Delete vs. Unpublish

1. 87

   DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years ago

   One or two of my hubs have fallen victim to the "does not meet quality standards" empty bubble.
   
   In one case, I imagine it is because the hub falls under the "purely personal" category, better suited to a blog.  That's fine.   I can move it.  (It's an older hub anyway, and was written in answer to another hubber's challenge to other hubbers in general.)
   
   However, on the hub viewing page, I have the option of selecting "delete" or "edit."  Once in edit mode, I have the option to "unpublish."
   
   What is the difference, vis-a-vis "duplicate content."  If I simply unpublish it here, then re-post on my blog, will the fact that it technically still "exists" on this site trip that finicky duplicate content bot?
   
   If I have no intention of re-publishing it here, would it be preferable to simply delete that hub?  (If I left it to languish in unpublished mode, it would at that point be purely for my own reference as part of  a complete record of all things I have written here--since I have not always written first in MSWord then transferred my articles--many are written directly into the edit capsules, so there would be no copy in my computer.)
   
   Thanks for any suggestions/advice.
   Sincerely, a 3-year-"veteran" hubber still learning the ropes!

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   1. 80

      kenneth averyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Dizzy,
      I feel your frustration. Last night was the first hub I've written since my eye surgeries back in July and August.
      When I was finished writing the hub I noticed HP tips and criticism for my hub before it was published.
      So I adhered and eventually published my hub.
      One criticism was I used one text capsule. So what? A lot of hubbers use one text capsule. Why my hub was chosen to criticize was puzzling.
      Stay tough. You are an excellent writer.

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      1. 76

         barryrutherfordposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I  have been deleting over a long period of time Hubs that have no traffic. Especiialy those I wrote four+  years ago; And have tweeked many times, for no result.   It has a cathartic effect getting rid of old clutter.

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   2. 59

      The Examiner-1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I would simply edit and upgrade it here and try to improve the quality. If you are set on removing and printing it elsewhere then I would copy and paste it to someplace like Word to save it; and delete it (after I am sure that it is copied) on HP to remove all records such as the Hub and URL to avoid all problems.

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      1. 87

         DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks, The Examiner-1,
           I don't think it will 'upgrade' suitably--it IS "purely personal,"  (an article on "How I Came to be Me")..written before I was fully familiar with the type of writing HP prefers...no photos are available for the main points, either...so I think it is best deleted.. thanks for your input.

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         1. 59

            The Examiner-1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            DzyMsLizzy
            Then I would just copy and save it.
            Delete the Hub and wait at least  a week.
            Copyright it and post it to your new site.

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   3. 91

      Cardisaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Ms Lizzy:-
      
      When you delete a hub you are removing it from the HP directory and making the URL available. Google also will eventually remove the URL once their crawlers cannot access that page.
      
      When you unpublish a hub the URL is still yours; it still remains in the HP directory and Google bots are able to access the page.
      
      When moving articles from HP to another site the best option is to delete. Unpublishing the hub works better if you have extensive work to do on the hub and/or if you want Google to re-crawl (anew).

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      1. 87

         DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you so much, Cardisa, for that comprehensive explanation. 
         That tells me that with this particular hub, I need to simply delete it, as there is no way to re-work it.
         However, with hubs I do wish to re-work, even extensively, I will simply wait until I have time to do it all at one sitting, so as not to lose my original authorship date.

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      2. 86

         WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Cardisa, the hubs are not in the directory or available to bots from my knowledge?
         
         They are invisible to all but the writer.

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         1. 91

            Cardisaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            The unpublished hubs are still visible to bots but they are not crawled. They have a "no -crawl" tag on them.  (my own words, forgot the proper term). Staff explained it to me before, I hope I explained it well. The unpublished hub is similar to the unfeatured where the tag tells Google not to crawl but deleted hub is no longer there at all.

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            1. 86

               WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Ok thanks. Robots.txt?
               
               Interesting. I might go delete some...

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               1. 91

                  Cardisaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  I just remembered the term Simone used. It's a no-index tag. The unpublished hub shows the bots a no-index tag so they won't crawl.

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      3. 59

         The Examiner-1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Cardisa
         I heard that if you unpublish a Hub - I believe it was for a week - it is deleted. Do you know if that is true?

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         1. 91

            Cardisaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I have never heard of that Examiner so I can't say whether or not it's true.

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            1. 59

               The Examiner-1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you.

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               1. 86

                  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Doubt it's true. I've had hubs unpublished for months.

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         2. 85

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            No, not true.

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            1. 59

               The Examiner-1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

               If you were responding to me Marisa, thank you.

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      4. 85

         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Are you positive this is the case, Cardisa?   I have the feeling people have tried giving me a link to an unpublished Hub before, and I couldn't use it.

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         1. 86

            WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Ditto.

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         2. 91

            Cardisaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Marisa, the outside world do not have access to this hub. It's now similar to saving a draft but it remains in the system indefinitely. The URL does not become available either. It's not in the main directly but still is in the pool of occupied URLs, which means it's still in the back end of the site.  It now has a no-index tag on it so it won't be crawled or indexed by Google.
            
            The deleted hub's URL now becomes available after 24 hours. It is totally removed from the site's pool of URLs and vanishes completely from anywhere on the site as opposed to the unpublished hub which is saved somewhere.
            
            I was trying to explain the difference so Ms. Lizzy could understand and choose the best option.

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            1. 85

               Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Yes, and both Wry and I are questioning your explanation because we're both pretty sure it's not  correct.
               
               You are right, an unpublished Hub retained its URL, so Google's bots can still see a URL exists.  However the bots can't crawl the content, whether there's a no-index tag on it or not.  So there is never any possibility of duplicate content problems with an unpublished Hub.
               
               The no-index tag you're talking about is not to prevent crawling of the content (which isn't necessary, because the content isn't visible).   It is to prevent 404 errors - it's telling Google, "we've unpublished this URL deliberately, it's not a careless mistake on our part".

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               1. 91

                  Cardisaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  lol.. I never mentioned anything about duplicate content with unpublished hubs.
                  
                  You are saying exactly what I said that Google bots can still see the hub. About the reason for the hub not being crawled...well I may have misunderstood that part. But I don't see the difference in both our explanations.

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                  1. 85

                     Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     That's my point, Cardisa.  The Google bots can't see the Hub.  They can only see its URL.  They can't see the content.

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                     1. 91

                        Cardisaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        Oh I see. Thanks

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2. 60

   Carolyn Gibsonposted 11 years ago

   Maybe instead of deleting them, those articles might be better suited for a different type of web site.

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   1. 87

      DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's what I said--but the issue was between outright 'delete' and simply 'unpublish.'

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      1. 99

         alexadryposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         That's a good question Dzymslizzy, I think your concern is that if you unpublish it, and post it on your blog, Google will recognize it as duplicate content and penalize its traffic. At the same time, one must wonder, what happens if you delete it, and somebody copied your article, and then you have lost that important time stamp that proves you wrote the article first? I am planning to move some of my hubs too into my website or blog, but am also afraid of these issues.

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         1. 87

            DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            There is that, alexadry, but it is not a money-maker anyway...and I don't run adsense on my blog, so that's kind of a non-issue.
            As far as any plagiarism concerns, I don't think an autobiographical piece is too likely to fall victim--it's neither 'educational' nor of universal appeal.

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      2. 85

         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         If you unpublish, it becomes invisible - only you can see it.  So to the outside world, it's deleted.

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3. 70

   brakel2posted 11 years ago

   Hi Kenneth.  I wrote all my hubs with one text capsule. Hubbers and then HubPages strongly advised me to do several capsules so that photos can go within the text. It is difficult to get hubs approved without this layout. It does look better, I will admit. Good luck and keep well.

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   1. 87

      DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Agreed, brakel2,
        Without multiple text capsules, it is virtually impossible to align a photo exactly with the text it should accompany.
        Kenneth, text capsules can be used purely to do this, and you do not need to put a heading in the box for each and every capsule. In this way, after the hub is published, the reader has no idea you've made any kind of separation, the text just flows--but the photos stay right where they should be.

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      1. 59

         The Examiner-1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         DzyMsLizzy
         When this happens, I just edit the capsule above the misalignment and go to the bottom of what I wrote and add 'enters' until the text and photo below align.

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4. 70

   brakel2posted 11 years ago

   Hi Mlislizy  the one thing I know is to wait a week before publishing it elsewhere. I think after you unpublish it gets deleted. Good luck

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   1. 87

      DzyMsLizzyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for that input.  Good to know.

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      1. 75

         TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I always make copies of every hub I write and then categorize them.  I never unpublish, but always delete.  If I decide to bring the hub or parts of it back later, I can always do that.  On the other hand, if I simply want to use the hub elsewhere I can...after it has been removed from the indexes.

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5. 78

   rebthomasposted 11 years ago

   If you just unpublish a hub it just stays on your account indefinitely.  I had one like that.  I eventually edited it and published it again.

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6. 78

   VVanNessposted 11 years ago

   I would make sure to max out all of the goals in the Hub Helper at the top right hand side of your screen when creating a Hub. I now have over 200 Hubs, all Featured. Check me out if you need some help!

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7. 64

   Journey *posted 11 years ago

   Hi DzyMsLizzy,
   It's funny. After five years, I sometimes feel like "a veteran just learning the ropes" as well. I know some others have said differently but if it helps at all, I rarely ever delete. I mainly unpublish and I might have several hubs at a time that are in unpublished status. If you do choose to delete, I would suggest that you definitely cut and paste into MsWord and save on your computer first. Then you can edit and cut and paste back to your other blog or just keep on your computer for as long as you like.
   
   I'll leave it to the others to advise you about the duplicate content because I am not really sure about it but I would think that once you repost it on your external blog, you should indeed go ahead and delete it from HubPages instead of just keeping it unpublished. Then you've got it existing in just one place for sure.
   
   Good luck with all the articles you're planning to re-work and/or relocate.
   Best,
   Journey *

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8. 85

   Marisa Wrightposted 11 years ago

   I just checked.  I logged out and tried following this link to one of my unpublished Hubs:
   
   http://marisawright.hubpages.com/hub/PointeShoeMakers
   
   If it just had a "no crawl" or "no index" tab, I'd be able to paste that link in my browser and I'd be able to look at the Hub.  Instead, I get a "That Hub is no longer published" message.
   
   If I can't paste the link into a browser then no one else can see it either, including robots.

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