Weird "corrections"

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   DzyMsLizzyposted 2 years ago

   When I find a notice that a hub has been edited by the team, of course, I check it out.
   
   However, I am mystified by some "corrections" or "changes" that don't seem to be anything different at all.
   
   In one case, a link was replaced with exactly the same link going to the same site; in another, a photo showed "capsule changed," and for all the comparing versions until I was blue in the face, I could not see a single change.
   
   What is going on here???

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      samanthacubbisonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      When a photo capsule has a blue outline, the change may have to do with the caption. We are doing team-wide quick edits to give articles some TLC and an SEO boost.
      
      Exemplore was the last site that we sifted through, so thanks for bearing with us, @theraggededge. I know you have a lot on there.

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   theraggededgeposted 2 years ago

   It's simply to update the update date All my Exemplore hubs have had the same treatment.

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      Beth Eaglescliffeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      Interestingly on the new (Maven format) Tatring site, the update date no longer shows, only the original date of the article's publication.

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      DzyMsLizzyposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      But why?  If there's been no legitimate update, why bother going to the trouble?  Seems like a waste of time and effort to me.

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         theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Because when the article shows up in Google, the latest update indicates how current the article is.

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            theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            Because when the article shows up in Google, the latest update indicates how current the article is.
            
            

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      Glenn Stokposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      Where did you hear that? It makes no sense. Why would they update the update date?  That will only confuse it for those of us who use that to keep track of when we last made a change.

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         theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         All my Exemplore hubs have been updated over the last week. Most have been tiny edits. It's to keep the date current for Google & co.

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            Glenn Stokposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            I doubt that is the reason. As you said, they did tiny edits. That's not for the purpose of keeping the date current, but to enhance SEO. They are doing that with ToughNickel. I didn't know they are going through all Exemplore too.

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            Jean Bakulaposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            All of mine have been updated too. I forgot, even though I look to see what they did--often nothing--how do I get rid of those little red circles on my account page? I hope you are doing well, Bev.

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               wildernessposted 2 years agoin reply to this

               Click the little green circle, then click on each edit that was made.  Return to the stats screen and, if necessary, reload it.  The red dot should be gone.

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               theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

               Hey Jean, mostly all good with some small glitches Hope you are too. xx

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         DzyMsLizzyposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Agree, Glen!  Why would I want to lose track of my own changes??!!

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            theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            Well, I'm pretty sure that keeping it current for Google is why those tiny edits are made. And I'm also sure that it was confirmed some time ago by Samantha or Robin. This is the second time editors have whooshed through my hubs.
            
            What other reason could there be?

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               samanthacubbisonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

               Yep! That is correct!
               
               We set out to do small high-impact edits across one major site at a time as some of you may have experienced. We want everything to look its best and drive traffic.

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                  Glenn Stokposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes! Absolutely high-impact edits! That's what they are. They may be small, but they are definitely worthwhile in my opinion. I was very pleased with the ones that were done on a few of my hubs. I wouldn't consider them "tiny" or "nonexistent edits" as others have described them as above.

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                     samanthacubbisonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                     Sometimes we look at an article and it's like, "what are we supposed to do here?" So I'd take it as a compliment if the changes are minimal.

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                     theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                     This was the last one of mine that was edited. There was another comma removed as well.
                     
                     I'd describe them as 'tiny' in a circa 2,000 word article
                     
                     

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                        Glenn Stokposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                        That was just explained in yesterday's weekly newsletter.

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                           theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                           Tiny edit.

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                     lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                     I agree I pointed this out in my previous reply on this thread.
                     
                     Also, I have had edits where I see no real change and it's the team combining capsules when there is no header or anything else in between. I usually keep capsules separate so that I can quickly add a header or switch things up if I want to at a later date, but the team gets rid of them. I really don't know why they do this when the end result is the same, but it's no biggie. It does show as an edit was made, but I usually don't see it until I look for it.
                     
                     @Samantha, do caption changes not show on the comparison page that shows us the new edits made?

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                        samanthacubbisonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                        @lolobrandon, we (or at least I) combine capsules because it kind of looks like white space when they are separate. I understand why this may be a bit inconvenient, though.
                        
                        The caption appears, but only the edited version (no green/red text).

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                           lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                           No green/red text, interesting. Didn't know that, thanks for the info.
                           
                           I really haven't noticed the extra white space. I definitely don't want that, I will look into it on future edits and articles.
                           
                           Also, what Glen just said makes a lot of sense. I get some control over ad placements and won't have ads show up in between a section if they are combined.

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                              samanthacubbisonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                              Ok, check this out. I did it just for you. Those pink lines are the same length. It's so slight that no one would probably notice it (unless you're staring at articles all day). But like what Glenn said, editors probably do it to keep ideas grouped together and keep ads from breaking them up.
                              
                              

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                                 lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                                 Ooh! Thanks a lot, that is quite noticeable if you know what to look for haha. I'll definitely not keep gaps in between now.

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                        Glenn Stokposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                        There is a reason for combining continuation capsules that don't have a subtitle. I do it myself when I find them from prior times when I might have once had an image between them. 
                        
                        The reason is that it avoids having an ad appear there, which would break the reader's train-of-thought. That would not be reader-friendly.
                        
                        As you know, ads can only appear between capsules. So combining them avoids the ad placement where you wouldn't want it.

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                           Glenn Stokposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                           @Samantha, I posted my reply to lobobrandon at the same time as you and I just saw your reply. Can you tell me if my statement also makes sense as another reason for combining them?

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                              samanthacubbisonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                              Yes! Your statement makes sense. I just reiterated your point in my response above that includes an image.

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                                 Glenn Stokposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                                 Thank you Samantha. It's nice to know I don't just come up with off-the-wall ideas. 

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   paradigmsearchposted 2 years ago

   Unless they do something that affects SEO, I don't care.

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   psycheskinnerposted 2 years ago

   Tiny or nonexistent  edits don't do anything for SEO. Looking current by forcing a new date makes a snippet more clickable.

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      Glenn Stokposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      That's not what I meant. I agree with you that tiny or nonexistent edits don't help SEO. The edits they did on a few of my hubs were more than merely tiny. 
      
      I really don't know what Lizzy meant. They don't do edits with nothing changed. I'm sure of that.

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      1. 93

         Shesabutterflyposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         They "edited" one of my articles by "removing" and then "adding" the exact same bullet symbols. I think they must have changed the capsule/titles or something as well, because nothing changed except the color and size of the text. That change doesn't show up as an edit though, just the bullet symbols do so no one would notice if they were not looking closely.
         
         They also added new photo captions that are not SEO friendly during that same edit, and moved a photo out of place (also does not show up as an edit) so I guess they technically did change something. I would not call either of those high-impact or benefical edits though. I lost a significant amount of pinterest traffic since this edit.The captions no longer have anything to do with the pictures so my images do not come up in searches. No one is searching images by using indepth sentences.
         
         Editing just to have the newest year is not always beneficial, especially when there is nothing to change. The articles ranked just below mine are from 2012 & 2015. Depending on keywords they both actually rank higher than mine and hold the snippet. The new 2020 year did nothing for me personally, because the edits were not benefical in anyway. My article holds the snippet or top 3 depending on keywords though (you cannot really expect to get much better than that) and is evergreen. Which by definition means it is relevant well past the publication date. Articles in this particular niche do not need the current date to be relevant or to rank high, so creating an "edit" to get that current date can actually be harmful.
         
         By all means do edits that need to be done (I have several that I would love to have help cleaning up, instead of having the same few nitpicked), but don't just find something to edit simply to change the date, because you are overhauling/"making current" a whole niche site. A current date means nothing if you truly have an evergreen article/topic, which is what we have always been told to strive for.

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            lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            Agreed, only edits that are beneficial need to be made.
            
            But, to counter your point about updated dates not making a difference, it's not all about ranking. People are more inclined to click on a newer article given a choice with the same title and description. It's probably a general human tendency to assume newer is better.
            
            A question: does your caption also get shared when someone shares a post on Pinterest? If yes, does it change on previous posts once you change an existing caption or is it static? I could try some stuff on some of my hubs that receive Pinterest traffic if I understand how this works.

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               Shesabutterflyposted 2 years agoin reply to this

               I never pay attention to dates personally unless I'm specifically looking for something current. For example law changes, or current events.
               
               For most food related searches (which is what I was specifically referring to) I just click the first ones available and generally they are not dated or are "old". Recipes as a general rule are not better because they are "newer". I'm not going to scroll several pages just to find the newest dated pages/articles. Maybe I'm in the minority, but for this niche I don't think date matters at all, even for clickability. Most of the searches are going to bring up more popular food/recipe websites anyway depending on what keywords are used.
               
               I don't know how to see where and how many times a specific article is shared. It's my understanding that the article description itself is what shows every time, unless the person sharing it manually changes something. Even if that article currently does not have that description that is what still shows on the few different articles I tried to repin just now.
               
               Old pins hold the url though, so I'm assuming they hold everything that was specific to the article at the time of that pin. For example this article has been pinned from HP and my personal HP profile page, but if you click on that specific pin it will take you to Delishably and the current article, not to the site it was originally pinned from even though that is the site url it shows.
               
               I honestly don't know how picture captions work except that maybe they work like tags in a way even if people are not seeing the caption itself. They have to be significant in some way or there was no reason to change it in the first place.
               
               The picture capsule description is the only significant change so I do not know why my article doesn't come up in searches like it has in the past for certain keywords. I have to scroll several pages to find it (if I find it at all) when it would have been higher up before the edit.
               
               Despite Google traffic holding fairly steady my pinterest traffic took a huge hit and I know people are still using pinterest through the pandemic. However, the drop started way before the virus so I don't see that as being remotely related to the drop. If anything people are cooking more, so in theory it should be getting more shares/pins.
               
               My other food articles never really took off on pinterest like this one so I can't even compare traffic between articles to see if others have dropped or if it's specific to just this one.

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                  lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks for the explanation. I have just one hub that does well on Pinterest too, so I was wondering if I could use some info from you to try and get others to do well too.
                  
                  I personally do not look at dates on some kind of stuff, either. I would guess it does not matter for recipes at all, as you say. A descriptive caption does increase the chances of the image showing up in a snippet even if the text next to it is from another website. Also, image search on Google uses image alt tags, which are the same as captions on HP.
                  
                  Why not try changing it back and see if it makes a difference on Pinterest?

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                     Shesabutterflyposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                     I did a bit more digging and it looks like the caption of the photo shows next to your pinterest photo on a saved pin, but it is not obvious. Very few photos from other sites actually use captions though so I'm not sure how relevant captions are for pinterest. It took me awhile to find what I was looking for.
                     
                     This example does not have an article summary so all you see is the title and further down the photo caption once you click on the pin.
                     
                     Here is a screenshot of what I'm talking about. The pin on the left has a profile picture under it and the photo caption is what is written next to it. The pin on the right does not have a caption so you don't see anything.
                     
                     Once you click a pin you will see the article summary under the title if it has one and the photo caption is farther down under where it shows you saved the pin to a board.
                     
                     Hope that all makes sense!
                     
                     I might try changing it back and see what happens.
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     

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                        lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                        Thanks! Yes, it does make sense, the pictures helped.

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      lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      Sometimes they do. A single word change sometimes helps a page rank better. One editor has in the past changed a word for me and I do it a lot based on how I rank too.

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   Kenna McHughposted 2 years ago

   I had a similar situation. I looked and looked to no avail.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 2 years ago

   Surely, the boffins at the big G will catch on to this charade.

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      paradigmsearchposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      Am tempted ed, but know.

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