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Traffic vs. Search Traffic

  1. HSP Connections profile image94
    HSP Connectionsposted 13 months ago

    So, one of my Hubs-- about a year old-- was recently un-featured "because it does not receive sufficient search traffic."

    Scratching my head a bit, trying to understand HubPages' underlying motivations...

    The key concept here evidently is SEARCH traffic.

    The thing is, the hub actually averages about 200-ish views a month (not HUGE numbers, I get that) because it is (organically) linked to from an assortment of web sites and blogs relating to a field in which I happen to be somewhat of an expert.

    It just doesn't happen to get any traffic from Google and Bing.

    Should my take-away here be that hubs only have "value" if search engines like them, but not if actual human beings like them? Trying to get that to make sense, but can't... HOW a person gets to a page doesn't affect whether they are exposed to ads on that page... so what gives?

    Just pondering...

    ~Peter

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  2. lobobrandon profile image83
    lobobrandonposted 13 months ago

    Hey Peter

    Let me try to explain this in a way that makes sense.

    Firstly Hub Pages main source of traffic is no doubt Google. Obviously they want to do all they can to make sure the site is loved by Google.

    Now there were a lot of spammy hubs on the site since they were not really moderated (not to this level). The best way to get rid of spam was to unfeature the ones that were not receiving traffic.

    But hubpages took it a bit further and said: If Google doesn't send the hub any traffic: less than 1-2 views a month (I got 1 with a few hits a month that is featured so I say this lol) let's tell Google we do not want you to index this page as it's probably low quality in your eyes. The end result = unfeatured hub.

    But you may say: Hey! People love my hub I get 1000's of hits a day. Pinterest loves it, Facebook guys, twitter you name it everyone is flocking to it. I have loads of blogs sending me traffic, why bother if Google isn't?

    The simple answer: HP loves that too. But they won't keep you featured. Because when a hub is unfeatured it simply means they add a rel=noindex tag. Your hub is still on Hub Pages and is going to be just another normal web page to anyone that's getting to your site via the sources you were getting traffic from in the first place. They do not know that it's unfeatured or it's "probable" low quality in HP's eyes.

    So to sum up. They are just being safe to ensure the articles that do receive search engine traffic are not harmed in anyway by the ones that are totally low quality or deemed un-fit by search engines even if an expert in the industry has written it.

    It's nothing to be taken seriously. The only problem is that you won't receive search engine traffic. And if you were getting less than 1 a month to begin with, I don't see anything improving unless you make changes. And when you do make changes, it goes through the cycle again and is featured. That's how it works. It's late and I'm not really thinking just blabbering, hope I made myself clear lol.

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  3. Marisa Wright profile image94
    Marisa Wrightposted 13 months ago

    Lobobrandon explained it perfectly.

    If your Hub is unFeatured, then all that means is that it won't get Google traffic.  That's all.

    To most of us, that's a tragedy because it means we'll get almost no traffic.  For you, it doesn't matter because you get all your traffic from other sources, and those other sources will still work.

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  4. HSP Connections profile image94
    HSP Connectionsposted 13 months ago

    Thanks for the explanations!

    I guess my main concern was that it would drop out of visibility from my profile page and that "unfeatured" was just one step from "unpublished." And that someone clicking on some link somewhere would suddenly get a "not found" error message.

    I'm pretty much a niche writer... people don't follow "my writing," they follow "my niche content." My HP traffic (especially on my other account-- this is my "Squidoo remnant) has always been 95% the result of 100+ facebook shares, tweets and so on. 

    Thanks again,
    Peter

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    1. lobobrandon profile image83
      lobobrandonposted 13 months ago in reply to this

      There's a setting to show unfeatured Hubs on your profile.

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