First time ever for me....

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   DzyMsLizzyposted 9 months ago

   I was scrolling down my list of hubs, and most of my poetry is 'unfeatured for lack of traffic.'  No surprise there.  My poetry was among the first things I published here, before I learned the ropes, and  that no one searches for poetry, because they have either no interest, or don't know the topic under which the author wrote same.
   
   Today, however, one of them has been 'unfeatured for not meeting standards.'  That's never happened to me before.  Ever.
   
   The suggestion to 'add fresh material,' or whatever else it said...are irrelevant because it IS a poem; there is nothing 'fresh' to add.  To use a common saying (one that drives my hubby up the wall), "it is what it is."
   
   Any ideas?  Maybe I should just unpublish the thing?  Have a look-see:
   
   http://hubpages.com/family/Family-Mine

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   NateB11posted 9 months ago

   I used to write poetry all the time, long before I started writing here on HP. I did publish a couple poems here years ago, and discovered likewise that they are a no-go. So, I unpublished all two of them and put them on a Blogger blog. Have considered self publishing them.
   
   At any rate, that's my advice: unpublish them and move them. I don't see the point of leaving any poetry on Hubpages.
   
   Poetry as far as I'm concerned is not meant to be scrutinized by an editor. So, I'd move the poem somewhere else.

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      DzyMsLizzyposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      Hi, Nate..
        Yes, that's kind of what I'm thinking...but that's a lot of moving.  LOL  I have a bunch of them on here.  Over 20, I'd say offhand...I have let my blogs lapse as I just don't have the time to write here and blog as well. So, no traffic there, either.  Thanks for offering your thoughts.
      
      Oh, well...c'est la vie!

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   Marisa Wrightposted 9 months ago

   The answer is very simple.  You must've written it in the early days when you didn't understand categories.
   
   Poetry has to be categorised under "Poetry", otherwise it's judged to the same standards as informational articles.  Fix the category and it'll be fine.

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      DzyMsLizzyposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      Ah--you're right, Marisa; thanks! I had set it under 'family and parenting-->teens' because that was the topic of the poem....
      I just fixed it, so we'll see. 
      
      Now, I'd better go check on all the others...or maybe, a little at a time, submit them to the new 'letterpile' site, which seems to include poetry as one of its sub-genres.
      
      Update:  I've checked all the others; all are correctly categorized under poetry.

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   DzyMsLizzyposted 9 months ago

   So, I have a new question along these same lines.  This hub:
   
   http://hubpages.com/animals/-Behind-the-Shelter-Walls
   
   is also a poem, and it's unfeatured status is only due to traffic.  When I checked the other day, to make sure all my poetry hubs were so categorized, and found that the rest of them were, I didn't think much more about it.
   However, today, I went in and looked at this hub again. Even though it is mainly a poem, there is other information.  So, I re-categorized it as "Pets and Animals>>Animal Rights and Welfare>>Adopting Animals"
   (Much of my writing is an attempt to educate, sometimes quite on the sly. )
   
   I am hoping this will gain more traffic for this hub, as I feel there is an important educational point made, both within the poem, and with further information down the page. 
   What do you think?  Did I mess up, or will this help?
   
   Maybe I should change the title of the hub from the title of the poem, which is what it currently is, and add a new text capsule just for the title of the poem.  ???
   
   I don't want to touch the text capsule containing the poem, as every time I have done that before, saving it has stripped away my formatting.  I use a visual sort of line break, and they now take away any leading white space, so it all ends up looking very boring in block format. 
   
   Thanks

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      Marisa Wrightposted 9 months agoin reply to this

      I don't think moving it will increase traffic, because the extra information is presented as specific information about local shelters and therefore not many people will be searching for it.  Also, you have "A Poem" in the title which tells Google it's a poem.

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         DzyMsLizzyposted 9 months agoin reply to this

         Ah--so, I should remove the 'poem' suffix then...and re-edit it to show a similar bit of info on searching local shelters and rescue groups in one's own area...that could be an anchor text link to a website, I'm guessing...

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            Marisa Wrightposted 9 months agoin reply to this

            The other thing to consider, if you want this to be an informational Hub rather than a poetry Hub, is that people arriving at the Hub will see a poem and think, that's not what I'm looking for.  So you would need to move the poetry capsule down.

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               DzyMsLizzyposted 9 months agoin reply to this

               Okay, that makes a lot of sense.  Thanks, Marisa; your experience and insight are always valuable and appreciated.
               
               Update:  http:// hubpages.com/animals/-Behind-the-Shelter-Walls (space added after the // to prevent a link here)
               
               Better?  I fleshed it out to be a regular article, with the poem included, and explained.

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               Titiaposted 9 months agoin reply to this

               What Marisa says, move the poem down. I use a lot of my poetry in my hubs and sometimes I put them in a text capsule, sometimes I enter them as a picture.
               
               If you want no extra space between lines, use ctrl+enter in stead of enter.

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                  DzyMsLizzyposted 9 months agoin reply to this

                  Thanks, Titia!  I did not know that trick!

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                     Titiaposted 8 months agoin reply to this

                     Uhhh, sorry it's shift+enter.

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