I woke up this morning and one of my Hubs (Visiting Fort Myers Beach, Florida) was unFeatured. Normally, it's no mystery why a Hub is unFeatured, as the ones that fall into that category have no traffic. However this one has decent traffic. The traffic is not great by many Hubber's standards, but enough to indicate that it has a heartbeat, which is what HubPages recently said is why Hubs are unFeatured, because there is no heartbeat. It is also well written and has plenty of pictures. It was also unFeatured at a most inconvient time, in the middle of South Florida vacation season when people are actually searching for terms like "Visiting Fort Myers Beach". This is what is upsetting Hubbers about this unFeature / NOINDEX program.
This is the recent traffic for Visiting Fort Myers Beach, Florida:
1 day 2
7 days 9
30 days 15
Could anyone at HubPages staff explain why this Hub was unFeatured?
I share your frustration. I just had a hub go idle that has had traffic recently and another stay featured that has had less traffic. Both hubs are seasonal in nature. I know there is talk of tweaking the idle process so seasonal hubs aren't hurt as badly, but no official word when that might happen. In the meantime I'm trying to decide whether to edit and try to get the hub featured again, or give up and move it elsewhere. It is hard to know what to do!
Thanks Jenn-Anne. From what I've been reading here over the past month, many high quality Hubbers are struggling with the same decision you are regarding editing a Hub or moving it elsewhere to avoid this idling policy. This is the first time I've seen a Hub of mine idled (unFeatured) that had decent traffic, so I was scratching my head this morning?!? What to do? The Hub is getting traffic and it doesn't have any quality issues (ironically, this is the one and only Hub I ever submitted for quality review on the section of the forums that is set up for that). I'm not sure what else HubPages wants us to do to keep Hubs from being idled? To make matters worse, this Hub is about a topic people are searching for this time of the year (which is why it's getting some traffic), so the unFeature couldn't have happened at a worse time.
I was told recently that hubs with 35 or less views in 30 days have a good chance of being un-featured.
I do note that Simone keeps on saying that this IS being reviewed "We're still adjusting the manner in which Hubs may lapse out of Featured status for traffic reasons," - so hopefully it will become a less important factor....
That's a pretty high hurdle to get over for each and every Hub, but if we at least officially know what the hurrdle is that knowledge would help guide us here at HubPages (or perhaps help some Hubbers decide to move their work elsewhere).
I don't think it is the only factor as I have other Hubs that have less views still featured - I think it's just one of the multiple 'tests' that a hub must fail in order to be un-featured...
I highly doubt that you will ever be given any specific number. To make that knowledge public will just mean that it will be gamed - you might ask a few friends, for instance, to visit a hub just to get those last few visits for the month.
A little more traffic to HubPages from people's friends. What a shame! Keeping up with all this idling stuff is just a distraction from what most people came to HubPages to do: write and publish online. This was a well intentioned policy that has been poorly implemented, partly because it was misrepresented as an effort to improve the quality of Hubs, when it has now been revealed that it is traffic, not quality, that causes Hubs to become idled. Just give people a fair warning to make changes and keep the traffic bar low enough so it is reasonable, and I think they'd find few Hubbers complaining or deleting their work and moving elsewhere.
Just a suggestion, but keep an eye on your stats. Sort them by the 30 day column.
When you see one that isn't averaging 60 views per month, edit and improve it. I highly doubt you'll have anything idled for traffic reasons.
If, on the other hand, you want your hubs to be at the rock bottom of the grading system then I would say you are wanting the game the system rather than provide hubs that actually work. Which is what I was trying to get at; given specific information people will game the system to remain just inside the accepted borders, which is not the purpose of setting those limits in the first place.
How many of those visits were from a search engine? How many come from HubPages? From yourself? It probably matters a great deal where the traffic is coming form.
Just because a Hub post is not featured does not mean it is not there. I get traffic on various post which are not featured. But, I run links to them from other sources rather than relying only on HubPages. If it's not featured that just means it isn't found in a search on THIS site. I really don't place a lot of importance on the Featured thing because I can pull in my own traffic as long as the post is still on the site. Which is also another reason I have them all visible in my profile - that's the link I share in my writer profile on other sites. Featured or not, the links are then findable through my Hub profile.
While I agree with you that it's important to post links to Hubs elsewhere, getting the unFeatured slapped on a Hub has consequences far beyond just losing a feature on HubPages. When a hub is unFeatured, it eventually gets a NOINDEX tag attached to it, which tells Google to not index the page, which can be very bad for hub traffic. I hadn't done anything recently to promote this Hub, so the traffic appeared to by organic Google traffic, and if it gets the NOINDEX tag attached to it that will be impossible. I just updated it, so hopefully I will avoid the NOINDEX tag. I do want to know per HP's guidelines why this hub was unFeatured?
Hi Rock_nj! Sorry for any frustration and confusing. The QAP is still very much a work in progress.
I see you've already edited this Hub, so it will once again be Featured for a while.
We're still adjusting the manner in which Hubs may lapse out of Featured status for traffic reasons, so it's not useful for me to explain what's going on with specific time frames and numbers, but the key to your situation (and what you should focus on most with this and all Hubs) is making it more search-friendly.
A lot of that has to do with the title, so that's where I'd start. Did you look at the competition for the keyword you're targeting in your title when you started the Hub? How does your Hub rank for that keyword now? What can you do to beat the present competition that's beating you?
Are you being flooded out by location results? Sometimes there's just no beating those, so you'd want to re-target your title.
At any rate, those are a bunch of things to consider. Hope that helps a bit!
I think the question is more a long the lines of: if it isn't low quality, and it is getting traffic, on what basis is it idled?
Will all our hubs now need to get multiple hits every day to stay non-idled? Because that would wipe out about half my hubs. So it is worrying.
I don't understand why certain hubs are unFeatured. One of my hubs has over 130 comments and it gets consistant views, yet it is unFeatured! Go figure.
35 hits in 30 days? If that sticks I might as well quit now.
I just checked back - it was 35 hits in two months - so on average 17 hits a month - the hub probably had diminishing returns so the most recent month probably had less...
Okay, that is much more do-able. [Suspending premature panic mode].
by Nathan Bernardo 9 years ago
On a different account, somewhat "experimental" account, one of my Hubs is unfeatured. Generally my inclination was to unpublish it and move it or just delete it. But I kept it and put it in a Hub group. Meaning, if the Hubs before and after it get traffic, possibly the unfeatured one...
by qeyler 6 years ago
I've been writing here for quite a few years, I go back to the ancient era before the 'featured' 'not featured' declension.I have found that 'fixing' a Hub which is not featured is a total waste of time, as in a day or so, after a fix, it is back to unfeatured. I did an experiment and I can...
by Faith Reaper 10 years ago
I am just curious, all 92 hubs of mine are featured. In your opinion, should one delete (although Featured) any hubs where the score on a particular hub has eventually dropped way down from when it was initially high at one point? Or would it be better to just unpublish and later...
by Lena Kovadlo 9 years ago
I just logged into my account and noticed that I have close to 30 hubs that are unfeatured due to engagement? Why did this happen all of a sudden? Is there anything I can do to make them featured again?
by John Hansen 8 years ago
I have only ever had one featured hub before but when I checked my account today I was shocked to find I have 13 in featured hubs due to low engagement. This is proof that traffic has fallen greatly. It's not just my lowest scoring hubs either..it is right across the board. Is anyone else...
by Alison Graham 10 years ago
I logged in to Hubpages this morning to find that whereas previously, I had two unfeatured hubs that I have been intending to get around to editing or deleting, I now have 25 UNFEATURED for "lack of engagement".Whilst I appreciate that the older hubs may well need some work or in some...
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