Making Ridiculously Long Articles More User Friendly.

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   Little two twoposted 12 years ago

   I write for a smaller niche, and it is seasonal. I have been penalized for this and am now forced to put all my information into one gigantic hub ... it looks awful, its ridiculously long and quite frankly many are going to land, go cross eyed and leave. In an attempt to salvage my writing which is being called substandard (view wise not quality) I put 4 similar ideas together, yet each idea is standalone. People may go there to find out how to stay warm in winter, but have to go through general ice fishing, ice fishing equipment and ice fishing safety before finding the staying warm part.
   
   I want to add html to the top of the article that allows my viewers to go to the section of the article that is of interest to them and not have to scroll for 5 minutes to find it. We already know how viewers feel about having to spend more than 10 secs looking for their information.
   
   Can I do this?

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      Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Consolidating to a hub with that many words does not sound like a good idea to me.  It is amazing that this new "tool" is creating such havoc already with many members..... Who told you it would not be indexed?
      
      You can manual index your pages via WebMaster tools.  I am not sure how HP can over-ride your submission to WebMaster tools.
      
      I have raised this several times, but am not getting any input on it.

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         Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I agree thus my concern with the length and trying to find a way to make it more user friendly and not BAM in your face. I don't see the point of writing a topic and just scratching the surface, if I write on ice safety, I want to cover all aspects of it.
         
         The zzz beside 3 of the 4 articles told me it will be de-indexed tomorrow. The only traffic I get to the articles is google, most of my traffic (albeit smaller amounts) comes from the various google searches (.com, .ca, au, .fr etc) it's just not enough traffic for hubpages liking. My understanding is once de-indexed, HP will only allow direct clicks on URL to find it and searches, they won't include it in Discover more hub or topics. I don't get hubpage traffic so all of that is useless for me.
         
         The only way to get out of idle is to update and make it more popular, this is a factual evergreen type topic that can't really be updated anymore, only option I had was to consolidate them or effectively lose them.
         
         I have not heard of this webmaster tools. I will look into it. I don't believe staff at hubpages really know what is going to happen and are making educated guesses based on half of the information.

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            Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I use Google Webmaster tools extensively. With each new hub, I submit it and then have it indexed. I don't wait on Google to stumble around and locate the hub, nor on HP to submit it for me. I do this where ever I publish.
            
            Once you find and log into Google webmaster tools and register your HP domain there, if you have any questions about how to submit and have your hub indexed, feel free to message me.

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               Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you ... I will give this a try and keep your profile open for quick contact.

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                  Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Sounds good.

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         paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/102577? … ost2186439

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            Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks! I have responded to that in that thread.  I WILL NOT be moderated at that level. It is "censorship".

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               paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I sincerely wished I could have reported otherwise.
               
               I think of you as one of the good guys.

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                  Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Well that is why I always have a backup of all my hubs....PDF file with all links, all photos... easy to move if needed.  Right now I don't have any idle hubs.
                  
                  My concern is that any new hub will not be indexed... At times I publish hubs that are time sensitive with current events such as several that are dealing with hurricanes.  If there is a delay, then I need to not even publish here, but find another "immediate" indexing site to post on with such hubs.

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                     paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     I remember seeing those. You are right.

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                        Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        It is amazing....these revisions.... Time will tell on this, my friend.  I have NEVER seen so many changes in such a short period on any site, lol.  I have been here under eight months and have seen more changes and revisions on this site that my whole online life spanning over a decade with all other sites included.

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            Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Well this post seems to be accurate.  I have seen that "Google" visited the hub upon my index request, but it IS NOT indexed. First time ever.... So it appears that HP is blocking the index. Not good and not acceptable to me.  This penalizes members who have many hubs and quality hubs with no past problems.

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   rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

   You can make a table of contents, but how many words are currently in this ridiculously long hub?

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      Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      There is roughly 7000 words in the article, most are in pointform now, originally I had over 10,000 words in this article of 4 standalone similar topics. I've also removed all polls, videos and other such items cause it was just to much on one page.
      
      Will this table of contents will allow the viewer to click on what they are interested in and then be zoomed down to that spot? Where is this table of contents I am not familiar with html other than it can do some cool stuff.
      
      Oh, and thank you for the quick reply.

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   psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

   So why are you putting all this content in one hub rather than several?  I am not clear on that.

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      Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Originally they were 4 hubs, but HP idled all but one, funnily the one they didn't idle had the least amount of page views overall.
      
      I was told to update it or be de-indexed, I get google views to these articles (that's the only traffic I get), but will not once it has been de-indexed. The content is not exciting, trendy or hot news, its more evergreen and there really isn't anything left to update into the articles ... I was told to put them into one ... so I did. I had to remove things like polls and videos, cause it was just to much on one page.

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         tussinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Why not post the de-indexed one on another site and link to it from your so-far still indexed articles?

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            Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            What site can I drop it on? And if this other site or sites are keeping my lower traffic (but high in my niche) articles indexed and not preventing me from listing them other ways .... why am I writing on hubpages and not supporting the sites that support me and my work. If I wanted to spam my work all over the net I would have long before now.

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               tussinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Not an exhaustive list, but
               
               squidoo
               infobarrel
               zujava
               seekyt
               wizzley
               
               and of course your own website.  I find that HP gets more traffic than these other sites, but if they're going to de-index stuff because it's not getting an acceptable level of search traffic, there's no reason to keep it here.

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                  mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  I like Wizzley out of all these, but also like Xobba and This is Freelance too

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                  Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Maybe it is time to find a new writing outlet. Maybe not. Anyways thanks for the ideas and replies.

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   rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

   I would try to make it shorter and use only the content that is necessary to make an interesting, informative article.  Without seeing the hubs, it's hard to get a good picture of what your hubs included.  Combining so much content does seem somewhat overwhelming.
   
   There are a few hubs that outline how to create a table of contents.
   If you do a HP search above with the search function, you can find hubs on how to make a table of contents.  Darkside has a good one. and here's a link to another one, plus it includes darksides.
   http://sidkemp.hubpages.com/hub/TOC

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      Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for the direction. I will get on that search now.
      
      I already shortened it 3000 words, any more and I might as well not bother with it, who wants half the information when plenty of other sites offer all information. I had all of these set up like a series so it was a little easier to pick and choose your topic of choice.
      
      Again thanks

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   psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

   Unless I have missed something (which is entirely possible) "Idle" describes the hub, it doesn't do anything to the hub or cause anything to happen to the hub.

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      Little two twoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      It does affect the hub as of tomorrow.
      
      It removes the hub from searches and thus, in my case, traffic. I rarely get internal hubpage traffic, all mine comes from google, if it is removed from search ... it no longer can be found unless it is by a direct URL or search in hubpages (and hubbers ain't searching my topics). It wont show in discover more hubs. It won't show in Topics. Short of me spamming the url everywhere ... how do I get traffic back to improve the page views and popularity of a factual based evergreen topic that really can't be fancied up or have more added to it.

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         Norman Steinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Like Dale said earlier, keep a copy of all your work.
         
         Once a page is removed from the search engine index's it will never be found by a search again, period.  It's dead Jim. <-Star Trek reference..
         
         I think you have two options.
         A) Copy and paste all the content at the beginning of the cold weather season into a new article (with new title) Perhaps the new traffic will bring it back to life.
         B) Publish on another site.  InfoBarrel for example, in fact, they even reward you with higher adsense% by article length.
         
         Either way, get a copy of your work onto your hard drive, it is YOUR work after all.  Who knows, maybe one day they'll just delete all the inactive stuff.  And if you don't think they'll do that just google what eHow did to their publishers a few years ago.
         
         First they started with article 'sweeps' flagging 'bad' articles and stopped indexing them, a few months after that they deleted them with no warning.  Finally they purchased all the content from their users at a lump sum and closed their writer compensation program.

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         tussinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         As a last resort, try adding more media to the hub. Images and video seem to raise hubscore, which might refresh the article's status.  If there's one or two points that could be expanded upon and included in their own subsections, try that as well. I would exhaust all the simplest remedies first before moving it since it will have a higher serp ranking on HP than the next site you move it to. 
         
         At some point you may just have to throw in the towel because it's not worth spending hours for a few HP pennies. Good luck figuring it out.

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