How much "engagement" do we need in order to have hubs stay featured?

1. 87

   TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years ago

   Nobody has ever been able to give me an exact number, but I would really like to have one.  All I hear is that the number is low...well, how low?  Anybody know?

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   1. 95

      wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Unknown information - it has never been made public.  The closes I've seen is a "handful" of (search engine) visits per month.  I suppose keeping it secret prevents gaming the algorithm by getting friends to search and visit any hub that is known to be close to going unfeatured due to low traffic.

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      1. 75

         Barbara Kayposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I think there was a blog post or something at one time that said at least 30 per month from search engines. I have some still going though that get a lot of Pinterest traffic and none from search engines, so it may have been changed.

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2. 83

   Good Guyposted 10 years ago

   I checked my featured hubs.  The lowest is having 5 views for 30 days.

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3. 96

   jansharesposted 10 years ago

   See Simone's answer to a forum I posted on this topic a few months back. She said it was a few views over a two month period:
   http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/108906

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   1. 87

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Janshares:  This is really good info...thanks.  I always have a number of hubs that score 5 or less per month and when I see numbers like that, I go in and try to rework the hub.  I just wondered how low was really "low" and how long it had to remain low to become unfeatured.  This gives a bit of a guide, so thank you.

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4. 0

   LeighMCposted 10 years ago

   All my hubs are featured and some of them have had very little 'engagement'.
   Some, like a book review for example, has had very few visitors, yet still remains featured for some reason.
   
   Sorry - this isn't really answering your question, I know. :-)

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5. 81

   psycheskinnerposted 10 years ago

   Mine are staying featured with at least 2 outside hits per 30 days.  That seems to be sufficient.

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   1. 87

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      psycheskinner:  this is good to know.  I rarely have hits that low, but when I do, I go in and rework the hub.  It doesn't always help, and when it doesn't, I delete the hub.  Sometimes there is just too much competition out there to make keeping the hub online a viable option.  If only 2 people are reading it per month, there's no money or satisfaction in it for me!

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6. 80

   Greekgeekposted 10 years ago

   Remember that "engagement" is not traffic, but instead refers to visitor behavior while on a page.
   
   Engagement can be measured in various ways:
   
   -- Time spent on the page
   -- How much of the page did the visitor read?
   -- How many links, ads, poll choices, slideshows, or other interactive features did the visitor click on?
   -- Did the visitor comment?
   -- Did the visitor share the page on any social media platforms via the social share buttons?
   -- Did the visitor like the page enough to click on a link pointing to some other part of Hubpages?
   
   These are all "visitor engagement" factors which various online writing, marketing and SEO experts routinely throw out when discussing "visitor engagement." I'm not sure which of these Hubpages' algorithm measures to arrive at our hubscore, but indirect evidence points to one in particular.
   
   I've got an accolade for "writ[ing] particularly engaging hubs which visitors love to read from start to finish." 
   
   That suggests that the second factor I listed above is almost certainly a part of Hubpages' "engagement" score. It's measured by checking whether the visitor scrolled to the bottom of the page.
   
   (Insert my usual riff about "traffic isn't everything, but everything flows from traffic -- you can't get visitor engagement without visitors, but it's possible that visitors and engagement are scored separately, so you might be able to get featured with fewer visitors if your engagement score is higher, or need more visitors to stay featured if your visitors tend to leave after the first screen!)

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   1. 87

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      GreekGeek:  I never thought of that, but you make a very important point.  I have the same accolade as you despite the fact that I get very few comments.  My very best hub traffic wise has not one comment on it!  However, I think this is because comments do not come from outside readers as I do not believe there is a mechanism in place that allows this.  So, if the majority of reads comes from search engines, it would stand to reason that the concept of how many comments one has would not play a huge part in determining engagement.  Am I wrong about this?

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      1. 87

         TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I've just been informed that outside readers CAN comment...this is a big surprise to me!

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   2. 92

      Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      In this context engagement does mean traffic  though HP have said that in time they do want to incorporate actual engagement (as you've described) into the metric.

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   3. 81

      psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      We have been told in previous threads that it means primarily visits from visitors entering via search engines per month.  They should probably call it "traffic".

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7. 82

   HollieTposted 10 years ago

   I think it was on a blog post that I read about dozen hits per month would keep a hub featured.

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   1. 81

      psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      It must have been reduced since then.  I have featured hubs that haven't had that much traffic in quite a few months.

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      1. 82

         HollieTposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I'm pretty sure they also said that those hubbers with higher scores would be given extra latitude and new hubs would be given a longer period of time to garner traffic.

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8. 83

   Dale Hydeposted 10 years ago

   Just my two cents worth.  I logged in today, as I do several times a week (simply to unpublish and move material HP deems not good enough) and sure enough I had three more hubs "Not Featured - Engagement."   I figure by the end of the year I will not be on HP because they continue to deem my content unworthy.
   
   So far, now, I do believe they have killed close to 50 of my hubs that I have had to move elsewhere.  It is amazing, however, that once moved, they move up in the searches and get plenty of views.
   
   This leaves me to believe, as I have mentioned previously, something is not working right here on HP.... I could take several guesses but will leave that to the "experts" here on the forums, lol.
   
   I do know that my material has not changed and does better elsewhere.  I just do not get the revenue that I would get on HP if they would stop screwing around with all their so called tweaking and slapping the no-index tag on hubs that is a sure death if left here.

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   1. 87

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      So, where are you moving your hubs?  I hear that most of the other content type sites are having similar difficulties to HPs.

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9. 0

   LeighMCposted 10 years ago

   Yes, to where do you move them? Squidoo?

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   1. 83

      Good Guyposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I find that HP is still the best.

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   2. 83

      Dale Hydeposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I move them to my blog.  You can view that blog from my HP profile up there in the upper right.  There is a link.

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