Only latest article in a series selected for Niche Site.

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   Jodahposted 16 months ago

   I have written a series of articles/essays under the title "The Cackleberry Farmer." Only the latest of around ten issues has been selected for "LetterPile" niche site. HP won't allow links to the other hubs in the series, and anyone reading the one on LetterPile won't really be able to follow the ongoing story without knowing what occurred before. It would be a very time consuming and long term job to try and submit the other nine articles for consideration for a move to the niche site. most of the others in the series are no longer even featured.  Does anyone have a similar experience or have any suggestions?

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      theraggededgeposted 16 months agoin reply to this

      Sort of. I have a bunch of related articles. Most have them have been moved but there are a few stragglers. I've resigned myself to submitting them manually every 14 days.
      
      Personally in your case, I'd think about getting it put back on the main site - at least they'll all stay together.
      
      They have let me add three links to others in the series.

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         Jodahposted 16 months agoin reply to this

         Thank you for that, theraggededge. I may try submitting another of the series and see what happens. If it is approved I may do others, if not I may get this one put back on the main site. I was surprised it was selected, especially for LetterPile. It was probably because it had a lot of views and comments when I published it.

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            Will Apseposted 16 months agoin reply to this

            Sounds like a case of someone on the staff following rules blindly. Still, you got another page on letterpile and that could help.
            
            If you are allowed one link back to the first article, and one link to every succeeding page on HP, I would keep it on Letterpile.
            
            Otherwise, maybe do what theraggededge suggests.

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               Jodahposted 16 months agoin reply to this

               Thanks, Will. I'll try adding a link to one of the others.

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                  Venkatachari Mposted 16 months agoin reply to this

                  John, you should give a link to the first article of the series in your Letterpile.com selected article. That's what Will Apse meant and I agree with him. So, if that link gets accepted by HP, your readers can go to the first part and from there, they can view the second part and from the second part, they can land in the third part, like that they can reach to all parts serially. That's really a good suggestion.

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                     Jodahposted 16 months agoin reply to this

                     I just added a link to the first in the series so we will see how that goes. Thanks.

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                        Venkatachari Mposted 16 months agoin reply to this

                        Okay. Also please ensure that your each article has a link to the next article of the series.

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      aerospacefanposted 16 months agoin reply to this

      I wrote a very long hub and had it was denied for featuring because I interlinked to another hub on a niche site. Once I removed the link, the hub was featured.
      
      Personally, I find it silly. I always thought occasional intra-linking was smart seo. Makes me think they consider HP outbound links to niche sites are toxic?

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         Marisa Wrightposted 16 months agoin reply to this

         The point I was making is that HP already has a LOT of internal links in place, on every single Hub.   I confess I have no solid evidence that you can overdo internal links, but my observations suggest it is possible.

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   Beth Eaglescliffeposted 16 months ago

   It depends on how you see the future of HubPages. If you believe (as I do) that HP will eventually be just be a holding site from which editors select for the niche sites, then the more of your articles that get moved to LetterPile etc, the better. I think it's a backward step for your articles to be returned to HubPages.
   
   I can see a time, not too distant, when HP articles are made invisible to search engines and non-members. (This is my personal view only - I have no inside information.) Then the only way for views and earnings will be through the niche sites.
   
   I found the Cackleberry article on Letterpile a good read as a stand-alone article. I don't think it has to be linked to the series to succeed.

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      Jodahposted 16 months agoin reply to this

      Beth, thanks for taking the time to read my article and also for your advice. I am glad you think it is fine as a stand-alone article.

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      Venkatachari Mposted 16 months agoin reply to this

      True. It can stand as a stand-alone article.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 16 months agoin reply to this

      Beth, I have exactly the same view of the future of HubPages.  I don't have any inside information either, but it's the logical conclusion to the path HubPages has taken.

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   ShailaSheshadriposted 16 months ago

   I don't know, whether linking the similar articles problem occurred to me is same as the one being discussed here.
   I write recipes and food articles. A few of the recipes, I think, can be linked to the similar recipes or food articles published by me. I tried to do this, to increase the views. But they deleted links to my other similar articles. Now, I am not linking any of my articles. Please clarify.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 16 months agoin reply to this

      You are allowed to link to other articles provided the link is closely related to the TITLE  of your article. So perhaps if you had a recipe for "rice with red peppers and mushrooms", you could have a link to another dish with red peppers and mushrooms in it.  But you couldn't have a link to a recipe for rice with aubergines and onion, because there's not enough in common.

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   ShailaSheshadriposted 16 months ago

   I tried to link sweet diamond cuts(snacks) with spicy diamond cuts(snacks), various dry curries, varieties of stuffed crepes. But they have deleted the link and advised me not to use links

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   Beth Eaglescliffeposted 16 months ago

   Your aim should be to keep the reader on your own page for as long as possible, not tempt them away to look at other articles on other sites. Each article should provide enough information to make the reader feel satisfied that their question has been answered.
   
   The main HP site is now completely separate from the specialist (or niche) sites. The niche sites no longer have any links to HubPages articles in the "related" links column at the side of your article. The HubPages team are making the niche sites as distinct as possible from the old HP and this seems to be pleasing Google.
   
   It is likely in the future that the old HP site will be made invisible to search engines and non-members. Thus any links you put in your niche site articles directing your reader to another article on the old HubPages will become a dead link and that will annoy and alienate your readers.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 16 months agoin reply to this

      If you run a blog, interlinking to other posts on the blog is a highly recommended strategy (obviously, you link to other posts that are helpful to the reader, not just for the sake of it).
      
      On HubPages, I'm in two minds about it. HubPages already provides lots of links in sections like Related Hubs, so I wonder if adding more links might be overdoing it. 
      
      Also, as Beth says, the vertical sites were created to escape from Google's bad opinion of the HubPages' main site.   So you don't want to link back to the main site if you have a Hub on the vertical site, it would defeat the purpose.

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         Will Apseposted 16 months agoin reply to this

         I don't think HP is actually a toxic site to link to. And, if the Letterpile page makes little or no sense on it's own, it is the only sensible option if you care about your reader.
         
         Suppose, you could take the nofollow link option.

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            Beth Eaglescliffeposted 16 months agoin reply to this

            Deleted
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               Will Apseposted 16 months agoin reply to this

               I would avoid series if you want traffic from search engines.

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                  Beth Eaglescliffeposted 16 months agoin reply to this

                  +1

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         aerospacefanposted 16 months agoin reply to this

         Marissa,
         
         What you shared makes a great deal of sense. If this is the case HP should be direct about this and simply state if an article appears on a niche site, they don't want it linking back to HP.
         
         Conversely, I bet they also don't want a HP article linking externally to a niche site.

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