I really think this Idled hubs idea is ridiculous

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   Will Apseposted 12 years ago

   I remember going into pub in the West Country not so long ago, dark and tobacco stained. There were a group of grizzled old men complaining about the passing of the steam age.
   
   'Deezal'
   
   'Ahhh'
   
   'Deezal!'
   
   'AHHHH!'
   
   I imagine glasses were broken from time to time.

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   imgreencatposted 12 years ago

   I thought the idea of idled hubs was dumb to start with.  Do we really need Hubpages to tell us which hubs are not getting many hits?  Of course not.  It seems to me Hubpages could make better use of their time by getting better name recognition with Google instead.  I have watched my page views plummet to about a quarter of what they once were.  I however, don't agree that getting involved with another content mill is the answer.  Like you Bard, I have tried to find subjects that are not "controlled masses".  Meaning, I am not interested in writing about who won "dancing with the stars".  The idea that Hubpages projected was that of a passive income, but it's not passive if one needs to constantly update hubs.  Look into writing ebooks for Kindle.  You are too good of a writer to not be taken seriously.

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      Bard of Elyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for your support for my writings. I already have a Kindle book - Hummadruz and a Life of High Strangeness - but that is more or less ignored too so might as well be idled there! I am being urged to put more e-books together though and when I can get an editing site called Sigil sorted out I will make a start on doing so. At present I can't save my work on Sigil which is no good and the guy that recommended it doesn't know what the answer is.
      Yes, this place is no longer any good for passive income and for writing about fringe material that doesn't get the traffic.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         With a title like that, I'm not surprised.   I can't imagine that coming up in searches on Amazon, can you?  If no one ever sees it, no one is ever going to get curious about it.  It's not the same as a bookshop, where someone might stumble across the book as they're browsing the shelves. 
         
         I was thinking last night, that when a newbie starts here, the first thing I tell them is to sign up for the Keyword Academy and watch all the videos.  The trial period is free and you can cancel before the paid subscription starts, so it costs nothing to do.   I don't know why I've never recommended it to you - I should have.
         
         A lot of it is about finding subjects to write about, which isn't relevant to you. It wasn't relevant to me, either.  But keywords and SEO are still important even if you want to write about particular subjects and there's still a lot you can learn.   The course will help you understand why you're not earning even though you're a good writer - and may even help you change that situation.

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            Bard of Elyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            When I created that title I thought it made sense seeing as Hummadruz was the starting point for the book and is a subject with not much known about ir talk about. I thought by having it in the title I would become known for being one of the people who does discuss it and has experienced it. I then wanted a general term to cover all my spiritual and mystical and paranormal experiences so decided on "high strangeness" thinking it was a term used in ufology. I was also thinking that book titles may have words that are not known at all or searched for because they are the creations of the authors. Finally, Sandy Mertens who formatted it for me didn't say anything against the title and in fact went on to create hundreds of Zazzle products using it. She has a lot of experience on the Internet so I assumed she must have thought it was worth marketing.  Pam Grundy and CJ Stone both reviewed it favourably and neither of them said anything about the title either so I thought it must be OK. I had no reason to think there was anything wrong with it.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I don't have a problem with the word Hummadruz, but I think you missed an opportunity with the rest of the title.  Again it illustrates the difference between online and offline writing. 
               
               When you publish a hard-copy book, people find it by browsing along the shelves in a high street bookshop.  You want your title to be unusual or intriguing, because it will catch the browser's eye.
               
               An ebook is not unlike a Hub, in that people will not find it if you use "catchy" titles instead of descriptive ones. You want to include in your title, words that people are likely to type into Amazon's or Google's search box.  Perhaps "Hummadruz and Encounters with the Paranormal" might have been better.

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                  Bard of Elyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes, I see your point but sadly it is too late to change the title. I am used to writing catchy or interesting titles because that is what offline editors want. I have noted in the past that actual articles from columns from Big Issue and Living Tenerife magazines, as well as the Tenerife Sun newspaper that I republished in HP didn't do at all well.

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                     Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     ...and others have explained the title thing to you as well (including me, in that Hub I wrote for you). 
                     
                     Are you sure it's too late to change the title?  I think you can edit an ebook.

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                        Bard of Elyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Well, if I change it, everything else including a Wikipedia entry for me, two hubs about it (one of which is now on Wizzley) and around 100 Zazzle products Sandy made have to be altered.

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                           Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           A Wikipedia entry is a piece of cake, and two articles don't sound too bad.  Why not talk to Sandy and ask if those Zazzle products are selling?  I would be surprised if they were, frankly, and if that's the case she may be happy to delete some of them and just revise a few.

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      Huntgoddessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, I agree, imgreencat.
      
      Don't leave us, Bard!!
      
      I'd like to know more about all of these issues -- which I really don't understand --- but I don't have the time to study and learn a bunch of new stuff, so I'm kind of stuck here, I guess.
      
      <To HP editors:  Oops, did I write that out loud?>

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   literatelibranposted 12 years ago

   Bard: Sigil is complicated, and you might consider using Celtx instead. Much easier, and can easily import and export to Word.

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      Bard of Elyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for this info!

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   Bard of Elyposted 12 years ago

   Thank you, Huntgoddess! I am not going anywhere yet!  I am simply writing some hubs on different but very important to us topics and being optimistic as usual!

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      Huntgoddessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Okay, good to know, Bard. Thanks.

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   molometerposted 12 years ago

   @Dale,
   
   There is one thing that works. Go to 'your' profile page on hubpages and copy the URL. Submit this using webmaster tools. Make sure you do it when you have enough submissions left, to index all connected and linked pages to your profile. It's not perfect as it relies on good interlinking on your hubs, but it gets at least something resembling a site map indexed on Google.
   
   Hope this helps
   
   Michael

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      Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I have done that periodically, Michael, when I am submitting other pages.  That URL is a permanent part of what is showing in Webmaster Tools, so I just click that to have that page indexed without adding the "hub/Hub_Title" after it.  In other words I have submitted http://dalehyde.hubpages.com/ and requested that the index include all URLs on the page.  This is what you are referring too?
      
      Thanks for the response.

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         molometerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Hi @Dale,
         
         Yep, that is exactly the right way to do it. How weird. That was the point of moving to the sub domain model, so that we could do just that. Amongst other things.
         
         What is your hub interlinking like. Are your hubs linked to each other. Even the RSS feed is better than nothing, The webmasters submission tool will not pick up anything that is not connected. Obviously.
         
         I mention this because I had a similar problem on some of my older hubs. I had just forgotten to link them to related hubs. Both mine and other hubbers hubs too.
         
         
         Michael

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            Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I have always interlinked my hubs, Michael... Now that I have moved some that has been an issue, lol, as I have had to go back and change all the HP links to the new home links.   I just returned from Pinterest as I had to do the same there, take out the HP links and put in the new home links.  Still, I have 101 hubs published here and the majority have some kind of insite interlinking as well as external linking in them.
            
            I have found the linking tool here on HP pretty much ineffective...the "suggest link" thing.  I do better hunting down my own.
            
            On a sidenote here.... Most of my traffic the past few days has been from Pinterest and Google, and in that order! Go figure...Pinterest beating out Google?

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               molometerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I know what you mean about the hub suggestion tool. It can give some odd results. Good to know that you are on top of this issue at least.
               
               Michael

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                  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  The link tool within the edit box is excellent  - highlight some text and click the 'chain link' image  - you can enter a term and search for it as well.

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                     molometerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Have you not noticed that, if you highlight some text or a word and select a suggestion, from the selection tool. It is fine until you try to add a second link using the suggestion tool.
                     It wipes out the first selection. Not much use really. The suggestion tool needs refining.
                     
                     The only way that we can add more than one link is as you mentioned, in edit mode. Then it works fine.
                     
                     Michael

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         IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I tried that and it says 'Sitemap url cannot be empty'.
         
         Are you talking about a 'fetch as googlebot' instruction? That would include all the links you refer to, so long as there are less than 500 (fat chance with me!)

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            molometerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            @izzy,
            
            Correct fetch it leaving the second half of the box empty. It will then fetch you profile page and all the hubs listed there, and the links from those hubs too.
            
            Michael

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               IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Right, I went and did that for a few of my subdomains. Still leaves the problem of the crawl errors and the sitemap though
               
               We have no control over them as we do not own the site.
               
               Edit: Oh, and thanks

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                  molometerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  @Izzy,
                  
                  Your welcome.

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            Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, fetch with the Gogglebot, Izzy.

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      aykianinkposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Michael, not following all of that.  Would love to get more info or a simpler explanation.  Could you rewrite it?

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         molometerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         @Dale,
         
         I think I had better write a hub on it, as it may be helpful to others too. I'll get onto it as soon as i get a chance.

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            Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I think you have mixed two replies up, lol.  Look up a few more replies.

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               molometerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Dooh! lol

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            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Well, in the interim, I went over the webmasters tools and asked to submit a sitemap.
            
            I get a box saying 'Add/Test sitemap'
            
            Below it says http://izzym.hubpages.com/ and then there is a blank space for the rest of the url.
            
            That is my profile page (obviously LOL) but anything after that would be a hub, and a hub is not a sitemap, unless I had a hub listing all my hubs, which I obviously don't.
            
            Oh and my crawl errors are through the roof, which more or less corresponds with my current dip in traffic.
            
            I did unpublish a load of hubs recently, but the hubs I am seeing at the top of the list are still published.

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   Pearldiverposted 12 years ago

   You know.... this is just a game being played here
   There is NOTHING reliable in the information provided within the hub stats box that tells a factual situation! 
   I have re-edited 5 really good hubs that have been totally starved of traffic and have then been 'idled' - before I put them into Edit mode.. I checked the promoted crawl info.. (G - last crawled 20 hours ago etc) - Right, put the hub into edit and took the time.... 15 mins to edit it and then resubmit it to the 24hr Penny People to 'assess!'  Check the Last G crawl again and it says.... last crawled 13 mins ago!!  This happened to all 5 hubs!  Unbelievable!   So.... WTF!
   
   I am beginning to think the word 'idled' was used to justify a hub that contains redirect code and has been previously intentionally manipulated to create effectively a "Hahaha, you're wasting your time!!!" approach - for some pathetic reason... This same BS happened to EVERY referral 'join' link I have ever set up here... for the grand total of 6000 clicks for 0 referred writers! I don't think so! Especially when I had others check MY links and they went to HP!   
   
   This stuff is really serious and I think it is the same culture that has used forum trolls to 'Bully' many members here.. clearly finding pleasure in Fing people around!  Someone needs to 'ManUp' and to cut this crap... as sites that promote discrimination and online bullying will have NO Future when they are proven to act that way!  Like everyone else I have ethical expectations and clearly they have been undermined by... let's just say... 'Unknown Parties' atm. 
   
   Like everyone else... I don't want to really consider that HP would do this sort of stuff!  So perhaps, a rogue staff member has been or is the problem.... because All This Is Internal - and HP have the C-Panel... not us! (unless that benefit has been shared with non staff personnel)..
   This is an HP 'glitch' and I know that it has been in place for over 1 Year.... now tell No One in HP noticed.. and I'll retract every once of faith I have ever had in the site!
   
   @Michael Cheers for what you are doing mate... Are we expected to load our own sitemap like this... to cover our butts??
   I have noticed in a couple of Google searches that several of my hub urls have hubpages.con/sitemap/ on them... these ones were supposedly non performers..

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      IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Pearldiver, have you considered the possibility that something is wrong with the site architecture, rather than HP staff deliberately doing anything wrong.
      
      It is in their interests to make this site work!
      
      All those crawl errors.
      
      With ten subdomains, I can see an across the board pattern in webmasters tools.
      
      Every time Google traffic disappears, there is a corresponding rise in crawl errors.
      
      These errors start rising about 3 - 7 days BEFORE traffic falls. Every time. We cannot control site errors. HP can.
      
      Could it be that they are ignoring them, where when we were one site they could and did fix them?
      
      With thousands of us, it is probably too big a job to fix them all.
      
      You must have noticed than many of us suddenly lose or gain all our traffic on the same day!
      
      These days do not always match a Google Panda update day.
      
      Many of the errors relate to topic groupings and some such, that will be why many of us are affected at the same time.

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         aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I have often wondered about the site architecture myself.  Weird things happen sometimes, when I updated to the new profile, I completely fell out of Google, no traffic whatsoever for a week, then it went back to normal (which isn't much).  I've read other people noticing weird stuff like that as well.
         
         Then there is the whole de-indexing thing which doesn't seem to be working very well.  If you keep an eye on how many pages are indexed in Google, it jumps like crazy, one day it says 3million the next 5 million.  Possibly this is just G not reporting consistently how many pages it has in its index but its strange.
         
         I always thought that crawl errors happened when somebody linked to your site, but put in the wrong URL.  I once caused one myself, I typed in the URL rather than pasting it, made a mistake and caused a crawl error, but i guess if the topics pages etc. used the wrong URLs that would cause a huge number of errors. 
         
         Then there is the huge delays in indexing since the pending thing was introduced. We all think it's down to Google bots not bothering to follow a link to a place they visited before and found to be no-index, but do we actually know that this is something that Google programs its bots to do?

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         Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I'm wondering if they are aware of them, if they relate to our sub-domains?  I remember janderson and me both reporting crawl errors on different threads a while back, and HubPages' staff asking questions as if they were unaware of them.

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            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            If they are not aware, would someone kindly direct them to this thread?

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            janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            The forum was labelled FIXED (not likely) and closed. Sorry I've given up on that one.
            http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/105114

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               IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I do notice that sometimes HP staff do not fully read (or understand) what hubbers are saying.

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         Pearldiverposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I noticed this after their poetry comp (Nov) last year and then did some digging and came out with Sept 2011 as being heaps of 404 notices etc.  So, it's been over a year.. and irrespective of anything offered, I see no logical reason why that should be acceptable - it has directly effected my traffic, so it will have affected others too and like... Who Cares!
         If this is a business... then I will consider every factor of the place as a business! However, as someone with 20 years experience, who used to trouble-shoot big businesses... I'm pretty sure I can ask a 100 questions that some don't want to answer! 
         
         Facts still remain... it has effected you as well.... Has this effected US members here? For what positive purpose does it serve to not repair the problem?  This is a business and clearly if such problems remain for over a period of a year and clearly problems stem from the same source and effect a wide group of unsuspecting users... then what does that suggest? Incompetence? Dishonesty? A Business in trouble, stealing from Peter to pay Paul? (s'cuse the pun!) Overworked staff? 
         Let's Get Real.... ANY Real Business Director Knows that you fix the damn problem... as a priority!
         As I said in what will clearly be an unpopular post.... I'm feeling a bit played here.. and that's a Real Shame.. 

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            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Yes it has affected US members.
            
            Something about being hit for so long (August 2011 - September 2012 and again in October 2012) has made me notice every forum post about rises or falls in traffic.
            
            Randy Godwin has still not seen a return in traffic, but many US hubbers have seen dramatic see-sawing of traffic.
            
            So it's not just 'us foreigners'.
            
            But just maybe, as Marisa suggested, they didn't know?
            
            I don't know what information they are privy to on webmasters tools now that the site is split into subdomains, compared to what they could see before.
            
            Maybe the site should become one again?

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               Pearldiverposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Splitting the site into subs... not only allowed that to openly occur (with FULL C-Panel Notification of EVERYTHING)... but it also gave the opportunity to cover up the fact that it had been occurring before (and I believe 'trialled' behind the smoke generated by the Competitions)
               The same thing was happening with the Financial Planning Comp Hubs earlier in 2011... I think maybe noisy hubbers like Randy and I are perfect targets for behind the scenes bullying... We got banned every time we spoke out on things that were dodgy!
               This does NOT appear to be an Error... the Error was - that it was potentially done with highly questionable intent!     
               Either way - It AIN'T Professional in any respect... But ultimately the Buck stops with the Boss! And whether or not this one understands - silence generally denotes an element of BS... It's really sad!
               
               I suppose all the dross on the sub 'Writers' - has been overlooked by the same watch!
               Every hub there earns for HP even though they remain 4 years later highly misleading and contentious... those hubs probably won't be 'idled' - they've had nearly 100 million views are all from people thinking that they were the official sites for .com sites!  I wonder how those dodgy hubs were linked huh?
               I've said enough on this.... I trust my intuition and professional ethics far more that I trust anonymous forum trolls!

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                  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  I remember the finance contest. That was another big mistake by HP, as not long afterwards they unpublished most of the contest hubs under new rules they brought in about over-saturated topics LOL
                  
                  That said, what Google wants, and what HP (or even me and you) wants are not the same thing.
                  
                  The 'writers' hubs you mention will probably stay published because they are still garnering huge traffic figures.
                  
                  Regardless of what we think of them, about how deceptive they are, Google likes them else they would not be sending them traffic.
                  
                  I was somewhat surprised to note when my traffic returned that Google sent traffic to the hubs I would have considered to be the least useful - the ones that were openly commercial and fairly short (500 words +).
                  
                  Yet those are ones HP now want to get rid of?
                  
                  I sold $1000 worth of goods from my hubs this week on my share of the time alone. So HP are still earning.
                  
                  I still think the problem lies somewhere in the site architecture.
                  
                  They should stop hiding all the hubs on the site that are not getting traffic, because Google is ignoring them anyway, so what difference the noindex tag is supposed to make is anyone's guess.

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                     Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     The "noindex" sort of kills any ad revenue on a newly published hub as well.  I just published one and noticed, for the first time, that no ads are displayed whilst in this "idled" status pending the HP Gods and Goddesses approval of my hub.  Now, that being said, I have sent traffic to it already from Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter as well as a few other sites.  These folks will not be candidates for potential earnings by clicking an ad or three.
                     
                     Edit: I just went in to correct an error on the hub...imagine that!  Anyway, what is with this "new" pop up that comes up in the lower right corner of a newly published hub?
                     
                     What motivated you to create this Hub?
                     
                     *To express myself
                     *To gain an audience
                     *Potential traffic and income
                     *Just checking things out
                     *Other
                     
                     Powered by Qualaroo

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                        IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        There was something in the blog post about ads being disabled from pending hubs, to try and keep the googlebot away.
                        
                        Unfortunately, new hubs posted to Facebook, Twitter etc will attract the googlebot anyway.
                        
                        We should all wait 24 hours after publishing before tweeting etc hubs.
                        
                        This whole pending thing is a nightmare.
                        
                        I wish they would take it off.

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                           Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           Shoot, it is getting to be a real hassle 'round these here parts, Izzy!  It is beyond me to keep up with all the do's and don'ts around here.

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                              SmartAndFunposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              I agree. The "best strategy" changes daily. I can't keep up. HP had already started to lose its luster in my eyes, and now I feel like throwing in the towel. I just don't want to use up my rare and valuable free time trying to keep up with the never-ending daily changes. It's too much of a hassle.

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                  aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  what are those deceptive 'writer's' hubs? I am intrigued.  Why are they bad?

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   Dale Hydeposted 12 years ago

   I see Google visited my most recent hub and grabbed that wonderful "NOINDEX" tag on my newly published hub.  Dead in the tracks again.  Amazing. Astounding. But most of all, HP, you are stumbling some of your best contributors.
   
   Idle Status
   help
   Pending
   
   This Hub is undergoing our Quality Assessment Process, which usually takes 24 hours.
   
   Last Crawl
   help
   Google
   
   70 minutes ago
   
   Bing
   
   Not recently crawled
   
   Search Term Sources
   Search terms data is not currently available.

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