding credibility to our hubs, or what is discussed as being 'idle' or at risk of being removed (on our behalf) from our personal authorship relationships with Google and other search engines.... I have 3 major issues with believing that my traffic has not already been manipulated internally by HP....

    Firstly, 95% of my hubs that gain little or no traffic and have been subjected to this 'new' regime are hubs that were specifically written to feature within an HP Competition and as such were subjected to a totally different publishing process, that clearly on traffic results since then, have severally retarded their stand alone potential.... And interestingly, some of my best writing - quality, creative and format-wise, were submitted and were, for whatever reason - sand pitted..

    Secondly, several of these hubs were published with long tail categories, yet for some extremely obscure and unexplained reason, were internally (manually) changed by HP and then placed into irrelevant and obscure categories including Eastern Religions, which of course I do not write hubs on such subjects!  When I changed them back to the original categories.... they got no traffic and on one occasion got changed back to some BS category again!  Interestingly, the hubs were originally published into highly popular topics... and I believe, that was why they were changed into less favorable categories!  Perhaps it was decided by parties unknown roll that my writing was less desirable to promote in more popular topics?  sad

    These are Highly Irregular issues and as such, represent to anyone with an IQ above idiot, a highly important reason to have some concern with an internal protocol that allows such events to occur!
    However, it is that same protocol that has actively supported and earned from the Third issue that I have concerns with....

    The Sub Domain writers.hubpages  dot com  is and always has been a total misrepresentation of and an insult to genuine quality writers on this site!  This page now only contains 97 hubs - most that have been written to cheat unsuspecting traffic solely on the basis of blatant misrepresentation, into coming to HP.  Since each 'hub' title now carries the recently added word 'review' I suppose that makes it alright (by questionable standards) to continue to promote such dross on this site!  I find that An Amazingly Wonderful Double Standard, especially when my real hubs are seemingly treated contemptuously, by comparison! 
    Why take down quality work and thus put down quality people, when the Real Opportunities lie within, or behind, what appears to be the lack of genuine commitment to rid the site of such substandard and intentionally misleading hubs like  yahoo dot com (review) or apple dot com (review) ?????  sad 

    Hmmm... Idle Hubs are the problem here huh?  yikes

  23. psycheskinner profile image76
    psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

    Maybe that is on purpose?  Active users get out of idle with minimal effort.  Those who posted and never/rarely came back don't.

  24. psycheskinner profile image76
    psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

    The rational thing to do is to optimize your own income.  The problem is when incomplete information makes it hard to work out how to do this.  At which point doing something, another thing, or nothing add up to about the same--shots in the dark.

  25. Mark Ewbie profile image61
    Mark Ewbieposted 12 years ago

    I know this thread is way too long... but it's interesting.  I am now treating the Zzzzs as a wake up call.  Most of my stuff is similar and to be honest - easy to repeat... endlessly.  I have a fair percentage - possibly as much as half, that in all honesty I don't think adds to my overall 'quality'.

    So when I get a Zzzz, which happens daily on average I do a few things.

    1.  Review it.  If it doesn't fit my standard I get rid.
    2.  Check out possible ways to make it keyword effective.  I never used to bother with that stuff, well now I do.  If I can't find a reasonable keyword that will work with the page AND give the searcher something... I delete it.
    3. There are a few that I genuinely like, am proud of.  For now I have made a tweak or two until I am ready to go through steps 1 and 2 again.

    This is something I should have done from the beginning and all the way through.  Sift out the dross and the fails.

    Of course we are all brilliantly different.  That's what's so good about HP.  So I do my thing - other people can do theirs.

    1. profile image0
      Angelo52posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      All my articles, even the fun ones (poetry and amuzing short stories) are keyword driven. I can understand putting the ZZZs on my lower rank articles but not on my top ten articles (per Hub ranking). But low and behold, the new system has done just that.

  26. profile image0
    DigbyAdamsposted 12 years ago

    Because they're are different types of quality. I just had a fantastic hub zzzd. Original photographs, unique content and my viewpoint (blah,blah, blah). It just went nowhere. Google ignored it, Bing ignored it. So it didn't work online, or at least on HP. I think not successful is a better terminology than low quality. A lot of hubbers think quality writing should be rewarded - often online it isn't.

    1. Terri Meredith profile image68
      Terri Meredithposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      You're correct, DigbyAdams.  Online writing doesn't necessarily reward all writers, no matter how good their work.   I think there are two types of writers:  those who do so from a more business perspective and those who are more geared by a passion where money isn't the dominating force.  Neither is better than the other, but those more business minded will do whatever is necessary (within reason) to get their written works before the public and make money in the process.  Those who simply feel a need to express themselves, while wanting their work to be read, will feel more of an attachment to their work as created.  It's very difficult to change the wording of a paragraph to be more search friendly, if one feels it changes the tone and intent of the expression.     Just a thought...

      1. PaulGoodman67 profile image98
        PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Yes, the term: "Low Quality" in a Google/Search engine context means something completely different to the general sense.  A four line poem that is sheer genius in artistic terms might be classified as 'Low Quality' by Google.  Similarly lazy internet readers might react badly in some circumstances to a factual article that gives lots of detailed and accurate information, simply because they want something easy with pictures instead.  It's really not worth taking it all personally.  It's also always good to remember that HP relies on traffic and income to function as a business and to stay alive, which is why they behave as they do sometimes.

  27. profile image0
    Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago

    And I don't take all of this personally!  Why be insulted?  If you disagree with your Hubs being rated as a Zzz, why change them at all?  My two Zzz's bored me, so I changed one and unpublished the other.  That was my call.  And I'm not going to try and analyze why Google did this and that.  Not at this point.  As soon as I changed to my new HP profile, that was it for me.  I make all the required changes, and that' that.  As long as I feel that I have done all I can do on my end, I am free to go and focus on other things.  If you value your HP account, you keep it current.  Or you can take all your Hubs and leave.

    1. EuroCafeAuLait profile image77
      EuroCafeAuLaitposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I like your attitude, Arlene.  That pretty much sums it up for me, too.

  28. bayoulady profile image70
    bayouladyposted 12 years ago

    I have been in a cave for a year, and just returned.(My daughter had a stroke....long story...)I just looked at one of my idle hubs about auto safety. I was going to tweak it. Thing is(I Know it sounds conceited,but I don't mean it that way...) I like that hub,it's one that I think is helpful,and I'm not wanting to delete any of it. So,would changing a photo,or rewording a sentence be enough tweaking?  I did google the two keywords,and it was on page one of google search results. A bit bewildered,but though I am an old dog,I 'm willing to learn a few tricks.(I even updated to the new profile page..I DID.smile    .)

    1. Greensleeves Hubs profile image91
      Greensleeves Hubsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Certainly if the hub is good, it seems a few tiny tweaks will be sufficient to remove the Zzzs temporarily. Whether it is enough however to keep it listed long term doesn't seem very clear as yet.

      Obviously a few tweaks are not going to greatly increase traffic to the hub, so from that point of view, the hub will still be vulnerable to being de-listed again due to poor traffic. However I don't think HubPages have made it clear yet whether during the pending process they are able to override the de-listing procedure so that good hubs with poor traffic do not continuously keep slipping back into idle status.

      A minor issue for you perhaps in comparison with the family issue you mention, but I'm sure you can do without frustrations like this. Hope all is well. Best wishes.

      1. bayoulady profile image70
        bayouladyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        Thank you Greensleeves.  She lives with me. She already has MS,and since the stroke ,has seizures as well. I am not sure I should even bother with articles anymore.Especially if they idle some. I was just getting going on hubpages when the bottom dropped out In Fall of 2010.  I am working on a novel,and spend most of my time on that. It seems that I'd have to have so many articles just to get a few dollars. I write on other site that may or may not idle articles...I dunno.......
        So,I guess I'll go tweak one.(They idled 4 of my 15....sigh.....)

        1. IzzyM profile image83
          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Hey bayoulady, I am so sorry to hear of you and your daughter's trials. My cousin also has MS, but the poor soul is going through a nightmare time from his controlling wife, who also happens to be a senior police officer, so no-one listens to him, except his family.

          She leaves him in charge of their two young children and ever-increasing amount of horses and dogs (she keeps buying them) while he barely has enough energy to stay awake, never mind take all that on.

          His mother is dead, else she might have been in a position to help.

          You must be so glad that your daughter is with you, and that you can help. How much worse it would be if she was with some domineering husband!

          Don't worry about the whole idle situation here on HP. It just means that those hubs not getting traffic, can't get sudden mad rushes of traffic in future unless they go viral on Facebook or somewhere.

          But as they are not getting traffic NOW, it is only a potential loss, not an actual loss.

          Trust me, I have plenty of them!

          You take care, and take care of your daughter, and don't worry about the HP stuff.

          You've got a handle on what is important in life smile

          1. bayoulady profile image70
            bayouladyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Awwwwwww..you are so sweet to take the time to write the encouraging words. am very happy she lives with me.Paryer and family help us get through the bad times. We are just living in the moment. ( I am working on a novel,so hubpages is not very much on my radar these days.) I almost lost her,and I get scared sometimes when she is having a bad day,but I just "chin up,and put on my big girl panties",lol.

        2. Greensleeves Hubs profile image91
          Greensleeves Hubsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          It is frustrating and disappointing when you put effort into a hub and then find no one can see it because it is idled, but I hope you continue at least to maintain some presence here - it'd be a shame to give up on hubs already published. Either way, I hope the novel is successful, or any other writing endeavour you pursue whether it be on HubPages or elsewhere.

          It cannot be easy to find the time to write, if care and assistance is required with your daughter's condition. Perhaps however, writing can provide an escape from real life? It would be wrong of me to comment further, not knowing the details of your situation, but I wish you well and hope that you are able to continue writing, and that the effects of your daughter's stroke diminish day by day.

          1. bayoulady profile image70
            bayouladyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you ,Greensleeves. I appreciate your kind comments. She is pretty much back to normal in many ways,but because of the seizures and MS. I can never leave her alone again. If she doesn't feel like going somewhere,and I have to go,my 80 year old mother is the only one who can help me out. So ,yes.....writing again is helping. I am working on a novel that requires more research than I bargained for,lol. So I'm pretty busy with that....grinning......smile

  29. profile image0
    Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago

    Like your last video, I can't hear you very well.  In fact, you come in at a mumble.

    1. Mark Knowles profile image59
      Mark Knowlesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Next one is better I think. Sound quality is hard to get right.

  30. profile image0
    Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago

    Thanks, Mark.  I'll keep trying!  At the same time, I don't think I qualify for a hearing aid just yet!  LOL!

  31. janderson99 profile image52
    janderson99posted 12 years ago

    The War against the Willing continues
    Another weekend of ZZZ's

  32. DzyMsLizzy profile image91
    DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years ago

    So, the further irritation is that ANY hub we update, for ANY reason, goes out-of-index and into that "pending" limbo....even if all we did was change the comments to appear in a different sequence!

    That is quite unacceptable.   Most revisions to the actual article are improvements, and it seems that we are being penalized for our updates...

    The opening remarks on this thread indicate that HP "appreciates" the input; I take that to be lip service, and just like Face Book--they make what changes they want, and the H-E-double-toothpicks with whether the users like it or not.  There are far more negative reactions here than positive ones.  Extrapolate that to the total of active users, and you'll see the truth of the matter. 

    As someone else pointed out earlier, HP needs writers in order to exist, but writers don't "need" HP--they can always find other venues on which to write.....

    1. janderson99 profile image52
      janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      One little hub born in July 2012 was put to sleep yesterday - poor thing had no chance to strut its stuff. So sad!

    2. janderson99 profile image52
      janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      ' goes out-of-index'  This is not necessarily so - the NOINDEX tag is added but if the Google bot's visit is delayed it stays indexed - if the bot come by it is de-indexed until the next visit - maybe days of months. It would be more sensible to delay adding the tag until AFTER the review but that's no enough apparently.

    3. profile image0
      summerberrieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I think they did incorporate many of the suggestions made about the new hub layouts---and think they have come out with a nice template. I think they are sincere in wanting to know how it effects us hubbers and have even asked for some links to idled hubs that hubbers feel should not have been idled to be posted here so they can take a look at how the feature effects people personally.

      I think those who are just changing one word just to get it out of idle are in the long run hurting themselves. A hub can go back into idle if google does not become interested a second time and I believe I read somewhere there is a cut off---if the same hub continually goes into idle then it will be permanently idled.

      I view my idled hubs as a tool to analyze what is working in my portfolio and what is not. Those I chose to edit and get back into the google game these are the things I did:   I changed their titled, went to ad words and added some search friendly capsules, revamped some photos and even added a few photos, I rewrote the summaries and double checked for typos.

      I feel the frustration of some of the glitches in this new feature too. But I do think it will end up being a feature that will benefit me as a hubber- at least I hope.  Hopefully, they will make the changes you suggest and allow for edits to non-idled hubs to not go pending for 24 hours.. Sounds like a great suggestion to me.

      And please give me a break- I'm not saying this because I am an "a". so lets not go off in the wrong direction.

      1. Marsei profile image93
        Marseiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        I agree with most of what you said.   They seem to be interested enough to ask for links, etc.  I had two hubs that were idled and it caused me to do some work on them, including better key words and a better title.  I'm taking more of a wait and see attitude about all of it.  We don't know exactly where it's going yet.  They have said they welcome feedback and I think they are aware of those who have problems with the new system.

        1. janderson99 profile image52
          janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I counted 30 or so HP replies to an Official Forum post out of 1185 posts (2%).
          HP requested feeback.
          "appreciated the feedback from the community and want to continue to incorporate feedback into this feature"
          So far I am unaware of any changes made by HP in response to all the feeback that they appreciated.

      2. IzzyM profile image83
        IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        There is still something wrong when someone with a slapped account, ie me, updates every single hub - added new content, re-phrased awkward wordings, changed titles, added search-friendly titles, revamped photos, added new ones, corrected typos, added links both to and from and still nothing changed.

        Then a couple of months later along came the whole hub idling idea, and idled the lot of them!

        I'm still on the fence with this one.

        If one or some of those hubs brought my whole account down, all I have really learned is to never build such a big subdomain again.

        1. janderson99 profile image52
          janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

          The algo remains a mystery
          => traffic is a key element but hubs less than 9 weeks go ZZZ and there is no minum number (maybe 1 hit a day??? average)
          => seems to target hubs with links to external sites
          => seems to target hubs on 'saturated'  HP topics
          => targets travel and tourism hubs
          => targets hubs with few capsules and few capsule types
          => targets hubs on obscure niche topics
          Unsure why any of these would downgrade a sub??

          PS All my hubs were upgraded as well but the Grim Reaper still came a callin'.

        2. aa lite profile image84
          aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          It's interesting that you think there is a connection between the size of a subdomain and the mysterious Google slap.  General wisdom suggests that a big subdomain with a lot of hubs would be seen as an "authority site" by Google, so more is better (maintaining quality of course).  However I have thought that the people who complain about big drops in traffic are seasoned hubbers and 'success stories' with a lot of hubs.

          One possibility is that the problem is 'more hubs' connections to other subdomains, some of which might be spam.  Google penalizes sites that link to bad content, and if you have a lot of hubs, some of them will link to bad stuff.  If that is the case, then the idle hubs policy should help. 

          I really wish Google would hurry up, de-index the idle hubs and let the Panda out for a run again, so we can finally see whether the strategy is doing any good.  All the messages in this thread are just navel gazing, the real test is what happens when Panda has a look at the site with the slimmed down index.

          1. janderson99 profile image52
            janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I think that staleness killed the big older subs - size matters but not as much as it used to. Though the cause of the crash in later 2011 has never been identified (global hub extinction). Google appears to have discounted ther 'founder effect' of the subs - due to HP retaining the directory structure which linked all the subs together like umbilical cords and allowed the toxic juices to flow. IMO

            1. janderson99 profile image52
              janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

              Anyway enough for now - this topic is dead and should be buried - RIP. The feedback sponge absorbs the drips.

      3. psycheskinner profile image76
        psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        I made minor changes, all idles went live and stayed live. Seems to me like it worked out fine.  If I had not done so I would be down about 10-20% on traffic given the importance of Google in my results.

        1. janderson99 profile image52
          janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

          When do you expect the Grim Reaper to come back?
          The deodorant of changes did not prevent ZZZ for sites that were changed in the last month or so. Therefore freshness, itself does not count for much. Maybe they will get sleepy again next month or the month after, if they get no traffic.

          1. psycheskinner profile image76
            psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Nobody knows if and when or even of they will get idled again. In the meantime they are earning money. Offered the choice of money or no money, I made what seemed to be a rational choice.

            Best case: I have a permanent solution.  Worse case: I have a temporary solution that kept the hubs earning until I come up with something better.

            1. janderson99 profile image52
              janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

              I suspect they will get ZZZ again after a month or so if the traffic falls below a threshold. When I watched by hubs fall asleep in the latest batch it was done in order of publishing date. I think updating them resets them for a later traffic test - then they are checked for quality and 'traffic potential'. Pure speculation of course but something needs to fill the vacuum.

          2. tussin profile image57
            tussinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            deodorant of changes

            awesome.

          3. tussin profile image57
            tussinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            deodorant of changes

            awesome.

    4. IzzyM profile image83
      IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Hmmm...no. I have upgraded/changed featured hubs and they remain featured.

    5. Rock_nj profile image84
      Rock_njposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      As far as I can tell HubPages has made no changes to their Idle Hubs policy based on user input.  I sent them a lengthy email of compliants about the Idle Hubs policy, and they said thanks and said it will make my domain at HP stronger and referred me to their posting on the subject. 

      As you said, writers can go elsewhere, and with this Idle Hubs policy I am starting to branch out.  Now I have two different versions of the same article.  The pre and post Idle versions, so I can republish the pre version elsewhere.  Thanks for opening my eyes to your competitors HubPages!  How is the Idle Hubs policy going?  Traffic up?

  33. rebekahELLE profile image84
    rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

    I don't believe this is accurate.  Where did you get that information?  I update hubs frequently, and none have been de-indexed and put into a pending state.   

    Are you referring to idled hubs that you update?

    This thread should be monitored more by staff since it's an official thread.  There seems to be a lot of speculation throughout the thread.

    1. DzyMsLizzy profile image91
      DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      RebekahELLE--
        There are so many posts following my comment about being "de-indexed" and put into limbo that I can't tell whom you are addressing, here.
        However, my most recent comment was not about the "idled" status, but the "pending" one that takes your hub out of circulation for 24-48 hours.
      Every single change I've made, no matter how minor, whether correcting a typo or updating ONLY the comments capsule on an older hub to display "most recent comments first," has resulted in the "Pending" limbo, (not "idled.")

      1. livewithrichard profile image73
        livewithrichardposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        DzyMsLizzy I think your issue should be directed to HP staff through the staff email.  Out of curiosity I just edited a hub that was NOT in idle with the Zzz's and when I finished I checked and it is just as it was and not in a pending status.  I think your issue is unique and needs to be addressed internally.

        1. profile image0
          summerberrieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Also DzyMsLizzy, I would start a thread in the tech problem forum. Others may be having this problem too and it will be a tad more visible than getting lost here. Sounds frustrating. Hope it gets resolved soon for you.

          1. DzyMsLizzy profile image91
            DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            livewithrichard; summerberrie,

            Thanks for the pointer to the other forum.  I guess all 3 of those statuses came in at once, so they seemed somehow related.

      2. snakeslane profile image82
        snakeslaneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        It is my understanding that any changes or edits result in the 'pending' status, at least according to the Learning Center info on this topic.

        "Pending

        For a 24-hour period after first publishing a Hub or editing an Idle Hub, a Hub’s status will be Pending as our internal algorithm analyzes its content. After this 24-hour period has passed, your Hub will fall into one of the statuses described above. Please note that any edits made to a Pending Hub will reset the 24-hour clock for that Hub."

        Edit=Pending for 'Idled' hubs definitely.

        New Hubs=Pending

        And the question now: edits to featured hubs=Pending?

        I guess I should try it and find out for myself

        Update: Ok, tried it with my best performing Hub, made a correction. Hub stayed 'featured'. So looks like a bug when an update to a featured hub sends it into pending mode?

        1. psycheskinner profile image76
          psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I have not had this happen.  i edit and republish a hub a day and if they were not idle they start greendot and end greendot--with no change in status.

          Only first-time publishing of a brand new hub causes the hub to be "pending".

  34. cactusbythesea profile image74
    cactusbytheseaposted 12 years ago

    I'm disappointed at the lack of responses from the official team on this topic.  I believe the last post from the HP team was entirely about how Squidoo handles Idle articles, which has nothing to do with HP.  A lot of good points have been made in this thread, but we're still waiting for a response.

  35. aa lite profile image84
    aa liteposted 12 years ago

    Google have just tweeted that they are rolling out a Panda refresh, "expect some turbulence".  Maybe finally we will see whether 'idle hubs' works.  Assuming of course that there's been enough time to get the de-indexed.

    1. PaulGoodman67 profile image98
      PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting.  Thanks for the heads up!

  36. Paul Edmondson profile imageSTAFF
    Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

    You shouldn't see a featured Hub go pending by editing it.  If you do, let us know in the report a problem forum.

    1. janderson99 profile image52
      janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Is the test that is applied to New hubs the same as for Idle Hubs?
      quote from learning center
      " For a 24-hour period after first publishing a Hub or editing an Idle Hub, a Hub’s status will be Pending as our internal algorithm analyzes its content. After this 24-hour period has passed, your Hub will fall into one of the statuses described above. Please note that any edits made to a Pending Hub will reset the 24-hour clock for that Hub

      That is - if a new hub gets the OK to be featured - will the only reason for it going idle be insufficient traffic - provided its not edited?

      1. prettydarkhorse profile image63
        prettydarkhorseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        It is logical if that is the case, so that they will not repeat and apply it again to the hub except for the ranking of the hub in G smile

        1. janderson99 profile image52
          janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

          The only complication is that making very minor changes to a ZZZ seems to awaken it - maybe this is a 'honeymoon' response to get rid of the dross - could be a lot tougher in the future. Hopefully the 'death by a thousand cuts' can be avoided. Otherwise hubbers with lots of pages could spend their lives editing and awakening  tired hubs.

          1. prettydarkhorse profile image63
            prettydarkhorseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            like you, you have 600 plus hubs.

  37. prettydarkhorse profile image63
    prettydarkhorseposted 12 years ago

    I think that the qualitative (like layout, grammar, spelling etc.)  aspects of the hub can't be taken into consideration when they apply the algorithm.  Topic of the hub (if it is saturated topic, they make it idle - make sense), last edited (time frame), number of views (time frame). I am not sure smile smile

    1. janderson99 profile image52
      janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      In my case several hubs went ZZZ that were less than 6 months old, one was published in July - so quality tests are applied. Hard to identify the reasons but seemed to be related to external links, typos, 'lost cause' titles in saturated topics, and small number of capsules, average traffic per month was low. I think humans are involved in some of the decisions regarding 'quality' issues. All of these had been edited in the last month or so, and so recent changes does not keep the Grim Reaper at bay.

      1. prettydarkhorse profile image63
        prettydarkhorseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

        If HP will enumerate their algo one by one for choosing which hubs to put into deep slumber, I bet many will question it and will defend why their hubs are so and so. It must be better that it is a secret algo like G. It is either you trust them on what they are doing or not. :-)

        1. janderson99 profile image52
          janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I disagree. If we knew the criteria we could write hubs that stayed awake. As it is we get a ZZZ and have no idea what caused it and how to fix it. Its such a waste of time. There are multiple criteria and they will probably change. Its death by a thousand cuts. People rightly get pissed off and write elsewhere.

          1. janderson99 profile image52
            janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            If HP applies the same test when you submit a new hub and it gets approved to be 'featured' then it would be sensible to expect that hub to only get ZZZd if the traffic falls below the minimum required. This would be reasonable and fair. If a featured hub gets reviewed in the future and ZZZd for reasons other than traffic - then this is unreasonable. It would be good to know when all your hubs had been checked so you can get on with things. If its a low traffic issue then there are several things you can try to improve the traffic (change the title etc.) and if this fails it is reasonable to retire the hub.

  38. psycheskinner profile image76
    psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

    It's probably a good idea to spread risk and use multiple platforms anyway....

    I have had the most success here but I write for two other content sites as well as publications.  Things change all the time so you never know what source of income might falter.

    1. Marisa Wright profile image86
      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      +1

    2. 2uesday profile image65
      2uesdayposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I agree and there are other benefits as well.

      For example when I go to my statistics in Analytics  by writing on other sites/blogs I can compare the results. This is useful as I can see if increases or decreases in traffic are 'across the board' or just on one of my sites.  At the moment my hubs have a green % while some others do not. Which means that for some reason my traffic here is up and elsewhere it is not. Maybe it is the idle hubs or new profile page that is helping my traffic here, but I cannot be sure as it might be a seasonal thing.

  39. profile image0
    Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago

    Okay, Rock_nj.  I clearly hear you!  But since HubPages decided to dump their Zzz program on us, little did they know that they were playing with fire.  Again.  They seem to have a pattern of doing that.  This thread is proof that we have many unhappy campers here who have quit writing months ago.  Since my Hubs are on autopilot with little green dots, this leaves time for me to wander and check out other sites.  Nothing says that you must stay here til the end of time.  There is no loyalty on the Internet.  For whatever reason online writers aren't making money, you can expect them to go elsewhere.  They're going to run to "The Other Guy" if they are unhappy here.  Just like any employee would when they can't stand the abuse.  Like GM Williams says on her Forum posts, "No one owes anyone anything."  Do what you gotta do.

    1. profile image0
      Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago

      Oh, absolutely, psycheskinner!  Excellent point!

      1. janderson99 profile image52
        janderson99posted 12 years ago

        Another day another bunch of ZZZs
        Starting to get a clearer idea of what the Grim Reaper Hates
        => Less than one hit every second day average over the last 6 months
        => Any link to your own external website, or a big standard website such as NYT, wiki irrespective of traffic - applies to hubs created in the last month on so. HP appears to have a list of permitted URLs for external links.
        => Title that is in a saturated topic or a hit list of topics, and a title that appears unlikely to get traffic (not a longtail).
        => Hub score appears not appear to be a factor as one ZZZ had a score of 78.
        Any edit fixes them. Current strategy appears to be directed at hubbers that don't monitor their stats every day. Cold case.

        1. Marisa Wright profile image86
          Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Still not buying this theory.  Every single one of my Hubs has at least one external link, most of them to my own external websites.  There's no correlation that I can see between external links and ZZzs.



          Exactly, the strategy seems to be that they want to penalize Hubbers who are not actively monitoring their accounts.

          1. Lissie profile image77
            Lissieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Remember when HP promoted "ever green" content

            1. mistyhorizon2003 profile image89
              mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

              Funny isn't it, I agree !!!

            2. janderson99 profile image52
              janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
              1. Lissie profile image77
                Lissieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                LMFAO!

              2. mistyhorizon2003 profile image89
                mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                Hilarious, kind of throws the 'Zzz' out the window, otherwise it is just another case of the 'ever moving goalposts' that have become common here.

      2. Rock_nj profile image84
        Rock_njposted 12 years ago

        I found another negative regarding the Idle Hubs policy.  Like most Hubbers, I like to do my social networking posting immediately after posting a new Hub, when it's on my mind and it's fresh.  Since the Idle Hubs policy was implemented, I no longer see the top photo when I post the link to my new Hub in places like Facebook.  Now all people see is my message and a link to the new Hub.  Having a picture is more enticing, and not having one is probably costing me and Hub Pages some page views.  I guess after the 24-hour review period, the picture is available when I post the link.

        Is HubPages working on fixing these Idle Hubs policy bugs?

        1. jacharless profile image72
          jacharlessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Rock,
          Yes, am seeing this also.
          The Tweet seed worked, but not the Facebook seed {am not sure if the share to Hubbers worked or not}, which means either the Facebook og [open graph api] is being blocked. I know their callback works because other hubs I just shared are showing images. I also noticed the hubs/latest?rss has the new hub clearly visible, but the sitemap.xml.gz for my hubs does not.

          James.

          1. DzyMsLizzy profile image91
            DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I had something similar--weird, even--happen the other day.  I shared a new Hub on FB, and up popped a picture--the wrong one--from a different hub!!!
            So, I just selected for "no thumbnail" to fix that, but it sure was strange!

      3. Dale Hyde profile image58
        Dale Hydeposted 12 years ago

        At the moment, no Zzzz's showing on 116 hubs, however, with the recent drop in views to a little below an average of 1 view per hub per day (with the exception of one hub) I would expect to pop in any day and see 115 hubs with those Z's on them.  My views are where they were in my first month here with just a few hubs up.

        1. IzzyM profile image83
          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Dale, I feel your pain.

          When it happened to me, it took more than a year to see traffic levels return to a level I first saw when on here less than a year.

          Just hang fire, things'll settle down.

          Just don't depend on HP if you need to make your living online.

          It's good while it's there, and when it's not, just enjoy the scintillating company on the forums:)

          Traffic, some, all of it, more of it, will return at some point, even if you never write another hub.

          1. Dale Hyde profile image58
            Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Traffic may return Izzy, however, there will be no active hubs left. Within the past 24 hours I have seven (7) idle hubs, which I predicted would be the result from this declining trend of page views.  I would expect that over 75 percent of my hubs will be idle during the next 7 to 10 days.  So, should traffic ever return to HP, those hubs will not be seen as I will not spend further time tweaking any more of my material was was just doing fine in the past.  My plans at this point are to let the idle hubs remain idle until they deindex from Google automatically, then pull them and place them in a new home that Google may be more affectionate towards.

            I have never been dependant any any one site or one company to be consistent for earnings on the internet.  Amazon is a perfect example. There are times there, as an Amazon Seller, that I make very good money, then slumps where the income is about zero. 

            Over the past few months I have seen HP going down when I check the overall stats in various places for the site.  It appears that any uphill swing will be some time coming.  All the new changes that were to help are now seemingly pulling overall views down even more such as the new profile and the short test time that the new Amazon ads were running. 

            Speaking of Amazon and why I will not do any further tweaking on the hubs....I was told in my forum questions about the new Amazon hubs that the buttons would remain but the overall size had been reduced some. That was the "final"....so I went in and adjusted each and every hub, spending hours rearranging things to fit the final decision size of the Amazon capsules.... Now the recent forum post from HP says they have reverted back to the original size, which has once again created white spaces in the hubs after my adjustments.  The new Amazon capsules were stated as having been a reason for declining pages views.  I simply do not have the time to go through 116 hubs with all the new changes to keep adjusting them to try to please HP and Google.  This was supposed to be a "passive" venture....create a place to gain "passive" income. Having to tweak all the time defeats this passive aspect.  One has to either adjust their hubs for appearance or continually edit to keep them from going "idle", etc.... This author is tired, lol.

            Edit: I guess the "passive" should have been "evergreen", lol.

            1. janderson99 profile image52
              janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

              There is a horrid 'Catch22' scenario ahead.
              => 'Idle' hubs get deleted from profiles killing off any chance of getting traffic
              => Panda updates such as the last one on 27 August cash traffic to crash - More hubs are idled - Links disappear so less PR
              => HP continues to make changes to fix things that don't work - less traffic
              The future does not appear to be very rosy.

      4. DzyMsLizzy profile image91
        DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years ago

        Sooooooooooooooo......
           If I have now set up a Face Book page to share my articles (and selected ones of other Hubbers), will featuring  Zzzzzz'ed hubs there perhaps help them get enough views and off-site re-indexing to "Un-Z" them?  Especially since I've looked at several, and don't readily find any changes I can make that would add anything worthwhile to the article.

        1. SmartAndFun profile image95
          SmartAndFunposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Do we know for certain that idled hubs can become "unZZZZZed" if they get enough views? I thought the only way to wake them up was to go into edit mode and hit "save," thus putting them into 24-hour pending status and then to featured status. You don't even have to change anything, as long as you go into edit and save. I'm curious to know about sleeping hubs waking up from taffic alone.

          1. janderson99 profile image52
            janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            It requires a Kiss from a Prince! Traffic don't count

            1. janderson99 profile image52
              janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

              Oh No! the ZZZs are back. I think I need some Darleks - Exterminate! Exterminate!  Seriously, its such a fun time on HP at the moment - Pendings, slow indexing, traffic loss and now more attacks on the willing - ZZZs. Life used to be so simple here writing and publishing, writing and publishing! Ah well better put on my crown and impersonate a Prince!

          2. DzyMsLizzy profile image91
            DzyMsLizzyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            No--that doesn't work.  I tried it.  If nothing is changed, it stayed "Zzzz'ed."

            1. SmartAndFun profile image95
              SmartAndFunposted 12 years agoin reply to this

              I have changed a few bits of puncuation and corrected a typo and it worked. I guess I was wrong about not having to change anything. Sorry. But I do wonder if there is confirmation that an upswing in views will take a hub out of idle status. For whatever reason I'm thinking it must be edited. (?) Anyone know? (Janderson99 were you just joking or were you serious about views not counting?)

              1. janderson99 profile image52
                janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                Joking,  I know nothing about reviving ZZZ, apart from making a few edits.
                I've got a horrible feeling that the revived ones will come back to haunt us shortly - trying to think of a novel or film to relate to but I don't recall any.

                1. kenyanXstian profile image67
                  kenyanXstianposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Guys, if you get to know the effect of this zzzz thing and whether it really will affect traffic like everyone is fearing and having to edit all hubs once in a while let us know

                  1. janderson99 profile image52
                    janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                    My feeling is that ZZZ is all about weeding out the dead wood on HP. I can't see how having a few non performing hubs in your sub would be detrimental to your traffic provided they were good quality. I guess if HP status lifts, maybe all subs benefit. It would be good to see HP's traffic rise to show their strategy is working. Little sign of other changes boosting traffic. Here's hoping!

                    1. kenyanXstian profile image67
                      kenyanXstianposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                      janderson99, I am unable to tell whether any of my few hubs has been made idle, how do I tell?They don't seem to show!

                      1. janderson99 profile image52
                        janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Go to "my account'
                        Click on the 'Idle Status' heading TWICE (allow 1 second delay between clicks)
                        ZZZ (sleeping beauties) and pending (orbiting) will be shown at the top

      5. profile image0
        SirDentposted 12 years ago

        My views are up about 35% over the last few days.  I am wondering if maybe the sleepers have helped to increase traffic because they have been de-indexed.  Has anyone else noticed an increase?

        1. Patty Inglish, MS profile image89
          Patty Inglish, MSposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I have noticed an increase over the weekend as well and updated some zZz's last week.

        2. aa lite profile image84
          aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I've had a really good Sunday and the past couple of days show my traffic returned to pre-Oct levels.  I did absolutely nothing to my hubs in the meantime so this change (hope it will continue) must be something HP or Google have done.

          1. Patty Inglish, MS profile image89
            Patty Inglish, MSposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            That's good news! Could be that the holiday season upcoming is generating some traffic.

          2. LetitiaFT profile image68
            LetitiaFTposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Looks like that's the trend for me too, sure hope so!

          3. wilderness profile image90
            wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            "Good" wasn't the right word for my own Sunday; a 25% increase over the prior Sunday deserves more than that.

            Like others have said, I'm seeing a good sized increase the past week.

      Closed to reply
       
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