How come high quality = least traffic?

1. 72

   makingamarkposted 10 years ago

   I'm non-plussed.  How come high quality = least traffic?
   
   When I look at my HubScores I note that the ones that get the highest scores are very often ones which get only a little traffic.
   
   By way of contrast those which get the most traffic / comments / sales often have a less high score eg usually above 70 and often above 75 but not always by very much.
   
   So is this just me and my set of hubs? Or is this more common across the site?
   
   The other taxing question is of course would I want to increase the quality and risk losing the traffic / comments / sales?
   
   I know HubScore is rubbished by many people - but surely we could have a scoring system which better reflects hubs which do well for the site, their owners and - most importantly - their readers?

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   1. 61

      jodijoyousposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      No, it's not just you. In fact, one of my highest scoring hubs was recently unfeatured for "poor quality"! It now resides elsewhere.
      
      I try to ignore those scores, as they don't seem to mean anything. In fact, I wish we could permanently sort the dashboard by some other factor (such as traffic).

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      1. 72

         makingamarkposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         The first thing I do every day when I log in is sort my dashboard by  traffic.
         
         If the scores actually had some meaning to me and the world at large I wouldn't mind hubs being ordered by their HubScores but right now they seem to me to be pretty meaningless.  Or maybe I just mean "really, really opaque".

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   2. 83

      peachpurpleposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Same here, i have a hub with 95 score but 5 views, another hub as 60 scire with 30 views!

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   3. 63

      OldRosesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      To improve your hub score, you should refer to the upper right corner in edit mode where it says "Need some goals?".  That will tell you what Hub pages considers the ingredients for a "stellar" hub as they call it.  Personally, I feel that excess verbiage, stupid videos and childish polls and quizzes have no place in my hubs.  They are unprofessional and make hubs look like they were written by 12 year olds, but hubs that meet those goals have the highest scores.  Fortunately for me, no one sees those scores except me so I can safely ignore them and concentrate on producing content that attracts a lot of traffic.

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      1. 72

         makingamarkposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         The advice about how to create a stellar hub may indeed be useful for new writers.
         
         However as somebody who has been writing for many years, gets half a million+ pageviews a year on my blog and has been commissioned to write a book by a major publisher I think it's just possible I might know a thing or two about what it takes to give MY AUDIENCE what they want.
         
         It's not necessarily the same as what works for other audiences. I'll now head back to sorting out my new website......

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   4. 81

      Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I like it when my least trafficked hubs get higher scores. This means they may be more prominently featured on the hubs page and otherwise marketed by HubPages.  The ones that are getting traffic don't need HubPages' help.

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      1. 72

         makingamarkposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Maybe try looking at this another way. Your hubs with the most traffic would get become more prominently featured and get even more traffic and rise in Google ranking if the HubScoring found a proxy for customer satisfaction.
         
         Fact - Hubs are generally popular for a reason - ideally because they satisfy a want or need on the part of the reader

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         1. 81

            Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I think that is why the scores fluctuate.  Sometimes my hubs with the traffic are on the top, and other times the ones with less traffic.  I'm glad it isn't always the ones with the most traffic, because then people could easily know which ones were the good ones and there would be even more stealing of hubs than there already is.  Besides, the lower traffic ones could be good ones too, and people just need a chance to see them to see how truly wonderful they are.

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   5. 67

      relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Why do you believe that high-quality should also mean not low traffic? 
      
      When you look at actual human behavior, most people don't actually want the best, they often purposely want something faster or cheaper.  I think this holds true when it comes to getting information too.

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      1. 63

         OldRosesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Relache, Hubpages and I disagree on what constitutes "high-quality".  I know that HP has done studies that prove cluttering up hubs with videos, polls and quizzes increases traffic, but I don't care for the way it looks.  More importantly, when I look at authority gardening sites (my niche) they don't have any of those things and still get plenty of traffic so I format my hubs to resemble the most successful sites.

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2. 77

   Shades-of-truthposted 10 years ago

   I have recently decided to ignore the rating on my hubs, as the one I put the most effort into, the one that consistently gets the most traffic, has a very low score.
   
   In an effort to boost its score, I have "tweaked" it many times, to no avail. The score simply stayed where it was, or dropped. Nevertheless, it has always received more traffic than any of my other articles.
   
   The numbers on the hubs that are supposed to indicate their "quality score" change so frequently, that I cannot banish the image that comes to mind, of a frantic chimpanzee running a old-fashioned, wired telephone switchboard - gleefully plugging wires into various holes marked with random score numbers.
   
   From the evidence, I think that may be closer to the truth than one might think!

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   1. 63

      OldRosesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Shades, many hubbers agree with you and ignore their hub scores.  Don't make yourself crazy trying to satisfy Hub Pages.  Write hubs that are most attractive to the audience that you are trying reach.  The only "score" that should concern any of us is our traffic.  It doesn't matter how high a hub score is if no one is reading the hub!

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      1. 77

         Shades-of-truthposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         OldRoses, I could not agree with you more.
         
         (Still think there is a frenzied chimp loose here somewhere!)

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         1. 63

            OldRosesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Agreed.  That chimp has been running amok in my hubs for months.  Individual hub scores change dramatically sometimes daily, sometimes weekly.  There is no rhyme or reason to it that I have been able to figure out, so I ignore the scores and concentrate on what my readers want.

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