Deleting or keeping idled Hubs

1. 84

   NateB11posted 11 years ago

   How many times do you edit an idled Hub before deleting it? Or do you keep it idled so that links to it are still good? Also, for what reasons do you either leave it idled or delete it or still try to fix it? I have one Hub which I've edited a few times, and this last time after I edited it, it remained idled. I'm pretty sure I just want to delete it, but putting these questions out here first to see if I might find reason to keep it. One reason I've considered keeping it is that it had gotten considerable views at one time and I'm thinking some people linked it. So, the links might still be out there, and people might find it that way.

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   1. 88

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I've got just one idled hub - a hub written for hubbers that doesn't get enough traffic to keep it going.  I let it sit idle, just so that hubbers might gain some value from it.  There are one or two more along those lines that I expect in the future to do the same with.
      
      Anything else will get a couple of efforts to produce enough traffic to maintain the featured status; beyond that it's deleted.  If it can't get even a couple of organic, search engine, readers in a month it's worthless to me and of no value.

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      1. 84

         NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I'm tending to agree with you on that one, wilderness. There is a Hub I have too, which is one on tips for Internet writers, which I expected to get idled at some point because it's for a relatively small audience but has been read by Hubbers for the info it has on writing Hubs, etc. It did get idled, but I kept it. Then there's the one I've mentioned in this post, which I'm debating on whether to nix. I'm leaning towards what you suggest about your own Hubs which do not get traffic; I tend to agree they are of little or no use, so the reasonable thing is to get rid of it, or, at least, move it, especially after a few efforts to revive it.

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         1. 88

            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Yes - whether deleted or moved, it's gone from HP.  I haven't moved anything yet because 1) I have nowhere to move them to (easily correctable) and 2) more importantly they haven't been worth moving.

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2. 59

   Mark Ewbieposted 11 years ago

   This is ridiculous.  At the very least a hub that doesn't pass the MTurk test should have a minimal explanation - perhaps from a multiple choice.  Surely that wouldn't be too much to ask for?
   
   Nate - I did a few things with mine.  Where I felt they were worth some effort - potential traffic - I edited and improved.  Where they were just vanity pieces, fond though I might have been of them, I deleted them.  One or two I moved elsewhere.

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   1. 88

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Mark, it's just my understanding of the QAP and might be very wrong, but I doubt there is any one thing that can be pointed to.  It's a conglomerate of many factors, all added together.
      
      Just a thought, but you might consider studying the rules for rating hubs on the hub hopper and rate the hub yourself (or better yet, get someone else to do it and remove your built in bias from the equation).  Any area that doesn't score quite high is a suspect in idling a hub for quality reasons - enough of them all added together is what does it.  Or so I understand from reading between the lines on forum posts from HP and Turkers doing the ratings.

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      1. 59

         Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for trying to help Wilderness.  I believe the problem is definition of quality / satire / humor / subject matter / classification - and that is going to be a hard one for me to get over.
         
         But I will.  Possibly.

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         1. 88

            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Again, Mark, I'm not very familiar with the system - Melissa Barrett can tell you lots more - but I don't think actual content is ever a problem.  Whether or not information is correct, true, irrelevant or the humor you put out so well makes little difference.  And I'm pretty sure that subject matter (outside of things like Acai Berry) or classification don't matter either.
            
            I haven't had a hub idled for quality yet - haven't written very many, either, since the program began - but when I do I intend to do just what I said.  Put in through the ratings in the hub hopper in the most honest manner I can and try to see what is causing the problem.  It might not work, but better than just shooting in the dark simply because it appears to be a low score there that is the reason for idling for quality reasons. 
            
            Sure, those ratings are intended to reflect quality, but they will never be perfect.  Nevertheless they're what we have to work with (at least for now) and getting a hub through those ratings is the only way to be featured.

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            1. 87

               Jean Bakulaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I don't want to jinx myself, but not too many of my hubs have been idled. I've always been told my hubs are too long, but every one of them became my best rated ones, so you really can't listen to anyone, we all write individually in our own styles. If the reader is interested, they will read your piece.
               
               The few hubs I have that were idled were book reviews that had very few views, and I deleted them. I think they were well written, they just didn't interest anybody. I have a few book reviews that have always done well. It's hard to tell what factors make hubs idled.

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               1. 88

                  wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  At this point, Jean, failing to be featured primarily means a lack of traffic, just as you saw.  For the most part (though not always) new hubs fail for quality reasons instead of traffic but that's going to change as HP digs into existing material.  We're likely to all see some of what Mark has experienced here.

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         2. 48

            Thalliaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            The Mturk rating categories for hubs - Substance, Organization, Grammar & Mechanics. Each category is rated 1 through 10.
            
            * SUBSTANCE is a measure of the quality of the content and its presentation. Some things to consider:
            
            - Is the content fully developed with complementary tone, noteworthy diction or visual techniques, and abundant detail?
            
            - Are media assets included superb and original?
               
            - Is the content free of promotional elements?
            
            
            ORGANIZATION is a measure of scanability, visual appeal, and the general flow of the work. Some things to consider:
            
                - Are the titles and subheadings specific, useful, and supported by the content?
            
                -Is information presented using the most appropriate supporting elements and text formatting?
            
               - Can you scan the page and quickly locate specific information?
            
               - Is everything included in the page, such as links or feeds, necessary and relevant?
            
            -Is the page visually appealing?
            
            GRAMMAR & MECHANICS
            Mechanics refers to punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. Grammar refers to the way words are combined to form sentences. Some things to consider:
            
            - Is the page mechanically sound?
            - Are the sentences in the page complete?
            - Are the subject and verb in agreement?
            - Is the voice consistent and appropriate?
            
            There are additional definitions for each numerical value within each of the categories.

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            1. 82

               WriteAngledposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               To me, this is meaningless waffle.
               
               An article is good and readable or it is not. There is no reason to impose such artificial scoring systems.
               
               Personally, as a reader, I could not care less about pictures, videos, maps, polls, heading and subtitles. None of these add anything if the text itself is poor. Conversely, good text has no need of any further embellishment.

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               1. 60

                  Randy Godwinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes, It is obviously Horse$hit!  There aren't no geniuses working at HP.  Give up on it! 

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   2. 84

      NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, Mark. Yes, it would be nice to know the reasons for the idling. I can't say I know why, but I'd like to know it's not arbitrary, and has something to do with quality content in a real way.
      
      I'm also thinking some are worth it, as you say, to save, and some lean towards being dumped; and some can be moved. This one in question in this post I rather like, and I even think it is good in an objective way, but still I think I'll move it: Delete it from here and find another place for it.

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3. 59

   Mark Ewbieposted 11 years ago

   Hmm well this is interesting...
   
   http://mturkforum.com/showthread.php?56 … g-Hubpages

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   1. 88

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting.  Nearly everyone posting has failed to keep their own quality ratings up to HP's standards.  I've gathered that it's not easy being a (successful) Turker, and that reinforces the notion.  Either produce ratings equal to those done by HP staff or you won't earn anything, which makes perfect sense, and that isn't easy.  It's not a cake walk.

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4. 95

   jansharesposted 11 years ago

   After multiple edits, will deleting or unpublishing the non-featured hub, especially if the hubscore is under 70, be more beneficial in the longrun, i.e., improve your subdomain rating with hp and hence, Google? If the hub has exhausted its value to you and to hp, might it be dragging down your status?
   
   I ask this for myself as well, as I anticipate getting idled soon. I'd sooner just delete those 200-300 word hubs in the high 60s that are dragging down my hubberscore. Not sure what to do.

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   1. 84

      NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's been my concern too: Whether the bad performing Hubs bring down the value of my subdomain. It's a good question. My understanding is that if a Hub is idled, it doesn't affect the value of the subdomain because Google doesn't really see the Hub. Still, I'm thinking it's better to just get rid of them, and it's true the problem Hub I have is short on text; not that short, it's over 500 words, but I think it's brevity has something to do with its performance problem. Will be interested to see if others can answer your questions. Good questions.

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      1. 95

         jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         My hubs that are are risk for going idle are short on text as well, all poems, ranging in hubscore from 68 to 71. Word count of these hubs: 188, 200, 246, 380, and 426. I know it's a matter of time. I may unpublish and move some of them to my business website where I get decent traffic. I'm torn.

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      2. 88

         wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I don't think there is hardly anyone saying that non-performing hubs bring down the value of a site.
         
         Rather, low quality hubs do, and low quality hubs don't see traffic (at least when google is doing it's job); remove all low traffic hubs and you'll catch the low quality ones in the group.
         
         Such things as poetry the great god Google may be deciding is low quality.  Low word count, few if any subheadings, often poor grammar (can google distinguish between poetry "sentences" and those of other writings?); the list is rather extensive that our master may declare to be low quality. 
         
         Those types of hubs may well be dragging an account down, and should probably be deleted or simply deindexed.

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         1. 87

            Jean Bakulaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            At least everyone is on the lookout for low quality hubs, and if we all do our part, it may make HP better. I see the few I have idled were never big draws for traffic. Now I know what subjects they are, and would avoid writing more like them. I just delete them. I know a lot of people are putting them on their blogs, but my blog doesn't make money so far, though it is monetized, it's just me, and people who visit it are interested in the subjects I write about. It's not worth it to move the pieces there, they are different topics.

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            1. 88

               wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               In a way, that's my problem, too.  I don't have a blog, but were I to create one I wouldn't want a bunch of random subjects, topics and hubs that never performed on it.
               
               As that's all I have had idled - random topics that match up with nothing else I've got - I'm not putting in the effort to start a blog with them.  An exercise in futility, I think.

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            2. 95

               jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Good point, Jean. All of my poems wouldn't fit my website.

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         2. 84

            NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Here's an interesting thread about how well 'stellar Hubs' do in Google search. Hubber janderson posted a graph showing results of how hubs with low word count do in search results; turns out they do well in many cases. http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/110550#postwrap2352660

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            1. 95

               jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Interesting table, NateB11. Incidently, my best performing hub that gets as much as 200 views a day has no video, is under 500 words, ranked #1 on Google, and a hubscore of 100. So that graph is telling the truth.

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         3. 95

            jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks, wilderness, for your insight regarding how Google may interpret "low quality." Didn't think of it that way.

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5. 72

   Jenn-Anneposted 11 years ago

   Some of my idled hubs deserved it - they were the first hubs I wrote and they weren't that good. I'm just going to leave them idle. Unfortunately I've had some good quality seasonal hubs idled as well because they cannot maintain steady year-round traffic. This is unfortunate. I really don't feel like doing the constant editing needed to keep them featured in the off-season so I will likely move them. I did try editing one and although it is now featured again it is lower in the SERPS than it was before it was idled. The traffic to my strongest hubs has slowly been improving. Most likely it is because they have been around awhile and had a chance to mature, but maybe the idling of my other material has helped too - I really don't know. I haven't written any new hubs since the QAP/idling program was put into place. I'd really like to write again and I feel pretty good about my ability to pass the QAP assessment, however I can't guarantee that I can get enough views fast enough to keep new hubs featured. We've been told that tweaks are going to be made to the idling process to give new hubs more time to get views. I'm looking forward to hearing more about those changes and I'm hopeful that I will be able to get back to writing soon.

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   1. 87

      Jean Bakulaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I had a hub that was approaching "idle" for a few days, and now today it's miraculously up to a high 70's score. Another hub that I like, but nobody else seems to, is also at an 85 score today. You can never tell who will come along and be interested in reading about a particular thing. Plus it's the weekend, which is usually slower online. I was just about to delete one of them. Everytime I think I have it figured out, I don't!

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      1. 84

         NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I've almost done the same thing; I almost deleted a whole group of Hubs and soon found some of them get good traffic. Glad I didn't jump the gun.

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6. 60

   Randy Godwinposted 11 years ago

   Just as fast as my hubs are idled I delete them.  They obviously are not needed or wanted here.  It's merely collateral damage you know. 

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7. 75

   Bill Yovinoposted 11 years ago

   I have three detailed Hubs about a trip I took to Australia and New Zealand.  I spread the information over three Hubs because I felt a single Hub would be too long.  The funny thing is that Part I and Part III are "featured" and Part II is "idled".  All of the photos in the Hub are original.  I tried a small edit which temporarily returned Part II to featured status.
   
   Am I missing something or does this just seem arbitrary? 
   
   http://bill-yovino.hubpages.com/hub/Aus … uise-Lines
   
   It's not really a big deal because none of them get much traffic, but I'm curious about the process.

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