Revamping my idle hubs, does it really work?

1. 63

   lucybell21posted 12 years ago

   Revamping my idle hubs, does it really work?
   
   I just spent like 3 hours or better, no lie. Trying to update idle, non featured hubs that stopped doing well. I was wondering how long it takes to get them indexed? I would like to see them making money again. I tweeked them, and also did the tital over. I think I did at least 10, and still have more to go, but some are recipes, so you can't do much with them. Thoughts please? I really hate to lose them, and just see them sitting there.

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2. 79

   cprice75posted 12 years ago

   They usually get approved in about a day. I've made minimal changes to hubs that were de-indexed and had them up again in a day.

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3. 83

   Rock_njposted 12 years ago

   The time it takes for reFeatured hubs (ones that were idled by HubPages, but now back in good standing) to be reindexed by Google depends upon when Google comes back to crawl your subdomain at HubPages.  You can force Google to crawl your subdomain at HubPages by going to Health in Google Webmaster Tools and the selecting Fetch as Google.  It may take a few days for Google to crawl your subdomain at HubPages after the Fetch is submitted, but it will usually be faster than waiting for Google to come around again.

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4. 94

   jansharesposted 12 years ago

   Yes, it does work to wake them up again. It has worked for me every time. I've even had some hubscores increase as a result of the edits. However, it's not as easy to predict what Google will do and if there is an audience who will search for them. I have read in the forums that it can take months to get the re-featured hub indexed again. But overall, your work is worth it to get the hubs back in the race. Also, keep in mind that if they don't regain that traffic, they will be idled again.

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5. 34

   wqaindiaposted 12 years ago

   While doing so never forget to Fine Tune the Title. It works wonders. Previously I thought that fine tuning is of no use but when I used the suggested key words or tags provided by HP fine tuner, of course without effecting the meaningful title of my hubs the traffic doubles and it is the page views alone which make a hub featured on non featured.

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6. 86

   aa liteposted 12 years ago

   It does work, as long as your hub meets the minimum quality standards as judged by the MTurk assessment, in that they will go back to being featured.  For most people the hubs lost their featured status because of lack of traffic, rather than quality so they will be featured again.
   
   Whether it is worth it is another question.  If they become featured but don't get search traffic, eventually they will lose their status again.  So I think you need to think carefully about why they didn't get traffic to start with and whether the edits you're doing now will make it better.
   
   In some cases, it is really worth it, for example a seasonal hub whose season is about to come up.  In other cases, I don't bother to do anything with my idle hubs.  Usually the problem is bad keyword research to start with, either the keyword didn't have search volume, or the competition was so too high. 
   
   What is good is if you can figure out an alternative keyword to use that might work better, maybe something more specific.  In that case changing the title, and perhaps getting the new keyword in the content a couple of times is definitely worth it.  Sometimes it is pretty hopeless, to be honest.
   
   I find recipe hubs very challenging.  There are so many recipe specific sites out, that always come up when I search for something, I think it is very difficult to compete with them.  Unless you make the title very specific (but something that still gets search volume).

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   1. 43

      Sonali Singhposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      what do you mean by mturk assesment

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7. 0

   calculus-geometryposted 12 years ago

   Even a trivial change such as putting an extra carriage return after a text section will get it re-featured in 24 hours.  That said, it will probably go back to idle again in a few months if you only make cosmetic changes.  It depends on how much time you want to invest.  Since you own the rights to your content, you can always remove them from HubPages and republish them on your own website.  Many people have decided to do that rather than keep making changes.  At least on your own site you have more control over things.
   
   In my own experience, the few hubs of mine that have gone idle were quite short, so I just added another section of text and/or photos to increase their length.  So far they haven't gone back to idle. Adding more images is easy and goes a long way toward helping your hubs appear in search results. I find it the most painless way to fix idled hubs.
   
   Since you have a lot of recipes, try to find photos of raw ingredients, or stock photos of people eating.  You can use Morguefile and Wikimedia Commons to find free pics.

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8. 54

   Brett.Tesolposted 12 years ago

   YES!! But, only if you do it properly. Revamping by changing just one word is useless most of the time. Sometimes it works if the hub has aged 4-8 months, but more often than not it will just sleep again.
   
   However, revamping with new content, getting them indexed and choosing low-medium competition appropriate keywords really helps!! (if you don't know about keywords etc, I have some hubs explaining it in 'normal English'). Doing this can see a sleeping hub turn into a high traffic hub, especially for older hubs :-). Also, don't forget to proof read and check your content is up to date.
   
   For recipes, try writing about how you got started with them, history, health facts of ingredients, where they come from and nice descriptions of the meal.

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9. 43

   Sonali Singhposted 12 years ago

   Try adding one or two videos in the hubs. That might work.

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10. 76

    stricktlydatingposted 12 years ago

    Revamping idle Hubs has worked for me.  For revamping recipe Hubs, you could try adding more photos and put a description capsule for each, add a new capsule and call it "Hints And Tips" set to theright of the page with some dot points of handy hints, add the Links capsule linking your other recipe's, and add an extra capsule at the beginning with a light-hearted speel about yourself, your cooking or what you're about to cook.  Some of these things you may be already doing, but hope this helps you a little

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11. 71

    carol7777posted 12 years ago

    I have gone over about a dozen hubs.  I usually change the title, add photos and check grammar and spelling. They have always gotten accepted and even start performing better.  However i usually check several a week that have been on the list for several months.  As you write you often get better...

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12. 61

    gosupressposted 12 years ago

    ofcourse it works! do revive your hubs its more then worth it. the one that fell into un-featured is now my best hub!

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