Ubpublish or Delete Substandard Hubs - Which is Best?

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   quotationsposted 5 years ago

   I have a few hubs that I wrote about 10 years ago when I first started writing on hubpages that are not very good. They are pretty thin on content and get little or no traffic now. Some of them have even been unpublished due to lack of traffic or for quality. I am not disputing that they are not very good.
   
   I may try to improve them later.
   
   I read another post on the forums recommending unpublishing poor performing hubs with a view to increasing the overall average quality of your hubs.
   
   My question is this: Is it better to unpublish the hub (thus leaving the option of improving it later and retaining comments made on it) or, from the point of view of google rankings, is it better to just delete the hubs and maybe start over at a later date?
   
   The essence of my question is whether an unpublished hub still somehow affects the way Google views the overall quality of your writing, or does unpublishing essentially make your hub disappear from Google's search database?
   
   Thanks for any advice on this.
   
   (Before anyone points this out, I see my typo in the heading. Oops)

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      If a hub is truly substandard your choices really should be either to delete or upgrade.  Allowing a really bad hub to just sit around makes no sense.  I've done a lot of improving over the years and most of the time it has paid off.

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      Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      It's really worth it to improve them to the new standards. That's what I usually do. I had a few that never caught on or had good traffic, like book reviews, so if the hub never did well and you don't like it, then I would delete. But reread them and think about it, sometimes an article has good bones and is worth fixing. Don't be too hasty to delete. Check on Google and see how much competition you have for a certain topic. If it's not a topic that was covered too much, it's definitely worth fixing.

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   viryaboposted 5 years ago

   From my experience, I barely delete non-performing hubs because I hate to take down my works. It’s just a personal thing.
   
   What I do is keep upgrading, change titles, and make them more SEO friendly.
   
   Now, my previously terrible content have really picked up, with some now in niche sites and doing really well, after many years of zero traffic.
   
   A few of them, still on HP, are doing great too.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      They're not going to do great on the HP site because it basically is only a holding site and is not well rated by Google.  The only way for a hub to have any chance of doing well  is to get it moved to a niche site.

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   psycheskinnerposted 5 years ago

   I just leave them.  I would only remove a hub if I had somewhere better to use the material.

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   Titiaposted 5 years ago

   I have several hubs that need updating, but never find the time to do it properly. Some haven't had a view in a month, but I just leave them be. When you unpublish a hub it's losing its history.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 5 years ago

   Unpublished hubs aren't "seen" by Google Search.
   
   I delete some bad hubs because I have a lot of hubs spread over numerous accounts, and I need to keep things fairly tidy. The hubs that are successful should be regularly checked, edited, and updated and bad hubs just create clutter.
   
   Whether to delete or unpublish depends upon an assessment of the hub's potential. Google Keyword Tool tells you how many potential views are there to be had. You can also look at the competition. Thing like titles can easily be changed, but if the hub is truly thin you will probably have to rewrite the whole thing more or less. There's no harm in just leaving bad hubs alone apart from their clutter effect.
   
   I always aim to get hubs on the niche sites. If they aren't on there, they don't really flourish in terms of views.
   
   Psychologically, it can be good to delete the bad hubs that you wrote early on that don't have any real potential of making it. If they are really thin content then you aren't really losing much. I wrote plenty of truly terrible stuff, most of which has been deleted over the subsequent years.
   
   That's my experience anyway.

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   Doneta Wrateposted 5 years ago

   excellent points to keep in mind for the future.  I learn so much here.

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   Doneta Wrateposted 5 years ago

   Jean Bakula  I like your suggestion to check google to see if a topic is already covered to much.  But it will take some thought on exactly how to go about that.  I am thinking the topic needs to be narrowed down and not just broad topics.

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   Doneta Wrateposted 5 years ago

   Jean Bakula I just checked my two hubs out on google and decided to change the title of one of them.

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      Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Hello Doneta,
      That's a great start! A little more "zing" in the title can make people want to read it. I do that often. It takes a few days for the newer title to catch on, and your article will still have the same URL on the niche site or HP, that never changes. The summary acts as a "teaser" too, so lately I've been changing a few of those. Sometimes they can be seen by the title on Google. Also, I write in a subject that is really over saturated, astrology, but I've been practicing it for 40+ years, so my followers are loyal.
      
      Even if you see other articles about your topics, read theirs and see how yours are different. Your article may be better. See if you can approach the topic from a different angle. Maybe add some new information if it's something that isn't evergreen. I try to write about topics that don't change. That makes our work easier. Sometimes it's surprising to me what articles do well. I may think I have a sure thing, and people love an article I barely cared about that much. It's hard to tell. But don't be too fast to delete!

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   Sudhir Devapalanposted 5 years ago

   Would it be better to completely delete such articles and write them from scratch again? I have noticed that even though I upgrade some of my articles the score or the traffic never increases.

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