Performance Evaluation

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   Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years ago

   I've been on HubPages for over a year now.  I have written 253 hubs (I deleted some) and just recently passed the 100,000 views mark.  I think I should have more views by now considering the number of hubs and the amount of time I spend here. I know it is more about quality than quantity, but I do try to write quality hubs.
   
   Will you please give me a performance evaluation and let me know what I can do to improve my work  and increase my views?
   
   Thanks
   
   Shasta

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   1. 66

      MKayoposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Wow! 100k - that is great! Congrats to you!

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      1. 90

         Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks MKayo!

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      btulloh098posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm interested in your tips for how to get to 100K!  Is it about keywords??
      That's awesome!

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      1. 90

         Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Bridgett. Welcome to HubPages.  You are off to a great start with your hubs.  Basically, I spent a lot of time  reading - in the Learning Center, the forums, and other hubs, about how to write hubs, formatting,  use keywords, etc.    There is conflicting information, so use the Learning Center as your tie-breaker, or ask in the forums to see if the information has changed.
         
         I tried to get traffic by creating a large number of hubs.  Quality is more important than quantity, but I thought I could do both.  Unfortunately, my definition of quality didn't have to do with using keywords, etc.  I think I should have taken more time at the beginning reading, learning, and actually applying my knowledge.

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      2. 67

         Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I don't know any secrets about how to obtain the high views, however, I am at 166,149 views in 11 months here myself.
         
         I had 120 hubs at one point, but due to HP putting the "idle" and "noindex" on 21 of them, I am now at 99 hubs I do believe. (The 21 have been moved elsewhere.)
         
         My views have come from only a handful of hubs....that is the high views.  Two rank very high and always do well, then there are like four to six others that are of medium rank that do well pretty consistantly.
         
         The majority have very few views.
         
         My advice is to work on a couple of "keyword" focused hubs.  Once you find what people are looking for, then you build your hub around those keywords and keyword phrases.  Then...you wait.... Google takes some time to grab a great hub and allow it to work it's way up the ladder in the rankings.  As you move up, your views increase.
         
         As I mentioned, if I knew the secrets and all, all of my hubs would be producing great results, lol.  But I am happy with my few that allow me to buy a steak every now and then.
         
         One think I have learned, if you rise in the rankings, be very, very careful if you add to or edit that hub. A slip or mistake could cause it to plummet.
         
         As for marketing your hubs...that is up to you. I tweet them every now and then, and post them on Facebook when I first publish them or update them.  A Google+ every now and then,  Pinterest once published and they are linked on my blog as well as one of my websites.  That is the extent of my marketing.  Marketing can be a lost cause at times if Google does not jump on the band wagon.  With a few exceptions, Google will need to be your source of views....

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         1. 90

            Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Dale,
            
            I agree that adding hubs about keywords that were successful for you is beneficial. You can leverage the hubs by linking them to each other, since people interested in one will likely be interested in the other.
            
            I am curious as to the type of changes that would cause a hub to plummet.  Can you give us an example?
            
            Thanks so much for your input.

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               lobobrandonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               That's true Dale, whenever I have a hub that performs well, I really hesitate to update it or make any changes. I've seen that happen to one hub of mine. I managed to get it back up in a month though

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                  Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Ahh..so you have experienced it as well. Took me like almost two months to get two of mine "healthy" again.

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            2. 67

               Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I do link the hubs, Millionaire Tips, when it is appropriate.
               
               As for what may cause a top hub to plummet... I am not sure exactly.  But I did tweak two different ones and it was within a couple of weeks, both fell down in searchs.  I went back and "un-tweaked" them and about two months later they climbed back up.  Overall on those I simply added additional information that had a few keywords in it, nothing more. 
               
               I wish I could come up with a more conclusive answer, but the answers are hard to figure at times, lol.

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   3. 81

      divacratusposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's awesome! Keep up the good work. I have been here for over 3 years and I only have 171 hubs so far. Just very slow with the whole thing, so can't really give you advice. But you seem to be doing fine. Just keep at it and you will get the desired results in due time. Maybe you might want to promote your posts more or interlink related hubs. This can always help in getting more traffic.

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      1. 90

         Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks divacratus.  I do need to link my hubs more to each other.  I do group my hubs so there are at least two links on all my hubs, and I used to have RSS capsules, which are now going away.  I do need more to link the hubs in the text. I do that from time to time but not as often as I should.

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   4. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Considering you started here post-Panda, 100k views is very good going. 
      
      Greekgeek said "One thing I notice when glancing at your hubs is that they look to me like you've researched keywords and picked topics that look like they get good traffic. You're already ahead in doing that, because you've got a web audience in mind (as opposed to, "I'm going to write whatever I feel like and assume other people are interested in it.")
      
      However, I feel like maybe these are not all topics dear to your own heart."
      
      I think this is an important clue.   If you look at Google's definition of quality, they say,
      " Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?"
      
      Who knows how their algorithm checks that, but I guess if every single article on your sub-domain targets a keyword that "ranks well in search engines", that would be a red flag.  Basically what they're saying is, it will count against you if you pick subjects based purely on what people are searching for, rather than what you're expert in.

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      1. 90

         Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you Marisa, I did not know that.  Most of my hub topics are based on my interests - finance, genealogy, and quilting, and on medical issues or other things I researched for myself and loved ones.
         Most of these have not been keyword researched (I am new at that), and even the ones that were don't do very well according to the tool. 
         
         The only ones that are not of my own choosing and based on my interests are the WTI and Exclusive Titles, and I do only the ones that I have enough knowledge to do.
         
         I am curious to know which ones seem forced. I could add other related hubs to keep them company. 
         I had thought about creating separate accounts for niches, but I think that would be too confusing for me.

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         1. 86

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I'm not talking about the Hubs being "forced" and neither is Google in this particular quote.  I'm talking about the practice of choosing the subject and the title based on keyword research, not about how the Hub itself is written.
            
            I confess I didn't analyse your portfolio, I was merely quoting what Greekgeek said about it.  Maybe she got that impression because the Exclusive Titles are featuring more on your profile.    The exclusive titles are chosen as a result of keyword research, after all.

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            1. 90

               Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Sorry Marisa, forced is the wrong word.  That is really interesting, because I thought we were supposed to write hubs that were keyword researched and expected to do well.  The exclusive titles actually don't seem to be things that would do well according to my keyword research, but I wrote them anyway, because the topics seemed interesting.

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   lobobrandonposted 11 years ago

   Hi Shasta, we joined pretty much about the same time and I did love reading your hubs Didn't know you reached that many! Congrats By mid Jan I'll reach the 100k mark if traffic remains steady. But, I guess it should increase in this season a bit.

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   1. 90

      Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Brandon. I enjoy reading your hubs also.  You have a lot more visitors per hub than I do.

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3. 0

   Ghaelachposted 11 years ago

   100.000 views in 12 months. That seems a hell of a lot of views. I read you have 176 hubs, so working things out, it means you have an average of 244 views each day on your hubs alone. I call that very good going. Mind you some hubbers say they have between 500 and 1000 views a day.
   
   I have almost 24 months and a grand total of 10800+ views for 78 hubs. Leaving me with 14.84 views a day on 78 hubs. Not a good average.
   
   Shasta can you let us into your secret!!

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   1. 90

      Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you Ghaelach! I was hoping to get the 500-1000 views or more per day by now.
      
      I don't have a secret.  I took a look at your profile page, and it looks like you need to learn about keywords and SEO.  I don't know much about them, so I recommend reading the Learning Center articles and other hubs about that.  Basically what I do is try to think about how people will be able to find my hub. Your hubs have catchy titles, but not what people would use to search for the hub. For example, "Could this be happening next door"  would be better found if you included "child abuse" in the title, like Facts about Child Abuse or How to Identify Child Abuse.
      
      As a side note, I know you replaced a lot of words with dashes because you were moderated, but I would change out the words.  Instead of The child may express unusual knowledge about ---, I would probably use "adult topics" or something like that so the message gets across without the forbidden words.

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4. 78

   Greekgeekposted 11 years ago

   100K in a year is a feat many hubbers don't yet have the skills and experience to achieve, so you shouldn't knock yourself.
   
   Of course, there are always ways to improve your game!
   
   One thing I notice when glancing at your hubs is that they look to me like you've researched keywords and picked topics that look like they get good traffic. You're already ahead in doing that, because you've got a web audience in mind (as opposed to, "I'm going to write whatever I feel like and assume other people are interested in it.")
   
   However, I feel like maybe these are not all topics dear to your own heart. Sometimes, the best articles you can write are on topics that you find fascinating and know more about than the average joe. Your own passion about the subject will shine through, and your extra knowledge and experience can make it a great, useful article. Combine that passion and expertise with some keyword research to figure out what other people might be looking for related to your topic, and hopefully you can find some topics that YOU know and love, but OTHER people are looking for, which is my personal winning SEO formula.
   
   For what it's worth, I started over with zero hubs and published my hub #1 on 5/3/11, and I'm up to 165,000 traffic since then with 100 hubs.
   
   So, in sum, keep doing what you're doing, because it's working, but just add a few more hubs on things dear to your heart to your repertoire.

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   1. 90

      Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you Ellen.  You're right, 100K is a good number for a year, but I had been hoping to be double that since I worked on writing hubs on a full time instead of a part time basis.
      
      I am curious.  Which topics do you not think are dear to my heart?  You're right, I need to find the topics that I love and other people are looking for, and oftentimes it feels like the topics I love are not the ones that other people are searching for.  I do need to keep trying until I find those topics.
      
      Thank you so much for taking the time to provide an evaluation.

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5. 60

   fpherj48posted 11 years ago

   Well....look at you, Miss 100%!!!  You have definitely put time, effort and talent into your hubs.  I've read quite a few and they've all been excellent....useful, educational, interesting.....all the plus side.   I don't feel exactly qualified to "evaluate," but I'm able to give my opinion.   
   No doubt, as is often said, "we can always improve," and this goes for everything in life...not just writing.   I'll assume you've done the editing-hub-cleaning routine.....going over each hub with a fine-toothed comb.   We can only do this so many time before it becomes ENOUGH, already..   
   If I dare suggest something....I believe you are doing extremely well in every area (certainly in "numbers")   I'm sure most any hubber would be thrilled and proud to have your record.    Could you be in the middle of pushing yourself and greater expectations than is realistic...or at least acceptable?  I'm guessing you're a perfectionist, highly motivated, achiever!   Nothing wrong with this MT....except that you place demands on yourself when it may not be necessary at all.
   You're doing so well......my goodness....EXTREMELY well.
   I understand your "wishes"...and what you may have "expected,"......be a bit kinder to Shasta and relax, to enjoy the accomplishments you've made thus far.  Just think...if you continue at this pace (and no doubt you will)......you'll be a Super Star Hubber!   
   Then you'll have to deal with the papparazzi and all that crap!!!  LOL!   Celebrate your success at this time!.....

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   1. 90

      Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you Paula.  You're right, my expectations may be unrealistic. I just thought if someone could get xx views with yy hubs, I could get twice the traffic with twice the number of hubs. It seems like Google makes me want to keep just my share of the pie no matter how many hubs I have. I don't want to share the pie!
      
      I will go back and scrub my hubs again. I have decided to wait until after the Apprenticeship program is over so I could do it systematically, but for now, I do edit and fix things as I can on my older hubs.
      
      You're right, Paula. I will be kinder to myself and more patient. I am still looking at it as earnings per hour and falling woefully short.   I know I need to stop doing that, but it is harder to do that than I imagined.

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6. 90

   Turtlewomanposted 11 years ago

   Hi Shasta,
   Congrats on reaching yet another milestone! :-)
   I don't think that your expectations are unrealistic at all. In fact, it's great that you're constantly wanting to improve your views and earnings. There's nothing wrong with aiming as high as you want, and working your way there. Unfortunately there is no equation such as if you write yy hubs you'll get xx hubs. To me it seems more like a certain percentage of successful hubs will produce a percentage of your total views. Like Paula said, you're highly motivated...so my best friendly advice to you is to continue producing awesome hubs similar to your most successful hubs. For example, look at your most successful hubs, find a similarity (are they how-to's, top 10, specific niche?) and continue to produce more of them. While it's good to continue to edit some non-performers, why not focus on repeating your success. Hope that makes sense. I'm not here to evaluate your performance...but to let you know that you're awesome, and so are your hubs. Good luck with the AP program! :-)

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   1. 90

      Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Turtlewoman, absolutely it makes sense.  Thank you for taking the time to respond.  You're right, I need to make sure that any hubs I write going forward follow the qualities of my best hubs.  I thought that writing more hubs would give me a bigger chance of winning the Google lottery.  Maybe the next one will be a winner.
      
      I think that it may just be a matter of time.  When I was starting out, my best hub was at a certain level.  As I kept trying out new ideas, my best hub was at a different, higher level, with different qualities.  I think this will continue to be this experimentation all my life, as I may stumble upon a quality, a topic,  a technique, or more likely, a combination of these things that work, and as the world changes.
      Thanks for your feedback.

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7. 68

   ptosisposted 11 years ago

   100k in one year is a whole lot better than how I'm doing. I am not qualified to give you any tips, in fact I would read some of yours and learn from you. I have 77k in 2 years with 60 hubs and only one single hub gets more hits than all others combined. My stuff is dark and brooding because anger motivates me to avoid the gnashing of the teeth and ending up with more gold crowns.
   
   No Joke. Writing is therapy for me. Right now I tried to put 'happy' stuff as featured hubs on my profile for the Christmas season and well, The number 1 hub money maker no longer featured took a huge dive.
   
   If want more hits I would choose your number hitting hub and promote it on forums other than hubpages. That's what I did with my #1 hub 'People Users, Abusers, Manipulators & Sociopaths', I write the hub first then use google keyword tool to add to my tags by using the url when it's already published.

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   1. 90

      Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you ptosis, you're right, I need to spend more time marketing my hubs. I don't do that much at all. I write dark brooding stuff too, but in my journal.  We all need to let our frustrations out, but once it is out, I can focus on writing stuff on HubPages that people might search for.

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      1. 77

         TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Millionaire Tips:  I have read a number of your hubs during my 11 months at HP, and every one I've read has been well presented.
         
         When I first came here I thought it was great that I could write whatever I liked.  I consistently said it wasn't about the money, and it still isn't.  However, money and views go hand in hand so it seems.
         
         Except for a few specialty hubs, my views for the most part have been bad.  Recently I dumped 118 hubs that I felt were not poorly written, but also were not what I think Google wants.
         
         The problem is that Google keeps changing what it wants, and keeping up is very difficult. 
         
         So, now I'm down to 77 hubs after having revamped my entire site to limit my topics.
         
         Have no idea how this will work out but I have noticed a few things:
         
         People who write about tech topics seem to do very well here
         Some who write product reviews do well also
         Poetry, humor and blog type articles don't sell well at all
         
         I suddenly realized awhile back that nobody really cares about my personal philosophies or health issues.  They care about good information from a credible source, so this is what I'm trying to give them.
         
         Will it work out?  Who knows!!  Just thought I'd share my thoughts.  I hover around 30,000 views, which was about what I had prior to dropping 118 hubs off!  Weird, huh?

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         1. 86

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            One thing to be aware of is that spammy sites offering quack remedies are a major problem for Google, and they seem to have reacted by penalizing sites on medical topics, unless they have some sort of authority.

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               TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Marisa Wright:  NOW she tells me!!!  Well, if Google thinks that living 70 years and surviving Cancer and a bunch of other illnesses doesn't give me the authority to write about them then poop on them!  I am so sick of getting slapped down by Google because they can't tell the difference between whose credible and who isn't!

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  As I said on another thread, the problem is that Google's robots aren't clever enough to judge what's a quack remedy article and what's a genuine personal experience that can help other sufferers.   So they resort to a "sledgehammer to crack a nut" approach, and there's a lot of collateral damage (i.e. good websites suffer as well as the bad).

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                     TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Marisa Wright:  I get it, I do, but there is something so wrong about doing things this way.  I understand that Google is trying to protect readers and that's a good thing, but the way they're doing it is keeping people from getting some really good help from others who have learned how to alleviate some of their suffering.  I may wind up dropping some of my health related hubs for self protection from Google, but it's really going to hurt emotionally to do so.  I see so many people suffering needlessly simply because they don't know how to do very basic things that seem like common sense, but are so much more.  When did Google start doing this?

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                     1. 86

                        Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        It's in their Quality guidelines which are several months old now.
                        
                        The thing is that Google isn't saying you have to be a doctor.  It's just that if they see medical stuff mixed in with advice on other topics, that's an indication the person giving advice isn't qualified.  So one way round it is to start your own blog on Blogger, exclusively for that subject.  If you can afford to spend $10 on a proper domain name related to the illness, that will help your "authority", it's not hard to attach one to a Blogger blog.

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         2. 90

            Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I can see how blog posts, humor, poetry and other fiction would be difficult to rank, since most people wouldn't go specifically searching for it.
            
            I do have health articles, and hope that they do okay, since they are well researched, based on personal experience, and don't offer just one solution.  It does make me nervous to have them there though.

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8. 0

   GoldenThreadPressposted 11 years ago

   MT: I'm not sure the secret of success, except that I have been trying to reach over the 100 per day mark since August. I only got over this level twice by submitting my new Hub URLs to Google. I would be interested in help, too. I write on a variety of subjects that I know well, and Google places me on the first page or second for many of them. Traffic isn't coming in. I've tried Amazon, no go. Even on my personal website, I have posted similar quality articles, no go. I have tried looking at keywords and included these in my Hubs. Again, no go. I've edited until I've been blue in the face, no go. Got accolades, and even nominated for two Rising Stars--again, no go. Social media--the same. So, what can I do? 100,000 would look very nice about right now, MT. I look to you for suggestions--I think you've found the Holy Grail!--Deb

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   1. 90

      Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I don't know the answer Golden Thread Press.  I have been here got more than a year and have written almost 300 hubs (a lot of them were about HubPages, and I have unpublished most of those).  I am trying every strategy I can think of - learning to write proper searchable titles, learn how to use keywords, make the hubs rich in content and graphics, market my hubs, have a big presence everywhere, go back and improve the content in my older hubs as I learn more stuff, etc.  I am hoping that the bigger the presence on one site, the more of an expert I can prove myself to be, even if it is on a lot of different topics.
      
      My definition of quality keeps changing, which I think is good, since I keep raising the bar for myself.  Other than that, I think it is a bit of luck as well.
      
      I have 11 hubs that regularly do well, and I hope to get a larger number of them, if only I could figure out what their characteristics are.  Two of those are really not evergreen, so it will be a tough climb.

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         MT:  I think all of these things are the reasons why your numbers are so high.  One suggestion?  Limit your number of topics.  I used to think writing about everything under the sun was great, but my reads weren't so hot.  I've cut way back and things are getting better.  I have dumped 118 hubs and have 78 left with around 30,000 views right now after the cuts.  Before the cuts, I only had 32,000 views!!  There's a message there I think!  Good luck.

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            Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I have often thought of opening another account and writing about different topics there - to keep each account all in one niche.  Unfortunately of my top 11 hubs, all of them are about completely different topics, and I can't see anything that ties them together! So for now, I keep writing around the subjects and hope to leverage those 11, but it takes patience.

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               TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Choose your best ones then write articles you can attach to them to create a niche and link all of them together.  If you leave those 11 as orphans they won't go anywhere, but if you create a niche around them, all of them will do better.  I've just now started doing this and things seem better but I'm waiting until my removed hubs are de indexed to see if my numbers hold.

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