A Question About Editing a Hub

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   sallybeaposted 3 years ago

   Do you edit a hub while it is live or do you unpublish it first?  Do the edits go live before an Editor has viewed it?  I have thus far edited them live but feel it puts me under pressure if I have to complete it in on sitting.  What does the effect of unpublishing it have on the status of the article?

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      Glenn Stokposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Good questions Sallybea.  I’ve done it both ways. I used to always work on active hubs. However, once I was working on major updates, an editor suddenly approved the updated hub even though I was not finished. So I suddenly realized they have no way of knowing if I’m finished.  Since then, I decided to unpublish if I know it’s going to take time for me to complete the work.
      
      I still do updates without unpublishing if I know it will only take me an hour or so.
      
      To answer your last question, I don’t know for sure what the effect on the status is, but I would guess that if Google bots happen to catch it while it’s unpublished, they would check again before removing the index in the SERPs.
      
      I never had trouble with that—even when I left a hub unpublished for two days due to massive work I was doing on it.  I always do a Google search a week or two after updating and never saw a problem.
      
      As for the status with HubPages, I didn’t see any negative effect whatsoever.

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         sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Glenn, that is helpful, I did wonder if staff were flagged when any edit happens on a Hub, especially when one was requested by them for a proposed move to a niche site.

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      Miebakagh57posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      If the article is long say 2,000 words and the mechanical accuracy are many, it would take at most an hour to do the edit throughly.                                             It is best you edit live and done edit same day, instead of unpublishing the article. Unless an article is deleted, no change in date of publication occured.

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         sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         I am afraid my articles can take several hours as they are mostly tutorials which are image dependent.

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   theraggededgeposted 3 years ago

   My solution would be to edit text off line in whatever word processing program you use. Then upload it when done, which would only take 10 minutes. There would be no need to unpublish.

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      sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I can do the text offline but often my writing is dependent on a lot of images.

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   Shesabutterflyposted 3 years ago

   I'm pretty sure you would lose your copywrite date. That might not be important. You would have to make sure there are no copies of your articles though, otherwise you will not be able to republish them.
   
   I do what raggededge said, because it's easier for me personally. I also have several articles that are copied that I cannot seem to get the copied content removed so I need my copywrite date to make sure I can prove I'm the original content creator.

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      Glenn Stokposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I never lost my copyright date when I unpublished and republished a hub. You would only lose it if you delete the hub and start fresh with her new URL.

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         Marie Flintposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, Glen, I experienced exactly what you have described.

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      sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      That is a good point, I had forgotten about the copyright date, thank you.

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      Marie Flintposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Shesabutterfly, even unpublished articles that sit a long time keep their original publication date. This is also true if the copyright date wasn't originally selected by the author. To get a new publication date, the writer has to completely rewrite the article from scratch. I doubt this phenomenon will change with the new Discover HubPages, Computer programming systems have their limits.

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   lobobrandonposted 3 years ago

   I would not unpublish it because if you rely on search engine traffic this would be a bad server response (404 not found).
   
   If I need to make major updates, I just create a new text capsule (or multiple), copy existing content, and edit in a capsule that is "hidden".
   
   The other option for major changes is to do what Bev does.

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      sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting, how do you hide a capsule?

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         lobobrandonposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         Every module has this option. When you edit a capsule there is a box that says don't display this capsule.

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            sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you lobobrandon, amazing how ones keeps on learning:)

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               lobobrandonposted 3 years agoin reply to this

               I find the feature very useful, I once had hidden capsules for almost a year while the hub was being edited. I began and forgot about it before I got back to it.

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                  sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

                  I just checked it out, I had no idea that feature existed.  Guess I had no reason before not to display a capsule.  Thanks for that.

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                     lobobrandonposted 3 years agoin reply to this

                     No prob.

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                     eugbugposted 3 years agoin reply to this

                     I have a non-visible "To Do" box at the top of each hub, It's handy for putting notes into and also for leaving messages for editors. They can see hidden capsules.

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                        lobobrandonposted 3 years agoin reply to this

                        That's a good idea.

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                        sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

                        That is a good idea.

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      Marie Flintposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I hadn't thought about trying to edit with hidden capsules. Thank you for bringing this possibility to my attention.

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         lobobrandonposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         

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         sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         So appreciate the superior knowledge of the people who have responded to my question:)

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   Once you click "save" on a module, the live version updates, even if you don't click "done editing", which doesn't do anything. It's possible even that any changes are autosaved regularly and update the hub, even if "save" isn't clicked on a module. Normally I just check the "Don't display this capsule:" box in a module and click "save", then go back to editing the module. So it's not visible until I'm finished editing and uncheck the box.

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      sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Aah, you answered the question I posed above.  I had not realised you could hide a capsule, that is very useful, thank you.

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      lobobrandonposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      You do need to hit save, there is no autosave option. Each module is a separate entity making calls to the database. That's the reason a module save causes live changes on the hub.

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   Kenna McHughposted 3 years ago

   My understanding is that the article stays live while you edit it. When you are done editing, it takes five minutes to update to the new one.

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      sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, that is good to know, which reminds me that I edited a hub the other day and none the changes were not saved.  I need to go back to check if this was the reason why.  Thank you.

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   jansharesposted 3 years ago

   Thanks for the question, sallybea, very informative forum thread.

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      sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Good. Thank you we all need a little help sometimes:)  Hope you are well janshares?  Have not seen you for ages.

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         jansharesposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         I'm doing well, still around after 8 years. Busier since the pandemic but I do check the forums and my account page regularly. Great to see you're still doing well.

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            sallybeaposted 3 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you Jan, stay safe.

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