Featured hubs vs non-featured hubs and Google Traffic

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   lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago

   If a hub is not featured does that mean that it doesn't get any search engine traffic from Google or other search engines?

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That is correct.  It carries a noindex tag, preventing the search engines from including it in their index and thereby in any search results.

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         lovebuglenaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for the info. That's what I thought but needed a reassurance. Now I have another question. What determines if a hub gets featured or not? I have published hubs that I think are great quality hubs yet they are not featured and was wondering why that is.

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            summerberrieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            If the hub is good quality and has passed the QAP, then it is de-indexed from google based on not meeting HP traffic threshold.

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            Randy Godwinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            They probably don't get much traffic so they are designated as "low quality."

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               startupsoldposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Write hubs that are at least five hundred words, I have a hub about this.

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                  Randy Godwinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  The amount of words used is of very little significance these days.  Sorry you are mistaken about this.  Most of my hubs are a thousand words or more and some are still being idled. 

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               2. 87

                  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  If you have a Hub about this, then you're misleading people.
                  
                  If a new Hub is not featured, it's because it's too short or is otherwise poor quality.
                  
                  If a Hub that's been published for a while suddenly becomes not featured, then it has nothing to do with length or quality.  It's due to lack of traffic, period.

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                     Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Or other reasons.
                     
                     I wrote a hub recently that was long enough and lovely enough - but did not get passed.
                     
                     No reason offered.
                     
                     It is likely that it was the subject matter - but there was no explanation for that.
                     
                     So yeah.  Lots of words and pictures and quizzes and, and, and.  Acres of generic dross should do it.

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                  startupsoldposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  What I meant was writing at least 500 words is one of the considerations in getting your hub featured, another is quality of your hub and of course page views/traffic.

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            Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            The idling program was to clear the site of spam originally and low quality hubs.  But it has changed now and focuses soley on hubs that do not meet the "new" ever changing HP threshold.  I have had many hubs.....I do believe now, over 30, idled.
            
            All have been over 500 words, and well written and 95 percent with what I consider decent views.
            
            What really determines if a hub is idled is actually a mystery.  HP has put a "bot" in charge and the bot apparently has a mind of its own.
            
            The reasoning and explanation from HP changes quite often in regards to just about anything these days, lol..   
            
            Yes, idled hubs become invisible to Google as well as ALL other search engines.

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               lovebuglenaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Whatever the real reason for making hubs idol it is frustrating to say the least.

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                  Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Another reason the idling was created was so we'd keep our hubs updated. If you write a good hub, sometimes you end up with just blabber trying to add to it That's a bad idea. Changing titles helps sometimes and sometimes not.

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                     wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     I'm no mind reader, but I don't think updating them for freshness was the idea.
                     
                     Rather it was updating them to the point that they would earn traffic.  Changing a word or two, although effective to become featured, won't increase your traffic.

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                     Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     That's a bad reason to have an idle program.  Sometimes a good piece of artwork is done, and writing is a form of art.  When a good painting is done, does the artist go back six months later and update it?  The idle program is driven by traffic, not by quality.  Sometimes adding blather to hubs just to update them turns a concise and well written hub into something of lesser quality.  The idle program is about traffic, not quality.
                     
                     Imagine how hard it would be for someone with hundreds or thousands of hubs to keep up with the idle program?  It distracts from writing new material.  This is likely why so many writers are leaving HubPages.  A warning from HubPages would be just fine and helpful, rather than an unFeature and NOINDEX tag.

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                        Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        I certainly do agree!
                        
                        This morning, the one Exclusive titled hub that I had was idled.  No way to change the title even if I wanted to.  So much for exclusive titles/hubs.  It was a basic hub about Kindles and was a review of various Kindles for students.  This is my first review to be idled, but makes my 40th hub to be idled.
                        
                        Not a pleasant way to start off my day over my first cup of coffee, lol.   
                        
                        You know it is not a matter of some of us choosing to leave HP, but as they kill our material, THEY are moving us away from HP.  I feel by year's end I will basically be gone from here as I will only have a couple of hubs left. 
                        
                        HP is not idling an average of two of my hubs a week.

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                        Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        I agree. A warning would be better.

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            2. 87

               Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Dale, if you have an existing Hub that's been published for a while and it gets idled, it's due to lack of traffic.  There's no confusion or mystery on that score.  Derek stated it very clearly on one thread, and Simone also confirmed it on another thread.  I know that wasn't the official line when the program was first announced, but I believe hat was just corporate "spin" and the subsequent statements of Simone and Derek reflect the reality.

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                  Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  I am just skeptical, Marisa.  We had one explaination at the beginning, and another now.  Since then we have the explaination given by those you mention.  However, I simply don't know what to believe here, as that could change as well. 
                  
                  I rermember the same type of changes when we went to the new profile.  I have seen the same kind of changes with the explanations about traffic on sub-domains and the main site.
                  
                  I was not born skeptical, but when I see explainations changing on various occassions, that comes forth, being skeptical.
                  
                  You know what really concerns me?  Is how long it is taking for this site to return to the norm of say a year ago on the various levels.

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                     Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     I was also sceptical, Dale, but Derek's initial post, revealing it was all about traffic, struck me as fundamentally honest.  In fact, as Summerberrie also observed, I was astonished at its frankness and wondered if he'd get torn off a strip for apparently "letting the cat out of the bag".   Since then, I've become convinced the original "quality' blurb was just the official line, which HubPages management thought would upset people less than the truth!

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               brianrockposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Could you provide some numbers about what you consider "decent views"? I'm curious to see some data on that front. I've only had two hubs idled so far, and they were both in the single digits for 30 day views.

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                  Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  I wish I could quote you stats, but those hubs have been deleted and the stats are no longer available.  I have had one that I remember that averaged 10 to 20 daily views and it was idled.  That would be low end decent views in my thoughts as it was an informative hub about a Native American Cherokee chief I worked and trained under.

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                     wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Six hundred views per month and it was idled?  I've never seen anything over 30 per month be idled for traffic reasons.
                     
                     That actually sounds more like a "quality" problem in that it tripped something in the QAP.  Too personal maybe?

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                     DrMark1961posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Even if it was only 300 (10/day) do you not think this is something worth saving?

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                     brianrockposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Do you have Google analytics tracking installed? The data would still be in your Analytics account even if the hub has been deleted.

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                        Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        I do have that, but to take the time at this time is not possible.  I have five computers up and running and doing various updates and repairs, lol.  I will say that many of the idled hubs were getting traffic daily.

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            suramyakhposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            More engaging content - get the readers to play with your hub. Polls, quizzes, add a YouTube video, ask the writers to vote for their favorite coffee (only if you have a hub on coffee though, you get the idea!)

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      lovebuglenaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I am curious to know this... if a hub is idle for a while but traffic picks up can the hub become featured again without me editing it?

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         psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         As far as I know: no.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         If a Hub is idle for a while, traffic can't pick up.  That's because it's semi-private - people will have to see a link on another site, or you'll have to send them a link, in order for them to visit it.  No matter how much outside linking you do, that's not going to give you enough traffic to bring it out of idle on its own.

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            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            It might - another thread is reporting 6,000 daily views from pinterest to one hub.
            
            Might win the lottery, too...

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               Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Lol, that  I would have to see to believe.

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                  wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Well, people do win the lottery, and hubs do go viral. 
                  
                  I'm still waiting for [/i]my[/i] turn at either, though...

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                     psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     But I don;t think going viral makes an idle hub featured again.  It is a one way trip unless you edit the hub.

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         janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         according to the learning centre an idled hub could be featured again if HP change its criteria - quality or traffic thresholds - my interpretation.

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   Gypsy Rose Leeposted 11 years ago

   Looking over these posts it leaves me with one very important question if anyone would care to respond. What should be done with our idle hubs? Kept, changed, deleted or just ignored?

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      Casimiroposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      If kept, and traffic to them is low (like zero),  you are going to have to change the content somehow to get them re-featured.
      If they still get decent traffic due to, say, strong backlinks, then perhaps ignore them. AFAIK, idled hubs still receive revenue from ads.
      Deleting them just for cleaning house doesn't matter (yet). If you want to publish them elsewhere, then delete, and either wait for Google to clear them from their cache (or push the process via their tools) before you put them on another site.

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   Bake Like a Proposted 11 years ago

   Does "idle" mean hubs that have no traffic or no comments Gypsy?

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      psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      "Idle" is another word for "not featured"

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   Gypsy Rose Leeposted 11 years ago

   Those hubs which are not featured. That have no big black H beside them. Now I have another question Can we post these idle or sleeping or not featured hubs where we like - FB or some other site???

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      Bake Like a Proposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Gypsy.

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, of course - AFTER they are gone from HubPages.  You own the content, after all.  Featured or not, however, HP still requires that content be unique to HP and not copied somewhere else.

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      lovebuglenaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      You can publish your idle hubs elsewhere but before you do that you have to unpublish these idle hubs or delete them from your account altogether.

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      lovebuglenaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Come to think of it you don't have to unpublish or delete the idle hubs from hubpages to publish the same content elsewhere. Your idle hubs will just be flagged for duplicate content and maybe unpublished by HubPages themselves. Of course that is not a good idea to do as duplicate content is not allowed in the first place.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         If the article was on HubPages first, HubPages would not unpublish it.  They would just give you a duplicate content warning.

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   jaimin016posted 11 years ago

   thanks for info

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   monisays2uposted 11 years ago

   Hi Dale Hyde,
   I read one of your article "Who are God and Goddess". It was exceptionally well written. I don't know whether it was idled by HP or not, but if this is the quality it should have been preserved by HP irrespective of the traffic. These well written articles act as a gem for any website.

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      Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That is the crux of the problem with the idle program.  It is driving away good writers and causing well written articles to be deleted and moved elsewhere.

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      Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This was a recent idle and deleted and moved elsewhere.  I do not like to do this, but at times just feel that no choice is given.  This is a hub that can not actually be "updated" on a regular basis.  It contained what I call "static" material....educational and informative.  Changing it around periodically simply would not make sense and that is what is deemed here of late.
      
      I am glad you had the opportunity to view the hub and thank you for the kind words, monisays2u! 
      Any of my deleted hubs can be seen on my link to my site from the upper right of my profile page.

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   GinnyLeeposted 11 years ago

   But the idle program did take out a large chunk of junk hubs. Did the benefit of that outweigh the cons of the collateral damage?

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      psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Traffic per hub seems about the same to me.  I just lose a lot of time resuscitating hubs.

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      Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think only HubPages management could properly answer that.   My opinion is that if they wanted to scrub HubPages of the junk hubs, it could have been done in a way that didn't irritate existing writers and cause them to move well written articles to other places on the Internet, and in some cases close their account with HubPages.

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         wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Suggestions?  Although the current program is in place and being worked on, I'd bet HP is always open to ideas...

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            psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            My suggestion would be to not idle hubs based on traffic alone, as seems to be the case. Quality but low traffic hubs should be permitted.
            
            But not knowing how idling and QAP specifically work, that is speculation.

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               wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I agree.  Just don't know how to define OR detect poor quality outside of low traffic, which also picks up high quality but low traffic hubs.

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                  Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Isn't that what the QAP is all about?  Grading the quality of Hubs?

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            Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            A week or two warning before slapping a Hub with NOINDEX would be fine with me.  Also, some adjustments to the idling program criteria, so that seasonal hubs are not idled due to seasonal factors and new hubs are given more time to gain traction.  One problem with the idle program that can't be rectified easily is that some hubs get popular when their topic is in the news.  They aren't seasonally driven, but news driven, and the idle program can't account for that, but nothing is perfect.

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               wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               There has been lots of chatter lately about modifying the idling process, both for seasonal hubs and new hubs.  Not sure if anything has been implemented yet, but I do know that I've not had a seasonal hub idled for some time, and some of them have near zero traffic. 
               
               Notice might help - I just take a look at any hubs with less than 30 views per month.  New or seasonal hubs ignore, any old hubs with that poor of traffic number may need tweaked in order not to be idled.
               
               It would be kind of nice to do a dual sort on the stats page - 30 day traffic AND date of production - but it just takes seconds to scan 170 hubs anyway so not a big deal.

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                  DrMark1961posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  wilderness I think you are oversimplifying the process. I have a hub about African fritters (we call them acarajé) and it gets about 5 PV per month and has never been idled, nor have I ever bothered to edit it. I think it is not idled because there are not many pages with that recipe (in English). So I do not think HP wants to idle everything based on a simple number, like 30 PVs per month.

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                     wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Sorry, I didn't make myself very clear.  I've got similar hubs - hubs that have under 20 views per month or less and that aren't being idled.
                     
                     I have not, however, seen anything with more than 30 go idle.  Ergo - edit and tweak everything under 30 and you will never have an idle hub.  Looking at my own stats, I have around 40 hubs at under 30 views per month.  Scanning down that list, there are only a couple that isn't either new or seasonal; those I'll tweak as necessary, or at least keep an eye on.
                     
                     You could be right in the reason it isn't idled, but I highly doubt it.  HP isn't going to search the web for that recipe, find few in english and give you a "bye" on the idling as a result.  But yes, there is much more to the idling than a simple traffic number.  Maybe 1 or 2 per week is enough - they've often mentioned they want a "heartbeat" out of a hub and 20 in one day followed by 29 days of zero may not cut it.

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                        DrMark1961posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        wilderness, your suggestion on using 30 PVs per month seems really good, and I think it should be 30 search engine page views, not just other hubbers checking your stuff.
                        I never used the keyword tool before I hit 100,000 but, since I am trying to make 200,000 before I finish a year, I have been checking all of my old titles. Those that have been idled have ZERO searches on Google, so even if they had a few PVs, none of them were due to searches (and they were all showing less than 30 PVs/month)
                        In my case, at least, the idle hub program has helped since it pointed out those hubs with poor titles (at least to the search engines). I could complain about this, as the title is appropriate, like "How to train your dog to wait at the door" but instead I changed it. It now has a faint heartbeat.

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   Barbara Kayposted 11 years ago

   Here's my question. What if Google decided to do another Panda type move? Maybe call it Grizzly Bear, that's a better name anyways, because they are mean. They decide they don't like Hubpages and all the traffic goes down.  Every hub gets idled and Hubpages gets no traffic. Then what? What a mistake!

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   Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

   If Google has a system that penalizes sites or pages with low traffic (regardless of high quality) it makes sense to keep Google from seeing pages they would use to lower the rankings of a subdomain. Google mostly reacts to traffic (that's what drives their revenue), so why would they rank a site on the front page if it didn't have a track record of getting hits?
   
   But after that. It becomes circular - how do you get views if your page is deindexed? 
   
   At least we can edit hubs to juice them up - but at some point, we are editing and re-editing work that is already good.
   
   I hope we get a few more details from staff on how this all works. But they may wait until after this weekend's Panda-monium.

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      Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Actually, Google wants searchers to find relevant and quality information.  That is why the Panda and Penguin updates were implemented.  Google may consider higher traffic pages to have more relevant and quality information since more people are looking at them, but as we all know that is not always the case.

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      Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Marcy, I've been here 3 years and at one point Google did decide they didn't like Hubpages. That is when the sub-domains were created so the entire site wouldn't be punished. Some writers profited from the move and some didn't. Some of those that didn't get traffic back were the better writers on the site. It did improve my traffic though and many others. With Google, you never know what can happen. I hate it.

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    Robinposted 11 years ago

    Just to clarify,   our threshold for applying the no index tag to Hubs is a couple of visits per month from search engines.  Your HubPages referred traffic is not considered in this number.  Our threshold is actually incredibly low.  Hubs that are no longer Featured are less than 1% of total traffic on HubPages.  That is not to say that it isn't frustrating and surprising when one of your Hubs is no longer Featured.  We are working on a way to let you know when a Hub is close to losing its Featured status. 
    
    I mentioned in another thread that we know that sites that have recovered from Panda have drastically cut their indexed pages.  I think we all want the site to be healthier, and we know that this is one way to do it - albeit frustrating at times. 

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       Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Not sure I understand about the search engine traffic, Robin.  The Kindle hub shows a total of 7 hits from search engines during the last 30 days.  These were all from the various Google search engines from various parts of the geographic world.

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          Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I see that, Dale.  I'm checking on your particular Hub and trying to get clarification.  I would definitely republish this Hub.  Again, I completely understand your frustration on it not being Featured as I think it would pass the QAP and be Featured because of quality.  I'll let you know when I find out more information. 

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          Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I find her statement about the couple (2) search engine hits per month threshold for idling hubs to be hard to believe, unless this is a very recent policy change.  I had a hub about Visiting Fort Myers Beach, FL idled last month that was getting well over 2 Google hits per month (7 or 8 Google hits per month immediately before it was idled and twice that from other sources), and it was idled in February, in the middle of the South Florida vacation season, when people are searching for information about Visiting Fort Myers Beach, Florida   .

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             Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             It's kinda strange to be referred to as "her".    Hello, Rock_nj.  I'm Robin.  Nice to meet you!    I don't believe there has been a policy change.  When I looked at your Fort Myers Hub, I noticed that it has received exactly two hits from Google in the last month and 17 hits from search engines since its publish date in early October.  That sounds about right to me in regard to it not being Featured due to traffic.  There is a bit of a nuance to the calculation as we look at a few months, not just one, so our numbers are not exact.  That is the reason that I was a bit vague; I'm not trying to be obtuse!  Because this Hub could be seen as seasonal, it would benefit from a "heads up" message from us that your Hub may lose its Feature status, and we are working on that.  Hopefully, once you make it through the Hub's season, you will receive enough traffic and you will be able to sustain that traffic throughout the year.    Again, pleasure making your acquaintance. 

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                Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Sorry about the gender mistake.  I had a "girl friend" (not girlfriend) named Robin that I knew for years, so I that's what I think of when I hear the name.  Thanks for looking at my Hub and clarifying the situation a bit more.  I'm not sure why Google hits, versus Yahoo hits or Bing hits are weighted differently.  Also, if traffic is driven from backlinks, that should be considered too.  The hub has a heartbeat, whether Google is responsible for it or not. 
                
                This hub actually highlights one of the faults with the idle program.  There are a lot of warm weather places to visit in the wintertime.  Fort Myers Beach, Florida is just one of many, so it is not going to get excessive search engine traffic; however, it can be a very informative and useful article for those who are looking for such information, if it hasn't been idled because it's not a popular search term.

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                   brianrockposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   I don't know that Google hits are treated separately from Yahoo and Bing. If you look back at Robin's post, she refers specifically to "17 hits from search engines," implying that all search engines are considered, not just Google.
                   
                   As for backlinks, though, it makes sense that they aren't considered in the idling process. Idling pertains to indexing, which pertains completely to search engines. If a page is de-indexed, it's still there; you can still reach it with a backlink. There's nothing blocking referral traffic from coming. You're just telling search engines not to index it...
                   
                   And if it wasn't getting any search engine visits at all, what's the point in indexing it? Once upon a time, there was an Internet before Google. As hard as that is to believe.

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                   Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   Oh!  I'm a girl!!  Ha. That actually made me laugh out loud!  I was just introducing myself, and I don't think we've ever really interacted on the Forums before.  I have had my head down in Apprenticeship land for the last year, so I've been a bit out of the general Forums.   
                   
                   I don't believe we look at search engines separately when assessing traffic.  I was referring to all of your search traffic.  I'm sure that Fort Myers is a popular search term.  When I googled your title, the sites that ranked high were dedicated to Fort Myers, Florida, or Trip Advisor.  When I looked at these sites they weren't that great, but Google sees a site with multiple pages about one topic with the url for that topic and many times it gives it priority.  Have you thought about changing your title a bit to a less competitive term?  It's just a friendly suggestion. 

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                      Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      Thanks.  I will look into changing the title to something more search friendly; although since it is getting some hits from search engines, perhaps I need to look at other SEO aspects and backlinks to rank higher in Google.  I don't want to trade a title that gets some hits for one that gets no hits from search engines.  I am now looking at titles and search terms a lot more these days using Google AdWords than when I started with HubPages.  My latest hubs are titled based on my AdWords research, so I'll see how they do.

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                         Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         It is most likely that the traffic that you are receiving from search is from keywords in your text, not from the keywords in your title.  So, I don't think that changing your title would hurt you.  If you are going to do anything outside of working on your Hub to improve its chances, I recommend using social media.  We think that Google looks at a Hub's social media links as an indicator if an article is worthy of search traffic, e.g., number of likes, pins, Google+s, etc.

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       janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I think this opens up a whole can of worms
       "is a couple of visits per month from search engines"
       I have a just IDLED hub that was published in January 2013, that has received 111 total hits, 10 from search engines. It has 25 from Pinterest - which presumably earns page view income via the ad program, and the rest from social media pages that do likewise. Is it fair to idle this fledgling hub which is strutting its stuff and earning a few pennies so far?

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          Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Hi, janderson.  I'm not trying to open a can of worms- quite the opposite! I'm trying to make things clearer for the community.  I'm not sure if you have been following the other thread where I have been posting.  We are working on a way to help high-quality Hubs and our trusted authors with this process of removing Hubs from the index because of traffic.  My point of the last post is that we are working really hard to make the process better and know there is more work to do.  However, we feel it is extremely important that we remove Hubs from the index that are either low quality or have minimal traffic.  Many times these two factors are related, but sometimes in Dale's case and probably yours, it is not.  I realize you have A LOT of Hubs to look after - amazing! - so keeping track of them is probably close to a full time job.  Hopefully, in the next few months we will have ways to make it easier.   Let me know if I'm confusing the matter even more - probably a difficult thing to do! 

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             Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             I shall follow your wisdom, Robin, and give it a few months.

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          brianrockposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Well, idling doesn't prevent you from driving traffic via social media, does it...? Nor does social media traffic suggest that a hub has any kind of search engine gravity.
          
          So why should social media traffic (Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, whatever) maintain a hub's featured status in the absence of any significant search engine traffic?

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             janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             A Hit is a Hit
             Money is Money
             If someone gets to a page via a social media link (and Pinterest), and clicks an ad, both HP and the author benefit.
             Surely the total number of hits is a measure of the popularity of the page and that it is attracting traffic. HP want to promote popular pages. HP suggests writers build links to get traffic - so why does it not count this traffic as hits .
             Does HP count Bing and other search engine hits?

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                brianrockposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that idling made a hub no-index. It has no impact on it's status in the Ad Program. Therefore, those views still count towards earnings, right?
                
                And no, different sources of traffic are different. What is popular on social media may not be popular in a search engine. People may click on a social media link because they follow you, and they see an interesting title... but that title (and the content) is not searchable in any way, shape or form.
                
                Unless your hub is unpublished (because of a ToS violation), you'll still display ads to visitors, so you'll earn money from referral traffic. Idling the hub simply removes it from the search index, which is no-harm-no-foul if you're already getting no significant search engine traffic.

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                   janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   Idled Hubs do not appear in the Topic Lists on HP or any other listing on the site (not even on the Profile of the Author chooses not to display them). Which hub should be displayed in the Topics - one that receives 10,000 hits from social media and 2 search engine hits (total 10,002), or one that receives 5 social media hits and 5 search engine hits (total 5)? Which is more important to HP one that earns $100 or one that earns $0.01?

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                      brianrockposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      If a hub gets 10,000 social media hits and 2 search engine hits, I'll vote it worthless in the long term. It has no searchable title/content, and as soon as the viral frenzy dies down (i.e. a few days), it will once again be non-existant.
                      
                      But, again, both will earn money through the Ad Program. So you and HubPages will both earn money, whether it's $100 or $0.01. Although, as a point of order, 10,000 hits would earn you more along the lines of $30 than $100.
                      
                      And if you write a hub that nets you 10,000 views from HubPages as a referral please let me know. I'd like to see some verified some statistics about that.
                      
                      Hubpages views are inconsequential, and referral views are not impacted by idling. So again, idling really only impacts search engine views. So no search engine views, and no-harm-no-foul.

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                         janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         "If a hub gets 10,000 social media hits and 2 search engine hits, I'll vote it worthless in the long term."
                         
                         From the Learning Center:
                         
                         "Featured Hubs are Hubs that our Quality Assessment Process has determined to have high quality and potential for reader engagement. These Hubs are showcased on Hubs, Topic Pages, the latest Hubs list and also made available to search engines."
                         
                         I don't agree, because this page should be Featured, Should be in the Topics !! and Indexed!!!. Its popular!!! Get Real!
                         Have a Nice Day.
                         Cheers!
                         Down Scope!

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                            brianrockposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                            Why? If it's not featured, you can still send your social media traffic. But if it's not getting any search engine traffic, why does it need to be indexed and featured?
                            
                            You're making an assertion, but not supporting it. I don't see why it should be indexed at all by Google.
                            
                            Let's say you make a post titled, "OMG These Pics Are Awesome!!!"
                            
                            You post it to Pinterest with an uber-cool thumbnail. You have lots of followers. Everyone clicks on it. The post is worthless. People clicked because it had a cool thumbnail (perhaps a scantily clad woman), and they're highly disappointed at the lack of worthwhile content (leading to zero backlinks and a high bounce rate).
                            
                            Is there any worth to the content? Nope. Did it legitimately drive lots of social media traffic? Yup. Did you earn HubPages Ad Programs earnings? Yup.
                            
                            Should this be in Google? Umm, no.
                            
                            But the bottom line is, if a Hub isn't attracting search engine traffic why does it need to be in the search engine index? Saying a hub is "high quality" doesnt' answer that question in any meaningful way. There are billions of websites out there, millions of websites for most queries, and only a few dozen websites that will get search visits for a given query. If you're not in those top few websites, then really what's the point?
                            
                            [Random aside: The percentage of clicks/visits from HubPages itself is negligent, so I don't see how that factors in at all. Show me some statistics about how many referrals you get from HubPages to prove me wrong, please.]

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       Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Robin - what I'm reading here is that traffic from Google is viewed differently than internal traffic or other views. And you're saying Google views it differently (in terms of page rank, etc.) as well?
       
       Can you verify that, and expand on it a bit - meaning, what Google does to us if our views aren't coming through their golden portals?  In other words, if we have hubs that just plain aren't destined for Google traffic (poems might be an example), are we making things worse in terms of ranking when we keep tweaking them?
       
       Also, if a Hubber has several idled hubs (10 poems, for example, out of 100 hubs), how does that affect the traffic to their featured hubs?
       
       Finally - have you seen an overall impact on traffic to the site now that you have started the idling process? 
       
       Many thanks for the very helpful information here!!!

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          Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Hi Marcy!  I'm saying that we look at views from search engines and if they are minimal (only a couple in the last month) then your Hub will no longer be Featured.  While it is not found via search engines, it still can be found via internal search, through its url, Feed, etc. 
          
          I will add your other questions to the blog post that we are creating internally.  I'm not sure if we can answer them, but we will try.  Many of the other questions are those that you posed to Simone at SXSW! 

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    summerberrieposted 11 years ago

    Thanks Robin! You have been and are being most helpful.

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    Robinposted 11 years ago

    Thanks, Terrie, and good to hear, Dale!  If you don't publish your Kindle Hub on HubPages, I hope you put it somewhere.  It will definitely be useful to students or parents out there in the cyber world! 

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       Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks Robin... I will do some revision and put it back up. May take a few days.  I take care of lots of lil sugar gliders....that is my full time job and they are very demanding.......every since the went union, lol.
       
       

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          Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks for the laugh! 

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    psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

    A couple of search engine hits a month?  That is hard to believe unless my hubs that are getting idled are 90% internal traffic.

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14. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years ago

    Post a URL and we will take a look....It's not a high threshold.  Lower than what you stated.

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       Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Paul, Please looke at Visiting Fort Myers Beach, Florida | Things To Do In Fort Myers Beach  http://rocknj.hubpages.com/hub/Visiting … ch-Florida
       
       I checked this hub the day it was idled, and it had about 7 or 8 Google hits over the past 30 days, and the rest from other sources, 15 total in 30 days.  If that's below your threshold, then fine, but someone else at HubPages just said the threshold is a couple of Google hits per month, which i interpret to be 2.   Thanks!

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       1. STAFF

          Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I don't see the same thing you do, although I do see three views from google in the last month.  Since it's featured now, it's hard to tell if something went wrong.  I need to see a non featured hub to see if there is an issue.
          
          The number you state is above the threshold....it's just a couple of search visits.

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    Barbara Kayposted 11 years ago

    I will admit that I went through all my low traffic hubs and after doing some research realized that most of them needed less competitive titles. I'll see if that helped. Some of them about gardening etc, I shouldn't have written. There is just too much competition in some topics.
    
    I hope this helps someone else. Titles can make a difference. Now I need to change some of the keywords in the content.

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       Robinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I find that the case often, Barbara!  Many of the Hubs that I wrote early in the days of HubPages were not up to the standards that my Hubs are today.  Plus, the climate was different then.  Our early Hubbers remember when you could write about almost any topic and rank in search because there wasn't a lot of competition.  Today there is a lot of competition, but if we know what we are up against we can either improve our game or,  if it's not possible to beat the competition, decide to write on another topic or with a different title.  Checking out your title in Google is extremely important!  I also had a few Hubs that were no longer Featured on HubPages - a few of them I deleted, a few I left unFeatured, and a few I updated.  Thanks for the comment! 

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    ilscherzoposted 11 years ago

    They should count as hits, but search engine hits are different from social media hits. The latter is far less sustainable in the long term.

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       MelissaBarrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       But not impossible...
       
       I've got one hub that, to my knowledge has NEVER been found by Google search... It has close to four thousand views and gets a handful of views every day from facebook and pintrest... it has for months.
       
       It is quite purely the worst SEO'd page... ever...  It literally has no keywords... at least none that anyone would ever search for.
       
       It just happens to be in a niche where people look to peers for advice rather than "professional" websites. So facebook posts and pins have a weird sort of "street cred"  Of course I had no idea about a niche or seo when I wrote it. I'm not sure I have any idea about them now.
       
       If I'm getting paid for views on an idled hub (its not) then why would I care if this particular hub got idled.
       
       We do still get "impressions" from idled hubs... yes? no?

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    Len Cannonposted 11 years ago

    I had a Hub that got pretty much got 0 google traffic for months after Panda.  It turned out, though, that once that happened the next highest SERP was from an article aggregator that linked directly to my page! There was no real change in traffic, it was all just coming from another site. The page never got idled and about six or seven months had the old Google traffic come back.

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    Eric Calderwoodposted 11 years ago

    Well, although I've been on HubPages for over 3 years, I have relatively few hubs and am therefore still a newbie.  The hubs that I have had idled have definitely needed overhauling.  I have been working on them and believe that they are much better for it.  Although, I do still have a long way to go.  For one thing, I need to learn more about SEO.  I have looked into it a little, but it is sill a mystery to me.

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