Unfeatured: traffic

1. 92

   DzyMsLizzyposted 6 years ago

   This is my quandary.  I have a total of 356 hubs.  Of those, 354 are published; the remaining 2 are still just unfinished drafts.
   
   When I scroll down the list, an awful lot seem to be unfeatured for lack of traffic.  So, I did a filter search to find out exactly how many were in that category.  I was shocked!  The number is 188, or 53%!!!  WOW!!
   
   Dang! 53%!  Just over half of my hubs lack any traffic (or draw insignificant traffic) at all!!  Of those, a good number (I did not count) are poems.  I have learned that lesson well; HP is not a poetry-friendly site, and poems in general gain little traffic, no matter where they are published.
   
   My question, then, is this:  Would it serve me better to just get rid of all those 188 deadwood hubs that are obviously not doing me a bit of good?  Unpublish?  Delete entirely? 
   
   I have noticed a very nice uptick in my earnings since the advent of the niche sites.  I do hope that doesn't change with the merger... (although yesterday's [1/15/18] "earnings" were in the red, because apparently, someone had the audacity to return an Amazon product! )
   
   What would your general advice be?  Ignore this?  Delete only the poems?  Re-work some of the others? (I plan to leave a couple that are in this category, as they are seasonal, and I expect views to fall off at other times of the year.)
   
   What to do, what to do?  It would seem easy to just take a broom and make a clean sweep, but I'm not sure that's wise.  I'd appreciate your thoughts and input.
   
   Thank you.

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   1. 93

      Natalie Frankposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Your poems are moving and lovely.  I would recommend taking them off and collecting them with any others you might have written into a chapbook or ebook.  Do a search online for publishers who would be conducive to publishing the type of poetry you write and see if there are any competitions for chapbooks that you might be able to enter.  The Submission Grinder is a good source for possible places to publish them.  As I've been doing searches I've noticed more calls for poetry and poetry collections than for anything else.  You might also be able to find other homes for your poems individually which are paying markets.  After you remove the poems see what that does to your traffic stats and featured rate.  Doing this would also provide you with a following that could in future get you traffic  if you decide to go back to adding poems to HP.  A couple of resources you might want to look at are:
      
      This is a great one which lets you filter by mult.sub., simult. sub. and whether you are an emerging or established poet.  http://www.poetrymarkets.com/paying-publications
      
      Writing Contests in January, No fee, All genres http://publishedtodeath.blogspot.com/20 … 18-no.html
      
      This is from 2016 but gives 325 different markets so I figure most are likely still operating and its worth a look.  http://publishedtodeath.blogspot.com/20 … ction.html
      
      This also lets you filter and when I filtered for no fee and poetry genre I got over 100 opportunities which also included some residencies and grants for poets.  When I narrowed it down to only contests with no fee, poetry and upcoming deadlines I got 16 possibilities. https://www.pw.org/grants?field_entry_f … r_page=All
      
      This one gives you contests for chapbooks https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetr … chapbooks/ (Some have reading fees all have cash prizes and almost all include publication as part of the award).
      
      Same as above but for single poems: https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetr … gle_poems/
      
      Good luck.  I know of others but didn't want to list tons and tons here.  PM me if you want some of the other options including residencies for poets that I've run across.  Take care and good luck.

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   2. 90

      Tinskyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I have a few hubs that are poems in a similar situation.
      
      I edited one recently, a children's poem about possums and submitted it to Letterpile and it was moved within a few days of submission.
      
      My edit was to remove extra text capsules from beneath the poem, not to add it (as some other authors have suggested). It was about why I wrote the poem and related information on a controversial topic.  I originally added the extra text on the related controversial topic to the poem to see if it would help boost traffic a year or so ago (not sure exactly when now) but aside from an immediate boost it did not last long. When I removed it, I saw the related material as potential material for a separate article, so have kept a copy. I may add back the background information at a later stage, but it needs a rewrite.
      
      The only time this poem receives traffic is when I actively promote it on social media. Mostly Twitter. And the initial change to Letterpile. I feel one of the challenges is that the poem is about a popular topic with famous writers already covering it. So, it has a great deal of competition to get noticed, even though it's on page five when I put in the type of poem and topic into a Google search. This isn't too bad, I suppose since it was only moved recently to Letterpile (though still not forward enough to get clicks).
      
      I am also considering removing my poetry to my writer's website.  Alternatively, I have considered adding a video through my YouTube account of a reading of the poem (would prefer just doing a sound file, but we don't have the ability to add a sound file). Waiting for summer holidays to end and Miss Nine to return to school so I can see if this video project is do-able.

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2. 62

   EricFarmer8xposted 6 years ago

   I wish I could specific advice but none of the Hubs I write about are fiction. I have also not been a Huber long enough for something to be unfeatured because of traffic.
   
   If this happened to me I would probally make a small change or edit to the Hubs I felt still had a chance. That would give them a second chance to get more traffic. If I really felt like the Hubs could not be saved I would consider using them somewhere else like a blog. You have a large number of Hubs and I can't say if your you think it would be worth the time to edit or not.

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3. 84

   Marisa Wrightposted 6 years ago

   First of all, what setting do you have on your profile?   Is it set to show all Hubs, or just Featured ones?  If it's just Featured ones, I would change that immediately, so we can see them all.   As you're quite a social Hubber, you may get a few extra views for some that way.
   
   As for what to do with the unFeatured ones - it depends how much time you have, and how much you care.  Deleting them seems pointless - what does it achieve?  I don't know of any other site where you could repost fiction or poetry and earn any money at all, so they might as well stay here. 
   
   If you're thinking they're dragging your account down somehow - they're not, so stop worrying about them.
   
   If you're thinking you could make some money from them if you improved them - it's debatable.   You're probably better off writing new articles than trying to revive the old ones.  Look at the Hubs you ARE making money from, and keep writing on those subjects instead.
   
   I hope you're already submitting one Hub every fortnight to the niche sites?

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   1. 92

      DzyMsLizzyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Marisa, I do have my profile set to show all hubs.  What I'm not very good at, is regularly updating the "carousel."
      
      I do submit hubs to niche sites; probably not quite as often as every 2 weeks; I tend to lose track. I know I should have a tracking system for that, and I started one, indicating which I had submitted, and which HP moved themselves... but it got away from me, and at this point, I don't know which is which.
      As to which hubs are producing the income, I don't know.  I still have the issue of not being able to get back into my AdSense account.

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      1. 84

         Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         You don't need to keep track at all!   All you need is some kind of reminder that it's been two weeks.  If you've got a wall calendar or a diary, maybe just write "Hub!!" once a fortnight. That's all you need.
         
         On the day, you go to your My Account page, click the "Filter" button and choose HubPages. That shows you all the Hubs that are left on HubPages.   Scroll through and choose one. Open it and do some editing to make sure it's looking its best, then click "Submit to a network site". 
         
         Then forget about it.
         
         Two weeks later, when you see that "Hub!" reminder again, do the same thing and pick another Hub.
         
         That's it.
         
         Of course, there's nothing to stop you improving and updating Hubs in between time, but then you'd have to keep track of which ones you've worked on and which you haven't.

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4. 92

   Rochelle Frankposted 6 years ago

   I don't know, Dizzy. If I were you ( and obviously I am not) I think I might make sure I had all of my poems copied in a personal file and delete them from HP. They still could be used on another site... or you might put them together for a hub of your poems which explains how you came to write them, or what inspired each???
   Then I might go through and see if some of them could be added to Hubs that might be related in subject.
   I had a few nonsense poems that I used in a hub about how to win a poetry contest..... not many views, but a lot of fun comments.

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5. 83

   Venkatachari Mposted 6 years ago

   Same was the problem with me also, Dizzy. Out of my 46 hubs, 50% got unfeatured due to traffic. I edited many of them, but two got completely unfeatured after editing. The rest, I am still trying to edit. So, out of those two completely unfeatured ones, I deleted one to add to my blog as it suits my blog. The other one also, I am thinking of deleting.
   
   But, in your case, they are all related to fiction and poetry. I better think you may consider publishing a book on KDP with all those unfeatured hubs if they are all related to literature. That can be a good job. Or, leave them as it is, as per Marisa's advice and contemplate on new hubs.

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   1. 92

      DzyMsLizzyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your thoughts, Venkatachari.  Actually, very few of my hubs are fiction.  The majority are how-to articles; information essays (travelogues, etc.); and a few opinion pieces.  Then there are the poems.

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6. 94

   jansharesposted 6 years ago

   Can you add text to the hub to create an article? Depending on the topic of the poem, adding a couple paragraphs to address the subject matter may wake them up out of unfeatured status. The edit may qualify them for LetterPile. So don't delete them just yet! Add a couple call out or quote capsules, too. I know this takes away from the pure intent of the poet but the reality is how do we keep our poetry alive on the internet? Try it and see.

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   1. 84

      Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      IF MsLizzy has the time to devote to reviving these Hubs, then the idea of adding paragraphs to the poems is a good one (though always at the end not at the beginning of the Hub).  The other good idea is to combine two or three poems on one Hub, though obviously they need to be connected in some way. 
      
      The catch is that the editors aren't likely to notice the improved Hubs - new ones go into the queue for consideration, revised Hubs don't.  So she's still have to submit them manually, once a fortnight.

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      1. 92

         DzyMsLizzyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Interesting, Marisa--i don't think editing goes unnoticed.  Almost every time I do an edit (most noticeably on niche site hubs), I get an email saying, "We've reviewed your article on xxx site, and it looks great!"

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         1. 84

            Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            There are two different teams.  There's the QAP team, who checks Hubs when they are first published and when they're edited, to make sure you're not breaking any rules.
            
            Then there are the niche site editors.  They spend their time looking for Hubs that are suitable for the niche sites.  They check every new Hub in the weeks after it's published.  They also check all the Hubs we're submitting once a fortnight (did you read my suggestion how to handle that?). 
            
            IF those editors have time, then they take a look at older Hubs, but we don't know how they approach that. Maybe they prioritise older Hubs that have recently been edited - that would make sense.  Or maybe they prioritise Hubs by authors whose reputation they already know.  But whatever method they use, it's only when they can spare time from the other two tasks, which I suspect is not often.

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   2. 92

      DzyMsLizzyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Rochelle, Janshares, Marisa,
      I probably have time to do this sort of thing; the issue is, as janshares said, detracting from the "purity" of the poems. I suppose, though, that's a matter of foolish vanity!
      Marisa, combining a few poems into one hub is a good idea: I do have a number of related ones.  Some are poems that began as "therapy" releases when my kids were teens!  LOL
      Rochelle, all of my poems are pretty old, dating from my prolific poetry writing days back in the 1980s...they all exist in hard copy, done on an  actual typewriter.
      
      The "issue" with moving things around; deleting and republishing into a new hub is obviously the copyright date.  Even the poems that I first put here when I started out, don't have the correct actual copyright date, as that would be back, as I said, in the 1980s, and some earlier... before HP even existed, I think....and we're not allowed to put our own copyright date/notice on our hubs...

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      1. 84

         Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         What you can do is unpublish the old Hub, don't delete it.  Then you still have the evidence should you ever need it.

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7. 92

   Titiaposted 6 years ago

   I used to have a lot of unfeatured hubs due to lack of traffic. Some of them I've deleted because they were not worth it to work on. Some of them I parked on my own website. About 5 of the unfeatured hubs I've unpublished myself because they needed much more work and I don't have the time to do that now. The rest I updated by changing and adding some text  and after hitting the 'done editing' button they were featured again.
   
   A few weeks/months ago I have pulled a few transferred hubs from my website, made sure Google deleted them from the internet and rewrote them to make them compliant to HP TOS and published them as new hubs on HP and all of them were immediately transferred to the vertical sites and their views are increasing. I still have 10 hubs now that haven't had a visitor in a month. Among them are two of my six lambing season hubs (2011 - 2016), which is understandable but all of them are still featured.
   
   I would just let them be and do what Marisa suggested, show your unfeatured hubs on your profile. If you don't they sure will not catch any visitor at all.
   
   I have poems too at Letterpile and three of the stories about my Mom and Dad have been moved there into Memories & Biographies. The poems went straight on, I didn't summit them and from the stories I submitted two, the other one was done by someone on staff.
   
   I've roamed around in Letterpile, but I think there's little going on editing wise. I still see a  lot of hubs there that have not page wide capsules and often bad grammar (even I could see that ) Most of those hubs are left alone by the author I guess, because I know that when I update one, I get a message that it's revieved and been found ok again.

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8. 85

   Rock_njposted 6 years ago

   The way I handle the idled hubs due to traffic is if they have any activity at all or are seasonal, I make some edits and republish them.  Sometimes
   lightly accessed hubs get a burst of traffic, if a topic is in the news or someone links to it, so I want to keep them available in the search engines.  The ones that are entirely dead, I just leave for future consideration.  No need to use time editing those.  Time is better spent writing new hubs that have potential for traffic.

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   1. 92

      DzyMsLizzyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks or that insight, Rock-nj.

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9. 94

   Jeremy Gillposted 6 years ago

   I'm in a fairly similar position. With a bit over 300 articles, about a third see regular traffic, a third see semi-regular, and a third rarely get views and will likely become unfeatured at some point.
   
   As others here have said, making some edits can help, but it's usually a temporary fix, meaning it might be better to focus on new material. Find something that works and stick with it; for me, that's my trading card and Star Wars articles. These see the most traffic, so I gravitate towards them, and occasionally branch out into territory where I expect less views but really want to write on the subject.

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   1. 84

      Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I think your experience is normal - in fact you might even be doing better than normal.
      
      HubPages has told us that 20% of all Hubs get 80% of the traffic.  When you write a Hub, even if you do keyword research, it's a gamble whether it's going to get traffic or not.  Some win, most lose.

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      1. 62

         EricFarmer8xposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         This is how it feels to me. I would say out my current 17 Hubs two Hubs get daily traffic that I think is noteworthy. About four Hubs get small amounts of views each day and the rest get very little or none.

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10. 100

    DrMark1961posted 6 years ago

    I guess I feel differently on this subject that does Marisa. I feel that if a hub is not performing after several years there is no point in leaving it on my account and dragging down the average page view of all the rest of my articles.
    Yes, I realize that we are told that Google looks at Hubpages as one site, and does not evaluate individual sites, but I still am not sure that this is true. I just went over 10 million views last week and part of it may because of careful pruning--I have deleted over 50 hubs that did not add to my profile. Yesterday I deleted one on "Can my dog eat garlic?" because it had been relegated to a back page on Google, rarely had any traffic, and (although it included my personal viewpoint on this subject) did not add any information that was not available from other sites.
    If a hub is not unique and is not getting any traffic from the search engines, what is the point of leaving it on your profile?

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    1. 84

       Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       It is definitely true that Google doesn't see your account as belonging to you.  We know that for certain, because of what happened with the sub-domains.
       
       When the sub-domains were introduced, it was because Google recognized sub-domains as separate entities, and HubPages wanted each author's account to be regarded as a separate entity. It was part of the effort to "quarantine" the quality content from the rest. 
       
       Then, a few years later, Google decided to change the way it viewed sub-domains.  As you say, Google didn't explain itself, but the effect at HubPages was major.  Traffic dropped.   HubPages researched and found that the sub-domains were no longer being regarded as separate, so the "quarantine" was no longer working.
       
       That's when HubPage had to bite the bullet and find another way to quarantine the best content - and the answer was to move it to the niche sites.

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11. 77

    psycheskinnerposted 6 years ago

    A poorer performing hub isn't dragging your other hubs down, they are quite separate other than the pointless hubber score.  So I see no financial reason to move it elsewhere until you have an "elsewhere" to move it.  Even lower earners are earning, and you never know when it might get traffic again.  I have had hubs perform badly for many years and then become topical or be linked by an authority site and become one of my best earners.

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    1. 100

       DrMark1961posted 6 years agoin reply to this

       Yes,I have read that opinion before. Unless you work for Google, though, and have inside info on how their ratings system works, it is not possible to prove it.

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       1. 75

          lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

          Nothing is impossible to prove. People test stuff. It has been proven. Today especially with hubs being on different niches, the ones which are not getting traffic are most likely on HP and so they have no influence on your other hubs on the niche sites.
          
          Also, you may delete your hubs, but what about other people? A drop evaporated from the ocean doesn't change much.

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          1. 100

             DrMark1961posted 6 years agoin reply to this

             There are a lot of things that are impossible to prove. Or, you can provide some proof, and then someone comes along and proves something totally different.
             As I sit here I am drinking a cup of coffee. Coffee is bad for you, and scientific studies prove it. Other studies prove otherwise.
             Do you remember the food triangle, and the recommendation that bread should be a major part of your diet? Studies have proven that to be false. It is possible to go on and on with those kinds of examples, which is why it is so easy to find a study to back up about any position.  (There are also many blogs out there proving the way Google works based on their personal experience. Personal experience is not proof.)
             
             And, if my hub rankings are being affected by that person (or those other people) that have only a few page views, and never delete anything, wouldn´t all of the hubs be doing poorly?

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             1. 75

                lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                So in a way, you're agreeing with me and psycheskinner that keeping low traffic hubs does no harm. Now that this is out of the way, I thought you would have realized what I meant when I said nothing is impossible to prove. I was referring to the Google search algorithm. It's just logic and maths at ton the end of the day. There is also something called reverse engineering.
                
                You build stuff up on keywords that have no search results and build sites on the same host with the domain name having no real difference with the same kind of lorem ipsum content. You only change one parameter, the one you want to test. This is how people test stuff based on results, not experience and opinion. You need to know to do your own tests or find people who do a good job and believe in their results.

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             2. 84

                Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                I've just posted the explanation and yes, other people's poor Hubs ARE dragging your Hubs down, and that's why HubPages started moving the best stuff to the niche sites. 
                
                Google HAS explained how the Panda algorithm works, you can find plenty of references if you search.  They look at the overall quality of a site, and assign the site a Panda score based on that.  Then they rate each individual article on its own merits, and  add the site's Panda weighting.  So an excellent article on a dodgy site won't rank as well as a good article on a great site.
                
                Some of your Hubs did well on the main site in spite of that handicap, but some of your middling Hubs may  not be quite good enough to counteract the Panda penalty.  It doesn't mean they're bad, and it's possible they would do better if they moved to the niche sites.  We don't know the Panda scores for the niche sites, but they have to be better than the main site.
                
                However, if a Hub never did well, even when the sub-domains were working, that's a sign it's probably never going to fly.  But, as Psycheskinner says, if it's still earning a few pennies. why not keep it?

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12. 100

    DrMark1961posted 6 years ago

    Perhaps, but if it is just math and a simple algorithm it would be a lot easier to game the system. The results would be dominated only by those who had a lot of SEO experience, or those who were willing to pay an SEO expert.
    I will be interested to hear how your tomato experiment went. Since you added many keywords, however, are you changing more than one parameter? (Or are you making "keywords" on parameter only?)

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    1. 75

       lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       What I am doing with the tomato hub is not an experiment. It would be an experiment if the same thing with slight variations were tested across multiple domains with the same authority (which is zero, all new domains) for a keyword which does not exist (until I crate it).
       
       But, since you asked, the hub has already moved quite a bit for those terms and the traffic is already up compared to the previous week (even though this is tomato season only in Australia).

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