The important of Facebook and Pinterest to ranking

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   makingamarkposted 9 years ago

   I've been intrigued by the notion that HubPages only counts traffic from google and ignores both Facebook and Pinterest.
   
   I've just been reading the Searchmetrics report on Ranking Factors in the USA in 2014
   http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/knowled … g-factors/
   (i.e. those factors which distinguish well-placed sites from those with lower positions in Google search results)
   
   It comes with a rather nice Infographic. This sums up the results which provides a neat reminder of what to you need to focus on to have a successful site
   http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/knowled … fographic/
   
   What I found particularly interesting is that the TOP TEN Factors that correlated well with high rankings included:
   * Facebook Shares
   * Facebook comments
   * Pinned on Pinterest
   * Facebook Likes
   
   Can anybody explain to me the rationale of not looking at how a hub is doing on Facebook and Pinterest?

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      Glimmer Twin Fanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi makingamark - I'm curious as to why you think HubPages ignores Facebook and Pinterest.  In my experience that is not at all the case.  Both of them appear on my "Traffic Sources" page as well as on the individual hub stats.

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         makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I kept reading in the forum that HubPages ignores the traffic from Facebook and Pinterest. I don't know where this bit of information comes from as nobody ever supplies a link to the "official source"
         
         I wonder if maybe HubPages record the traffic data from different sources but then don't use the data?
         
         I know from my own experience and that of my friends that both are critical to boosting traffic to a site no matter where it is located.

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            calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Can you provide links to where you "keep reading" this?  I've never seen a staff member, nor one of the vocal misinformed users ever say "Hubpages ignores Pinterest and Facebook."

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               makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               No I can't - it's been repeated again and again. I'll post a link next time I see one.
               
               It relates to how Hubpages counts traffic. Possibly for the ranking of HubScores?

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                  DrMark1961posted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  No, it does not relate to Hubscores. (One of my hubs, that usually has 100, is also one that has thousands of pins.)
                  It also has nothing to do with an article being unfeatured. On that other thread, I mentioned that in 3 years one of my hubs has 25,000 pinterest views, over 20,000 facebook views, and only 244 google.com views. It is still featured. (That is only about 120 google views per year.)
                  People repeat all sorts of false things again and again. I even read about some woman that is suing HP because she had her hubs transferred from Squidoo-and that has been repeated again and again.

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                     makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Oh PLEASE don't start that topic in this thread!!

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                        DrMark1961posted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        What topic would that be? Hubscores? You brought the subject up, I was replying to your comment.
                        Unfeatured? What is the point of this thread? You were happy to see the comment from Ramkitten about BritFlorida´s comment about being unfeatured.
                        If you are going to make comments like that, be a little more specific.

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            rebekahELLEposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Sometimes people make statements in the forums that are simply not true.  They misinterpret something they read and decide that it's a fact.  HP loves social media traffic and I've never read anywhere that the traffic data isn't used.  I know there have been a few blog posts highlighting viral hubs from social media shares.  There is a newsletter giving tips on how to write hubs which are more likely to go viral.   Plus traffic sources show FB and Twitter data.
            If someone makes a statement that isn't officially recorded somewhere, I usually ignore it or ask for a source.  I'll try to find those blog entries.  Here are a few I found.
            
            Numerous articles about social media in Newsletter Archive
            Learning Center entries about using various social media platforms.

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               makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               I know what you mean
               
               I don't normally pay attention to such statements but if they are repeated and not rebutted - and then if a member of staff makes them (see below) - that's when I start to take a different perspective.......
               
               My personal view is that if somebody says "HubPages says..." then it should be mandatory that the link to the page this is said on is also included (ie a PROPER CITATION!) - and that way we'd all be able to examine for ourselves whether the comment is true and what context it's made in.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      My experience so far is that social shares have little effect. I have an article that gets hundreds of social shares and is dropping in the SERPs. I have other articles that do well and get no social shares and all of their traffic is organic from Google.

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2. 0

   calculus-geometryposted 9 years ago

   Perhaps the confusion comes from this entry in the learning center:
   
   Why Hubs May Not Be Featured
   
   Your Hub may not be Featured for one of two reasons:
   
   It did not get a sufficient quality score through the Quality Assessment Process to be Featured
   After being Featured for a period of time, the Hub did not get sufficiently high levels of engagement (e.g. comments, total views, search traffic) to continue to be Featured
   
   http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/Featured-Hubs
   
   The LC entry could be (mis)interpreted to mean that HP does not consider social traffic when a hub gets unfeatured for engagement.  Although, technically social traffic should be counted in total views.

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      Millionaire Tipsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I'm not sure whether HubPages includes Pinterest and Facebook views on the featuring/unfeaturing decision, but I can see why they would not want to include them.  They are trying to hide from the search engines what the SEs don't like, on the theory that if the SE's haven't been sending the page any views, it is possible that the SE doesn't like it.  The social traffic can be artificially manipulated (especially since the bar is so low for the featuring/unfeaturing decision which only requires a "heartbeat.")

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         calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I interpret it that search traffic is weighted more than social traffic since "search traffic" is set aside as its own special thing, but since "total views" is in the mix, no traffic sources are completely disregarded.    You're probably right about the manipulation thing.

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            makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I'm not particularly interested in the interpretations of individuals since everybody will have their own view
            
            What I'm trying to get at is:
            1) what has HubPages SAID IN WRITING on this topic
            2) which page can I find any relevant statements on so I can
            * either study them for myself and draw my own conclusions
            * or suggest to Hubpages they may care to review their policy if they review statistical analysis from elsewhere

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         makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         But the whole point of the article I've quoted (have you read it?) is that the social sites are providing lots of evidence of a strong correlation with high ranking websites ie Google must be taking account of these in some way.

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      makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the suggestion Calculus - but NO - NOT THAT ONE.
      
      No distinction is drawn in that comment about different sources of traffic - which is what this thread is about.

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3. 90

   Ramkitten2000posted 9 years ago

   There was that thread where BritFlorida (I think her username is a bit different here, though) reported a hub that had had something like 400 visits in a day (or week?) but that had still been unfeatured. Many or most or all of those visits had been from Pinterest. Then a HP staff member came along to explain that those visits don't "count" when it comes to a hub being featured/unfeatured -- that's it's Google visits that count in that regard.
   
   I haven't been able to find that thread yet.

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      makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That's certainly one of the comments I was thinking of. Thanks for that!
      
      It was the fact that a member of HubPages staff said they didn't "count" which had me puzzled. I've still no idea
      * why this should be so
      * where it says this in the help pages

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      The Examiner-1posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Deleted
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         Ramkitten2000posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         No, but I posted the link to the thread above. I did find it after my first post. Thanks, though!

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   Ramkitten2000posted 9 years ago

   Here's that thread I was referring to. Finally found it....
   
   http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/126800

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      makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      and the specific quote by a member of staff is.......
      
      Matthew Meyer posted 2 weeks ago in reply to this
      "The engagement component of the QAP requires some search traffic, so if a Hub receives only direct traffic or traffic via social media, then it can still be de-featured for lack of engagement.
      
      If this occurs to your Hub, you can edit them and resubmit it to the QAP and the time period to find engagement will start over and you will have another chance to find readers."
      
      So it's possible that HubPages might be ignoring some of the important social factors identified as correlating strongly with high ranking websites - see the link in the OP for why I'm highlighting this

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         missoliveposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         My two cents...
         I'm looking at the original post and your quote above;
         I don't read this as HP 'ONLY' looking at one source and/or ignoring social media referrals.
         Matthew said, "The engagement component of the QAP requires some search traffic" the keyword that stands out to me is SOME search traffic....not ONLY search traffic.

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5. 87

   rebekahELLEposted 9 years ago

   What Matt said in that thread is that some search traffic is necessary and not just direct or social media traffic, which makes sense to me.  The engagement component of the QAP requires some search traffic, so if a Hub receives only direct traffic or traffic via social media, then it can still be de-featured for lack of engagement.
   (we posted at the same time)

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      missoliveposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      oops, I just read this and I basically posted the same thing. I agree with you rebekaELLE. 'ONLY' and 'SOME' are the keywords in this issue.

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   pateludayposted 9 years ago

   It is strange most of these social media portals provide nofollow links???

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   The Examiner-1posted 9 years ago

   I am a member of Pinterest, not Facebook. In Google Analytics, it shows that most of my views are from Pinterest.

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