Exclusive hub titles and their scrapping

1. 68

   zeusspeakposted 9 years ago

   You all must have read that hub regarding hubs with exclusive titles. I am not able to understand the "exclusive" icon and where does it appear? I am searching it in my account page. Want to listen in from fellow hubbers?

   replyreport
   1. 94

      Christy Kirwanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi zeusspeak,
      
      We've actually just retired Exclusive Titles. You can read about it in our latest Blog post: http://blog.hubpages.com/2013/07/exclus … e-retired/
      
      If you've written any Exclusive Hubs, the icon will still show up on your My Account page next to your Hub titles for now, though we also intend to eventually retire the icon.

      replyreport
      1. 85

         lovebuglenaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I have some hubs with exclusive titles... If you retired Exclusive Titles are my hubs with exclusive titles affected in any way?

         replyreport
         1. 94

            Christy Kirwanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Hi lovebuglena,
            
            You'll now be able to edit the titles of those Exclusive Hubs if you want to. For now, the Exclusive icons in your My Account page will remain, but we plan to get rid of those eventually. Other than that, your Hubs will not be affected.

            replyreport
      2. 68

         zeusspeakposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Christy, just want to ask one question, how does that icon looks like?

         replyreport
         1. 94

            Christy Kirwanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            It just says "EXCLUSIVE" in all caps and it appears right next to your Hub titles (only the ones that are Exclusive Hubs, of course) in the Hub Stats on your My Account page.

            replyreport
2. 83

   psycheskinnerposted 9 years ago

   When you start a hub "exclusive" titles are suggested as you start typing in your title.  If you never selected any of these you don'y have an exclusive title hub.

   replyreport
3. 38

   Tom Londonposted 9 years ago

   So is there anything we have to worry about then? I'm a bit lost here.

   replyreport
4. 0

   healthylife2posted 9 years ago

   Since the Exclusive Title concept is gone can we now change the titles?

   replyreport
   1. 94

      Christy Kirwanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi healthylife2,
      
      You are indeed free to change the titles of your Exclusive Hubs now.

      replyreport
      1. 85

         lovebuglenaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         That's a great to hear!!!!!!!! I am sure like me many thought exclusive titles would help boost our traffic... That didn't seem to be the case..

         replyreport
      2. 68

         zeusspeakposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Christy, another thing if we change the titles of our hubs, would the url remain same or would it also get changed?

         replyreport
         1. 94

            Christy Kirwanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            The URL will remain the same. Only the title will change.

            replyreport
            1. 68

               zeusspeakposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               thx Christy for the information

               replyreport
5. 0

   healthylife2posted 9 years ago

   Excellent!! Thanks for the prompt reply Christy.

   replyreport
6. 86

   Marcy Goodfleischposted 9 years ago

   Yay!  Good news - we can change titles if we need to!   BTW - question for the OP - what hub about exclusives?  I don't think I saw one.

   replyreport
7. 83

   psycheskinnerposted 9 years ago

   http://blog.hubpages.com/
   
   I don't understand why this blog is so hard to find from Hubpages or why "hubpages.com" is forceably redirected to my feed whenever I type it in wanting to see the frontpage.  I have to Google is whenever someone says there is an interesting post.

   replyreport
   1. 86

      Marcy Goodfleischposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That's part of the HP blog - I thought the OP meant a hub had been written.

      replyreport
8. 86

   Marcy Goodfleischposted 9 years ago

   Regarding the HP blog information about Exclusives - I respect the site's stated reasons for moving forward from that program, but there's a bit of a contrast in what the blog says and what writers were told when Exclusives were released 11 months ago as a 'beta' program for people in the Apprenticeship Program.  I do not feel there were misunderstandings on the part of writers at all.
   
   Here's what the blog says regarding the reason the Exclusives program is going away:
   (QUOTE):
   
   Why are Exclusives being retired?
   •    We found that Exclusive Titles did not perform significantly better than non-Exclusive Titles
   •    The restrictive nature of Exclusives made it too difficult for Hubbers to tweak and optimize their titles
   •    Exclusive Titles were frequently misunderstood to be a guarantee of search traffic rather than an opportunity to write about something not covered on HubPages
   •    Exclusives were not a significantly helpful tool for Hubbers in overcoming writer’s block
   
   (END QUOTE)
   
   **********************************************
   In contrast, this is what we were told when the very first Exclusives titles were made available:
   
   (QUOTE):  So! What are Exclusives? Exclusives are high-potential titles that don’t already exist on HubPages and will be made available to the best Hubbers within our community. Think of them as on-demand versions of the search-friendly titles we provide in the first month of the program.
   
   You will be able to access Exclusive titles by visiting the Create a Hub page. Type a word into the title bar that is related to a subject you might want to write about, such as “cat” or “school”. If we have Exclusive titles that match that subject, they will be listed below. (END QUOTE).
   
   ***********************************************************
   
   As can be seen - we were indeed told these were 'high-potential' and 'search-friendly' titles.  We were also told they were titles that didn't exist on the site.  Sadly (because the idea truly was great), we soon discovered there were titles nearly identical to hubs we had already written.  We also learned these were not particularly drafted in ways that were search-friendly or high-potential. 
   
   I'm just posting this because I do not feel writers who had those expectations 'misunderstood' anything.  We were told exactly what is written above, and many of us wrote quite a few Exclusives hubs because of what we were told above.  A few of these hubs (in my case) eventually performed well and have been good titles.  Many, though, are not at all what we were told they would be in terms of search-friendliness or potential.

   replyreport
   1. 94

      Christy Kirwanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Marcy,
      
      I understand your frustration and I'm sorry you feel misled by the program. I should mention that we tracked the performance of Exclusive Hubs over the past year, and they did not underperform non-Exclusive Hubs. They just didn't significantly out-perform them as we hoped they might. We thought providing search-friendly (short, descriptive, specific, properly-formatted, niche) titles might offer an advantage to Hubbers who were having trouble coming up with ideas for Hubs. But the restrictive nature of the titles ended up being more of a disadvantage, which is why we chose to end the program. Exclusives have never been (and were never intended to be) a guarantee of traffic. Unfortunately, there's always some luck involved in that aspect of Hubbing.

      replyreport
      1. 83

         psycheskinnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Her response--as I read it--is not re: the empirical fact that they performed like any other hub, but the suggestion "Exclusive Titles were frequently misunderstood". We understood them to be what they were described as being ("search friendly"--i.e. SEO advantaged). Silly us?

         replyreport
         1. 94

            Christy Kirwanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I have no doubt that many Hubbers (like you and Marcy Goodfleisch) understood the program and knowingly tried it for what it was worth.
            
            We did have issues with many less experienced Hubbers thinking Exclusives were a replacement for their own title and keyword research, which was a contributing factor in our decision to discontinue them.

            replyreport
            1. 83

               psycheskinnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Not to flog the horse, but the blog post specifies the kind of "misunderstanding" and that it relates to SEO.

               replyreport
            2. 90

               Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               The misunderstanding was in the meaning of the word "search-friendly".
               
               People assumed "search-friendly" meant the title had been keyword researched.  Whereas you're saying search-friendly simply meant "short, descriptive, specific, properly-formatted, niche".
               
               I don't think that misunderstanding was unreasonable, given the way the term "search engine friendly" is so widely used outside HubPages. 
               
               I'm very glad to hear they're finally gone.

               replyreport
      2. 86

         Marcy Goodfleischposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Christy - I do not feel misled - I feel HP told us exactly what management thought and hoped Exclusives would do for the site.  The reason I posted this is that I don't feel we 'misunderstood' anything at all.  It would perhaps be more appropriate for the site to acknowledge that management thought, and we were indeed told, that Exclusives were search-friendly titles that were expected to be competitive on the site.
         
         It's sad to see the investment of time, energy and effort the site and many writers invested in the Exclusives idea.  It didn't live up to anyone's expectations (including the site's, I assume) so we all learned from it and now we move forward.  That's okay.
         
         But please don't shift the focus or rationale for retiring the concept to the writers by suggesting we 'misunderstood' anything.

         replyreport
      3. 76

         Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Sorry, but I think every Exclusive title I used for the Apprenticeship program have been unfeatured. Maybe one is left that hasn't. They were suppose to teach us how to write titles for the Apprenticeship program. Thanks goodness I didn't learn anything from the titles or everything I write would be unfeatured.
         
         I quit the program in the 4th month. Other than the extra money, I don't think it helps writers that have been here several years. New people to Hubpages would benefit more.

         replyreport
   2. 85

      lovebuglenaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It is next to impossible to come up with a title for a hub that doesn't in some way resemble another hub's title or the title of something published elsewhere on the web.

      replyreport
   3. 88

      Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I agree with Marcy there. These Title have not been doing well for me. As a matter of record the exclusive titles and the titles given to me by the AP program have not been getting much in terms of traffic. I changed a few of them and viola things seem to be doing better. All my best hubs are those which were unplanned and done on a whim!

      replyreport
9. 83

   psycheskinnerposted 9 years ago

   Indeed.  I think the misunderstanding was not on the part of hubbers.  We just assumed exclusives where what they were presented as being.

   replyreport
10. 83

    psycheskinnerposted 9 years ago

    I don't think you can call something 'search friendly' unless it has qualities that make more people search for it.  More accurately it would be 'we hope it will be search friendly but ... oops'.

    replyreport
    1. 76

       Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       No research was done on these titles to start with.

       replyreport
       1. 90

          Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          Did you notice that Christy's definition of a "search friendly" title didn't include any mention of keyword research? 
          
          Apparently HubPages' definition of 'search friendly' is "short, descriptive, specific, properly-formatted, niche".   It was our fault that we assumed "search friendly" had anything to do with SEO!!!

          replyreport
11. 90

    Thelma Albertsposted 9 years ago

    What a pity the "exclusive" will be gone! I found it useful everytime I did not know what to write. I have 10 exclusive hubs and the titles are quite search engine friendly. Well, you have to do what you have to do;-)

    replyreport
    1. 85

       lovebuglenaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Having the "exclusives" disappear will not be such a great loss so don't dwell on it too much. There are plenty of ways to draw inspiration for a hub.

       replyreport
12. 90

    Thelma Albertsposted 9 years ago

    You´re right Lovebuglena. No problem for that;-)

    replyreport
13. 85

    mary615posted 9 years ago

    I wrote a total of three Hubs using the "exclusive" titles, and I was sorry I did.  Those three Hubs have had very little traffic compared to my other Hubs.  I wanted to change the title SO badly, but of course, I couldn't. 
    Now, I'm free to change the titles and I''ll get more traffic, bettcha!

    replyreport