Does the Number of Hubs have an effect on on rankings and/or traffic?

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   Michael Willisposted 12 years ago

   I know the more exposure we have, the more chances for page views. That is not what I am asking about here. I am wondering if we are effected by the quantity of hubs over the quality of maybe a smaller number of hubs.
   I am looking to delete more older hubs (seasonal in a way) to help boost the more date related hubs. Even though the older hubs do get page views, I  would rather send the traffic to fresher/updated hubs I have now.
   Also, is their any internal effect from Hubpages from an amount of Hubs? I am not seeking the amount of links from all hubs combined, since it seems Google is attacking linking as some have posted.
   Just trying to find a way to help with the latest Google/Hubpages revisions to our accounts. Either one or both has had an effect.
   On a plus note: Yahoo and Bing have sent great traffic. Any coincidence with that I wonder?

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      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      My personal opinion is yes.
      
      Google's robots do look for quantity as well as quality.   A site that's lacking in content will be penalized.   
      
      On other revenue-sharing sites, that's not an issue because each of your articles is just a page on the main site.   On HP, your sub-domain is its own standalone site, so you need to create a solid body of content which can stand on its own. 
      
      Of course, the question is "how much is enough?"    Imagine if you moved all your Hubs to a Blogger blog - would it look insubstantial?

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      1. 69

         Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I have no clue what is going on right now with HP and the Google traffic, (coinciding with HP changes), but I have just deleted 8 hubs with more planned if I see no reason not to.
         I get your point Marisa. You always have given me insight.
         I don't see my NFL articles as "blogs." They are not personal writings, but information for the readers. Actually the ones that I have seen listed above mine are more personal and 80-90 percent not about their topic before they actually tell readers anything.
         Plus...a lot of those pages in search are the exact same thing! I thought Google was going away from showing duplications?
         They are also pages covered with Ads on them. I thought more than 3-4 Ads on a page was discouraged? Maybe that is just for HP. From what  I see doing search online is that pages covered with Ads seem to rank better.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            That's an outdated definition of the word "blog", Michael.   Once upon a time, a blog was a personal diary.  These days, the definition is much wider.   In fact, most successful blogs these days are "purely informational".
            
            For instance, I have a blog about pointe shoes.   I haven't danced in pointe shoes for years, so none of the posts is about me. They are all answers to questions from my readers, or useful hints about how to choose, use and maintain the shoes. 
            
            I have another blog where each post is a review of a belly dancing DVD.
            
            These are called blogs because they're not static websites, they are dynamic sites where posts are continually being added. 
            
            However, that's not relevant in the context of what I was saying.  What I should have said is, "imagine you moved all your Hubs to your own website or Blogger blog".  It really doesn't matter which - the question is, would they make a substantial site in their own right?  I'm inclined to think that 30 Hubs is not enough to make a solid website, and therefore it's not enough to make a solid sub-domain.
            
            That, in itself, is not enough to explain the traffic problems, but it could be a contributing factor.

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            1. 69

               Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks Marisa for explaining that. I had close to 50 hubs just a short time ago, but have been deleting since HP has been saying low view hubs (whatever they consider low view) would hurt us. And when I saw three idled earlier, I deleted them. If they are not visible to search engines, then they are not helping anyways.
               I am just a little frustrated with changes being made to HP without all other issues being fixed first!!! When has a week or day gone by without postings about edit problems,publishing, image issues, etc?
               As I mentioned in a reply earlier, it is too late for the season to move articles. Will look for and plan for a change somewhere for next season though.

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  I'd love to see the evidence for that.  It's absolutely true that low quality Hubs can hurt us - i.e. Hubs which are very short, keyword-stuffed etc - but I'm not aware of any evidence that low traffic posts can hurt a website.  If that were the case, news sites would be wiped off the search engine results, because how many people visit the news they published two years ago, which is still on their site?
                  
                  Speaking to internet entrepreneurs whose opinion I respect, I have yet to find one of them who agrees that low traffic posts do any harm at all.

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                  1. 69

                     Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     That is my opinion also. I think quality would outweigh slower traffic on some hubs. Look at sites that have hundreds of archived articles that may not have a single view for months or longer.

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                        Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Exactly.   It's important to remember that while HubPages management may be knowledgeable and experienced, they are just trying to second-guess Google like all the other webmasters out there - they're not operating on inside knowledge.  Since the first Panda, they've made many changes to the site, some of which were good and some of which were unnecessary and probably ill-advised (I say that because people who left the site due to those changes, are still making money on their own sites in spite of not having made those changes).
                        
                        In my opinion, the advice about low traffic Hubs is one where they've made the wrong guess.  They're out of step with most other internet experts on that one, as far as I can see.

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                           Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           As always, you give me thought for an answer. Thanks Marissa again.
                           The Hubs I have deleted (NFL ones) I made the url dated 2 years ago when I listed the year in them.  (If I knew then what I know now...Duh!) lol
                           Although 2 of them have been and still are by best hubs as I have used the title and text capsule titles updated and those changes have given me the traffic, not the URL.
                           I wish we had an Archive file where we could send such hubs, without the deindexing. There must be a way to keep these hubs indexed while not having them as prominent as newer or updated hubs. This way we could keep their links and quantity of niches to show authority ( I guess it's called) with Google.

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                              Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              I wish you hadn't deleted them!  Although it's not ideal having the date in the URL, the content is far more important than the URL (as far as I'm aware). 
                              
                              
                              
                              When Google's robots look at a site, they can't see the difference between an archived page and a current page.  Archives are just a way to help readers navigate.

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                              1. 69

                                 Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                 I just don't have the time to re-work all those hubs. Sooner or later HP would have idled them and they would have been de-indexed anyways.
                                 I was planning to write quite a few more, but with the not knowing when new hubs could be seen by Google...I wonder if here is the place to write them anymore. Seasonal material can't just set and set and wait for HP to take away no-follow tags for new hubs.
                                 If I had a way to get my Adsense on FB, I would be doing great. My football page there is doing very well.

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                                 1. 86

                                    Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                    It sounds like you should start your own football blog - you could move your football Hubs there, and continue to write new material.  You need to learn about how to monetize for yourself, of course, and it will take time to build a reputation.  But in the long run, to make money online you need more than just revenue-sharing sites and you need to build an authority site about something.  PM me if you want to discuss further.

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                                    1. 69

                                       Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                       That sounds like what I should do.

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   theherbivorehippiposted 12 years ago

   I deleted about 35 old hubs a couple weeks ago, and my traffic improved substantially. It's still not where it was a year ago, but at least it gave me a bit of hope.

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3. 69

   Michael Willisposted 12 years ago

   I deleted a few idled hubs when it first came out. Didn't have time to rework them. Traffic seemed to take a rise then. Yahoo and Bing are great now, but Google has dramatically dropped. Seems Google went away right after Yahoo and Bing picked me up.

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      livewithrichardposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I took a look at your hub listings and I would have to say that here on HP it is probably not a good idea to date your content.  Sure it can get loads of traffic while in season but once the season is over that traffic is going to nosedive... For instance, your 2010 Fantasy Football...  when you were searching for FF advice for this season would you even consider advice from 2 years ago... I doubt it, I wouldn't... Advice that is sound today is junk tomorrow.   The majority of your NFL hubs would probably have fared much better on a private blog where it is expected to constantly update.  Hubs are supposed to stand the test of time.  Even product hubs have a short life span.  As soon as a better or newer model arrives, nobody is going to want to search for my older products.
      
      Your writing is not the problem, nor is your topics.  The problem is that the majority of what you write on has a limited shelf life.  IMO of course.

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      1. 69

         Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I see what you are saying. I wish I had realized that 2 years ago when I set the URL. 
         But, the NFL hubs are the only ones that make money! My best hub written 2 years ago will reach 350,000 views by late tonight or early morning.
         I am considering deleting the Fantasy hubs, although one of them still get views and could be the same info year end and out.
         I am looking for a way to solve the latest Google hit. Or was it the HP changes? Not sure, but losing money as I wait and see. It is too late to make a change of host of articles for this season. But I am saving all info and searching for where I will post for next year.

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         1. 69

            Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Already started deleting hubs with dated url's.
            The ones that get best traffic have new titles and sub-titles, which show up in the keyword tab on page statistics. My best hubs seem to get traffic this way.
            Will see how things pan out. If I end up moving the NFL hubs, I will be moving everything though.

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   2. 69

      GiancarloLorenzoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That's interesting.  Google is responsible for most of my traffic now.  I rarely get any from bing and yahoo.  How do I do so?

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      1. 69

         Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I don't know what changed with Yahoo and Bing. Just one weekend the views from them exploded. Then the next week Google dropped off big time.

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   livewithrichardposted 12 years ago

   Michael, I can't say for certain this works because I just started doing it a couple weeks ago... but I found my hubpages sitemap (hubpages creates one for hubbers if they have over 10 hubs or 10 questions) and I uploaded it to Google webmaster tools.  I then fetched my urls (you can only fetch 50 per week) so that the Googlebot can crawl and add them to the index.  But before I did any of that, I made sure that all my hubs were placed into groups with a common theme and I made sure that all of my hubs had been edited to take them out of idle.  I also deleted 5 very low performing hubs that I must have been crazy to publish in the first place, even though together they accounted for about 2500 page views.  Still they were not up to my new standard and outdated info that has no business in today's SEO plan. 
   
   Up to a couple days ago, I couldn't find any of my hubs in Google's index but now they are all there.  They may not rank where they once ranked but at least they are back.  The end of this week I have noticed a 33% gain in traffic.  I need to measure this over several weeks or months to say for certain but its looking good for the moment.
   
   Your sitemap would look like this michaelwillis.hubpages.com//sitemaps/hub/current/sitemap-hub-michaelwillis.xml.gz   You can use this with Google webmaster tools but not with Bing webmaster tools.  At Bing, there is still no way to verify your site.

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      Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That sounds interesting. Definitely should try this. I weeded out a few hubs over a year ago that were in my first hubs written. I learned a lot in the first year from other hubbers and by reading online.
      I have found my hubs by using the site:michaelwlillis.hubpages method. Just the past few weeks traffic has really dropped with Google. The only positive is Yahoo and Bing has way out performed Google with my traffic.
      I think it was 2 weeks ago when on a weekend that Yahoo/Bing tripled over Google for views.

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