Squidoo Lenses About Squidoo

1. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   I cannot believe the amount of lenses from Squidoo, strictly about Squidoo are not only on Hub Pages, but they are found at the bottom of other hubs under Related Hubs.

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   1. 81

      CuAllaidhposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I imagine it will take exsquids a while to weed out these. Hopefully the process moves along quickly.

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   2. 48

      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      All of those Hubs aren't just transferred articles from Squidoo.  There are many Hubs about 'making money on Squidoo' which have been on HP for years. There are also many Hubs about making money on Helium, which is no longer in business and will be closed down permanently in December.
      
      The only system HP has for vetting outdated content is removing content for lack of engagement, i.e., when search engines no longer send visitors. I've never had a Hub unpublished for that but I imagine it takes a long time for that to kick in.
      
      And, no, HP doesn't want you to report a Hub because you think it is outdated.

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      1. 66

         relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         The jist of it...

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   3. 67

      justholidaysposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      You're not finished seeing them as in the whole lot of transfered lenses there is certainly a huge amount of former lensmasters who still ignore that Squidoo's pulled the plug and that they're now on HubPages.
      
      In 4 months you'll get rif of these lenses. Unless HP staff decided otherwise.

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   4. 86

      rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Probably most of those related hubs have been on the site for years.  Plenty of hubbers have old hubs about defunct websites, and have outdated advice about online writing in general.  As others have said, let those making the transition have the time that has been given to them.  I just did a search in the hubs section for the term, Squidoo, and came up with 400 results.  They are old hubs.  As hubbers realize it's probably best to delete them, we'll see less of them.  Keep in mind that a good percentage of writers on HP are not checking their profiles daily, or even monthly.

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   5. 71

      brakel2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Linda, I don't understand, as you were helping the Squidoo folks when they came, and now you are picking on stuff. These comments only alienate those who are new.
      Please try to help them get through this transfer.

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      1. 60

         LindaSmith1posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Did I forget the sales pages!!!!  Did I forget that none of the transferred content has to go through QAP first?  A lot of what is on HP now from the transfer, Google didn't like it on Squidoo, and certainly isn't going to like it on Hub Pages.

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         1. 77

            neosurkposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            FYI, only 175,000 lenses are seen by Google and those are published hubs now. These 175,000 lenses are the top lenses that were transferred and Google has nothing against those lenses.
            
            These lenses, now hubs, had to go through Squidoo's quality filter too. And Squidoo's filter is quite snarky, and more strict than HP's QAP human review.
            
            So give us a break. We are doing everything we can to do in 4 months. We DO understand your frustration, but it's not cool to pour your complaints on us.

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         2. 69

            lisavollrathposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I think that's a huge generality. Google has always loved my top-ranking Squidoo lenses, putting them in the top three search results in their topics.

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2. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   The titles are obvious in telling the writer that they no longer have any use.  Of course, they may be getting traffic from them and that is not an incentive to dump them.

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3. 0

   Donna Cookposted 10 years ago

   I'm a Squidoo refugee. Squidoo did not have a Learning Center or useful FAQ like HP does. The individual lenses provided that info. It was very inconvenient to have to search through them to find the info needed.

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4. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   Donna: The point is they really don't have a place here at Hub Pages, since Squidoo has gone to the wayside.

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   1. 69

      lisavollrathposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      And HubPages has given us four months to make decisions about what we should do with our content here. It's not up to you to decide a timetable for us, or tell us what to do with that content. Those of us who are opting to remain are working as fast as we can to learn new tools, new policies, and get our content up to speed, according to the guidelines HubPages has given us.

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5. 84

   Lee Hansenposted 10 years ago

   I tried to get rid of the few Squid-centric lenses I owned before the migration so I'm hoping there aren't any stragglers in my portfolio. If I find any, they're history.

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6. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   That I would not know Lee.  It is discouraging to read a hub and then see the spot for related hubs filled with the useless How to do this or that, etc, strictly for Squidoo.  Some can be revamped and used such as HTML for images that won't work on HP, but will work on blogs.

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7. 89

   Cari Kay 11posted 10 years ago

   I'm sure they'll disappear in about 3 1/2 months.  Some hubbers (former lensmasters) have so much work to do and these may not be their top priority.  I don't have any of those types of pages but I do have some useless sales ones I felt pressured to make.  They sit there while I decide once and for all whether to delete them or make something useful out of them...leaning towards deleting them and, indeed, have deleted a few already.  My priority has been to work on the hubs that see the most traffic.  Those ones getting only a few views aren't on my Must Do Right Away List

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   1. 69

      Elsie Hagleyposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      @Cari Kay, I'm like you I did delete any squidoo lens that didn't apply to HubPages before they were transferred, but I'm slowly getting through those useless sales one and have all ready deleted quite a few. I never like doing sales lens in the first place.

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8. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   I am sure there are a lot that were hubs from the beginning. But, you can take the links, erase the hubpages dot com, replace it with Squidoo and there you go, Squidoo lens. Even hubs about Helium and other sites that no longer exist, serve no purpose.  Maybe that is the direction HP is going now!!!

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9. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   Cari:  Sales pages can be fixed, moved or deleted. I deleted a lot of lenses when I left Squidoo because I lost interest in them. Some I copied, revamped and moved to my sites and blogs.  If I wrote about how to do something on another site, or the site that I am writing about, I can look at the title and remember, most of the time, what I wrote about..   Scan through the lenses and see titles like How to make money on Squidoo?, there really isn't anything to think about there.

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   1. 70

      Hooks and Needlesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      For all we know some of these people from Squidoo are even dead now or sick. Hubpages doesn't have time right now to go through and delete stuff like this with all the work it was taking just moving the content over and now the earnings thing has gone beserk. I think we just need to be patient and not worry about it just yet.

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10. 89

    Cari Kay 11posted 10 years ago

    I agree but that may not be at the top of everybody's priority list

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11. 68

    sockiiposted 10 years ago

    Everyone complaining about pages that need to be updated or simply eliminated after the migration really needs to chill and give us the time allotted BY HubPages to deal with them.
    
    We know they are there. We are working our way through them all. We only had about 10 days' notice before our accounts were locked down to immediately backup/delete lenses we knew wouldn't transfer well. With over 200 lenses that transferred, and with other real life matters going on that have to take precedence, I've maybe gotten through half of my lenses to bring them "up to snuff" (and yeah, finding some I just want to delete, period.)
    
    Keep in mind as well that there are surely many lensmasters who may not even KNOW yet what happened - people who had abandoned their accounts or only maybe check in on them every couple months. Not everyone is all online, all the time.
    
    After the 4 month grace period is up I'm sure if lenses are flagged as inappropriate then admins here will deal with it. It might be nice to not have so much policing or criticizing going on in the meantime.

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12. 60

    LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

    Kind of like letting Squidoo admins and SG deal with it?   There are legit concerns about what these transferred lenses are going to do to HP.   We have the right to voice those concerns. Call it critizing, policing, whatever, but it does not change the reality of the concerns.

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    1. 77

       pkmcrukposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Perhaps rather than the relentless criticism and negativity you could focus your efforts on providing helpful posts?
       
       If you have problems with HubPages Management actions then why not email them? That would be more useful than constantly throwing criticism at people who are trying to adapt to a new site.
       
       Squidoo Lensmasters have been given four months to deal with their imported lenses (now Hubs) and if you have a problem with that then the only people that can address your concerns are HubPages Management.
       
       You may not appreciate how alienating your constant negativity is but please try to focus on something that helps people rather than hinders.

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       1. 69

          lisavollrathposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          +1

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13. 79

    Greekgeekposted 10 years ago

    For you, maybe, but some of us wrote tutorials that could be adapted to other websites with some revision. There are tips for generating traffic, how to use or not use social media, how to structure articles and maximize conversions and tweak graphics, that are not platform-specific, even if they were originally grouped together under Squidoo tutorials.
    
    Some people here was telling me NOT to delete those but to revamp them, even though they are gonna take extra work.
    
    I deleted about forty of mine -- although the deletions didn't actually take, thanks to Squidoo glitches, and many of those I'd deleted got transferred and had to be deleted again -- but I did save a few that could be repurposed. In fact, two of those I saved were old hubs. I unpublished a couple until I can get to them.
    
    Please remember that some of us have 400-800+ articles to revamp. Trust me, they're not all 300-word articles with so little content that we can just snap our fingers and they're done. Some have a lot of content. Hundreds of our photos, videos, links, duels, quizzes, and other significant chunks of content were lost or made invisible during transfer or during Squidoo's final death throes the month before it shut down.
    
    I know you're probably totally fed up with us at this point, and wish we'd go back where we came from, but please consider what it's like trying to fix hundreds of articles with large chunks of content lost or broken -- remember we basically had zero notice about this -- and grant us the same grace period that Hubpages is to go through them all.
    
    Unless you want to help?

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14. 60

    LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

    Simply unpublish those that can be revamped. Unpublish and delete those that apply to Squidoo only.  In the meantime, they are featured hubs.  Oh well, maybe it is time to start searching other sites and let HP go to Squidoo.

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    1. 79

       Greekgeekposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       News flash: since Squidoo content started transferring (and a lot of it is still on Squidoo), Quantcast's ranking for Hubpages has changed from the 70th top trafficked site up to the 24th, and daily pageviews have jumped from the high 800,000s to 1,600,000+ and are still climbing.
       
       Yes, we have to revamp our articles. We're working on it. But it's JUST POSSIBLE that some of the traffic coming to your hubs now many be coming there by clicking on "related" links from some of those transferred articles.

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       1. 48

          Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          Those aren't quite the figures I saw when I looked at Quantcast. The Global rank is 24, but the US rank is 61.
          
          Page Views the day before the Squidoo sale to HP was announced: 2,023,799
          Unique Visitors: 1,282,894
          
          Page Views yesterday: 3,051,429
          Unique Visitors: 1,922,155
          
          Increase in daily Page Views: 1,027,630
          Increase in daily Unique Visitors: 639,261
          
          New Hubbers, probably viewing multiple Hubs of their own: 25,745

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          1. 99

             DrMark1961posted 10 years agoin reply to this

             I doubt anyone is seeing increased traffic from related hubs. The related hubs listed at the bottom of each page change, and as there are a lot more hubs now, the hubs that were listed before are displayed less often.
             If anyone has statistics to tell me that I am wrong, I would be glad to hear it. My own traffic from related hubs is inconsequential.

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             1. 78

                spartucusjonesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                I don't have any clear stats on it, but I know I have a few Hubs that seem to get at least some traffic benefits from it. For example I have a Hub on female bass players which gets a good amount of traffic from a Hubber's sub domain who publishes a lot of Hubs on bass players. I also published a number of Hubs on protest songs and on each of them all of the related Hubs but two are my own (and this doesn't change). Most of my traffic for those Hubs is Google, but I still get a bit of traffic from my own sub domain which could be because of the related Hubs. It also means I should write two more Hubs about protest songs so that I could find a way to occupy every spot on the related Hub list.

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                1. 99

                   DrMark1961posted 10 years agoin reply to this

                   Thanks, spartacusjones. I always have 20 or 30 a day too, mostly from hubbers that write on dog health or selection issues. I have not seen any increase, though, despite those numbers that Greekgeek listed.
                   Of course, my next niche is going to be protest songs, so I am going to take over a few of those spots myself!!!

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                   1. 78

                      spartucusjonesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                      Sorry, I think I kind of missed your statement about increased views. At this point the views seem to be about the same. I guess I will have to wait and see whether or not the transfer will help or hurt my related Hub views. I guess in some cases it could mean that a Hubs gets dropped and in other cases it means that there could be more Hubs that will feature your Hub. My guess is that some will benefit and some won't.
                      
                      If you start writing about protest songs I might have to start writing about dog health.

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    2. 69

       lisavollrathposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Are you volunteering to do all the work it will take to hunt down and "simply unpublish" all the Squidoo-centric content on HubPages? Or are you just suggesting that we drop everything, and work according to your needs? Because one of those would get a big thumbs up from me, and another would get---well, not exactly my thumb.

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15. 85

    CassandraCaeposted 10 years ago

    give people time, some people are sorting through tons of material, in a few months after the grace period, things will be different

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16. 76

    Brite-Ideasposted 10 years ago

    this is going to take me every bit of the 4 mths to sort through, no question about that

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17. 60

    LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

    They are hubs now, but take out the hub pages dot com, replace it with squiddoo dot com, a lot of them are transferred lenses.

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    1. 86

       rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Probably some of them are, but I would never go to the trouble of replacing the dot com to check. 
       In time, they will disappear.

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18. 64

    Michael Kismetposted 10 years ago

    I think Linda's had enough guys, she's obviously just letting her frustrations get the better of her, we can all feel that way sometime. Let's just all move forward, and let sleeping dogs lie.  And no, that isn't a pun referring to Lindasmith1's avatar.

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    1. 66

       relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Linda from two years ago (below) and Linda now are pretty much the same.
       
       http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/88532?p … ost1892629

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19. 60

    LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

    Michael: Lucy is anything but a sleeping dog.  I see anyone who does not do the Happy Dance, gets crucified by>>>>>.
    
    Funny how the posts at Yuku are from SQ are becoming I am not earning what I was on Squiddo.  HP should do this, have this or that because Squidoo did.  Put them all together and it is like a campaign of Hey, Why Can't HP do what Squidoo did, format, etc.  Well this is Hub Pages Not Squidoo!!!

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20. 69

    Craftypicksposted 10 years ago

    I haven't been here long but I have seen traffic from related hubs many times. I understand there is a territory resentment from Hubbers. Squidoo invaded your turf and your scared too. You should see how we feel. A year from now we will all be Hubbers and hopefully rewriting history will stop. We are all stuck with each other. We might as well get to know each other and become friends.

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21. 60

    LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

    Not putting up with the attacks.  Reporting them.

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22. 0

    calculus-geometryposted 10 years ago

    I understand your concern that hubs with outdated information about defunct content farms show up on the "discover more hubs" section.  But according to HP's FAQ, the "discover more hubs" have to be featured
    
    http://hubpages.com/faq/#discover-more-hubs
    
    and in 3 months or so when the Squidoo transfer grace period is up, these hubs will probably not pass muster to be featured.  That, or they will become unfeatured due to lack of "engagement" as HP calls it.
    
    As someone pointed out upthread, HP already had A LOT of hubs about Squidoo and other defunct sites before HP took over Squidoo's content.  There are hubs about Associated content, Yahoo Voices, Helium, and lots more sites that have come and gone.  They are all unfeatured for the most part and not visible to search engines, so probably not harming the site.

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23. 76

    Lionrhodposted 10 years ago

    Just a thought for those of you folks who have "How to Squidoo" pages that you feel can be reworked to fit HP.
    
    You might want to consider unpublishing the pages when you have time and then create it as a new hub, so that you can get a new URL (Google will probably like your new URL better.)
    
    I haven't yet published my first hub on HP (still working on fixing my old lenses) so I don't know how hard or easy that might be.

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24. 60

    LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

    Where is Squidoo now?  Shower curtain lenses, the joke of a lens about toilet seats was passed by Squidoo filters.

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    1. 69

       Craftypicksposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Actually it came before the filters. It was the bomb they tossed at us when they started changing things. They posted the lens and said things would be changing. It was just a little too late. The Titanic was sinking. Linda, I agree with a lot of things your saying about Squidoo, but you seem to have a lot of anger addressed at us. We have to pass the Hubs Quality Filters so there is no danger of substandard lenses going through. Lensmasters have 4 months to get it done. It's fair to people who have hundreds of lenses to revamp. These are good lenses, but the two interfaces didn't blend perfectly so Lensmasters have a lot of work a head of them. Do you really think when they are entering the buying season that they want to be editing old lenses? They did this to us last year too. They waited for Christmas to tell everyone they were locking lenses if not changed. At least Hubs is giving people until after the Holiday to finish this task.

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       1. 60

          LindaSmith1posted 10 years agoin reply to this

          Lenses that were Featured on Squidoo will be Featured Hubs on HubPages.
          
          WIP Lenses will be unpublished after they're moved to HubPages.
          
          I started writing on Squidoo when the filter thing started. As more complained about locked lenses, etc, traffic going in the toilet, sales pages being feature on the main page, Lens of the day, etc, entire accounts, with decent lenses, over 300 in their account being locked and deleted without notice, I jumped ship. The handwriting was on the wall.  There was some questions raised, by lensmasters, as to the possiblity of SG selling out.  Of course, some from chimed in No Way!
          
          A whole lot went on there and now those lenses are here because they were featured on Squidoo so they won't go through QAP before being featured.
          
          http://writerfox.hubpages.com/hub/Seth- … o-HubPages

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          1. 69

             Craftypicksposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             I totally understand your fear Linda and you were smart to get out when you did. I was told 100 times to jump too, but I am afraid of heights! I know they will be featured on here, but if it makes you feel any better the lenses did pass the new Squidoo Filters. We have been revamping our lenses over and over again for so long I don't even know what my original lenses look like. I didn't write sales lenses. I tried it and it was awful.
               I don't blame you for being upset. I don't blame any Hub person for resenting having all these lenses from a failed company sprung on them, but please don't be angry at us. We went though this too and for a very long time.  Hubs is by far a much better writing forum and it will stay strong until we are though this.

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          2. 78

             spartucusjonesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             The transferred lenses will go through QAP, it is just that they have a 4 month grace period to sort things out. Considering the sheer volume of content that some Squids will have to shift through combined with the short notice, I feel the 4 months is more than reasonable. I'm sure after the four months much of that content will be cleaned up, in the mean time we just need to be patient. This is an adjustment for everyone, but right now we are now on the same team and need to do our best to work together. If the issues still exist four months from now, maybe that will be the time to start a thread and vent, but right now it is just counterproductive.

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25. 76

    Shades-of-truthposted 10 years ago

    I, for one, am dismayed to see the contention here. Shouldn't we all be trying to help each other? I was very confused when I first came over from Squidoo, and was greatly encouraged to see all of the support on HubPages.
    
    This thread didn't make me feel very good, as contention and strife are rarely productive. Sorry, y'all, but I just had to comment.

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    1. 76

       Lionrhodposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Thank you Shades, I consider you one of the helpful voices. As we've said more than once, we former lensmasters want above all else to be in compliance with HP's rules and to help create fantastic hubs and content.
       
       Me personally, back in the old days of the web, both of my sites ranked on Google's top page and normally in the top three for the subjects I covered.
       
       Now there's a lot more traffic, a lot more websites, and yep  I have to work harder. I'm  cool with that. It just makes me work harder to be a better writer.
       
       My mission: To create high quality original content.
       
       There's nobody else who is me and has my exact perspectives. Just as there's nobody else who is you and has yours. As a writer, I find that while I might not "get" a message from one writer, another writer's explanation of a very similar thing might send me hopping off to improve my writing.

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26. 71

    Judy Filareckiposted 10 years ago

    I'm trying to figure out what to do about my "Contributor on Squidoo" Lens. I put a lot of good information into that lens and have modified it for HP, but I haven't figured what to do about the title and the url which I really can't change.

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    1. 60

       LindaSmith1posted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Go to edit!  Then click on title, which will allow you to change the title. I don't know if you have a summary or not, but if you click on it, you can change that too.  If you don't have a summary, a summary box might pop up, under your title.
       
       The URL cannot be changed, but you can change title, summary, and any other part of your hubs.

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       1. 71

          Judy Filareckiposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks Linda,
          I have all ready done both of those things, but it is the url that concerns me because I do get traffic through that URL. It hasn't been as much as my other hubs, and I think I'll just republish under another URL and hope for getting traffic back.

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    2. 0

       calculus-geometryposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Do you mean this one?
       http://judyfilarecki.hubpages.com/hub/i … ontributor
       The url is good, and the title can be edited.  Just click on the title when you're in edit mode and it will let you change it.  As for the rest of it, just change the links to Squidoo articles to their new HP urls, and omit all the references to Squidoo.  Otherwise it looks fine to me.

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       1. 71

          Judy Filareckiposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks Calculus. You are right. I thought the URL had Squidoo in. I really appreciate you taking the time to look.

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    Judy Filareckiposted 10 years ago

    It is my understanding that once we edit a Hub and click Done Editing, we forfeit the 4 months for that Hub and it goes through QAP right away. I've edited about 50% of my Hubs including two that were unpublished when transferred over. Once they were edited, they passed QAP and are now published.

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    1. 0

       calculus-geometryposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       That's true, it will go through the QAP, but it's not that hard to pass.  If there's no black warning box at the top of your hub (that only you can see when you're logged in) then there are no violations you need to worry about.  From the looks of your hubs, I don't think you will run into any "overly promotional" issues because you aren't using Amazon links excessively (as per HP's definition of excessive.)

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       relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Correct.  Although "going through QAP" isn't always an instantaneous review, and can occasionally take as long as a couple days if the queue gets backed up.

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    LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

    To do that, you would have to unpublish, delete.  It takes 24 hours for system to delete it. They you need to use Google URL removal too to try to get it, and cache version out of search engines.  By doing this, you run the risk of it coming back as duplicate content.

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    1. 71

       Judy Filareckiposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Thank you Linda and Calculus.
       After realizing that the URL did not contain Squidoo, I decided to totally change the title, and went through and made sure all mention of Squidoo was removed and corrected all the squidoo links to HP. I clicked "Done Editing" and the ranking went from 74 to 85. I'm  happy with that and will not unpublished and republish under a new url. Thank goodness.

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