SEO

1. 96

   Rupert Taylorposted 4 months ago

   The weekly newsletter chimes in on my least favourite subject - SEO. A couple of quotes from the newsletter:
   "Much like languages, SEO is constantly changing. It can change by the day ..."
   "What's important is to stay on top of changes and see what modifications you can make to your articles."
   
   I have more than 1,000 articles on HubPages. So, I should be reviewing my articles on a daily basis to ensure I'm up to speed with SEO? Clearly, that's an absurd proposition; it simply can't be done.
   
   There are folk here who say that if you are not fully conversant with SEO you are wasting your time. But, you can't be on top of the dreaded algos if they are changing daily.
   
   My approach is to write titles and sub-titles that are clear, concise, and contain words that describe the article's content. I don't use cryptic, punny, or otherwise clever titles. Maybe that's all that SEO is.

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      Kenna McHughposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      With the situation with HP, low views, stock swooping, and non-transparency, I'd say SEO might not solve all their problems.

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      Miebakagh57posted 4 months agoin reply to this

      I once wrote an article about Search Engine Optimization, SEO.                                             Back then are the good old days.                                     You just write a sort of 'descriptive' prose whose heading and sub-headings aligned with the subject matter.                                    Then, yes. Other capsules as table, vid, picture(s), relates the topic of the story throughly.                                           But nowadays things are different. Google updates in the past few years has change and keep changing.                                   So I no longer worry about puting up with with keywords considered as trash. I just write simply and descritive narrative in old school style. But I'm out of touch writing hubs regularly these days.

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2. 96

   PaulGoodman67posted 4 months ago

   HP are right, though.
   
   When I joined here, we were encouraged to do what you do, Rupert, publish more and more material and not worry about editing and maintenance. As long as the content's evergreen, we just leave the articles there to do their thing and focus purely on writing more articles.
   
   That changed some years back. The reason was that Google's approach changed.
   
   I don't personally aim for a massive amount of hubs anymore because I find it unmanageable. I used to have hundreds in this account alone at one time.
   
   SEO is about a lot of things but using keywords and key phrases in titles is vital.
   
   For sure, using "cryptic, punny, or otherwise clever titles" is almost always a terrible idea if you want to get search engine traffic.
   
   The focus always has to be on using certain keywords.
   
   SEO has a tendency to make titles generic and bland. This runs contrary to the traditional approach to writing.
   
   Ignoring SEO can make writing more engaging and interesting but will often mean it gets less search engine traffic. Understandably, many writers find this concept difficult.
   
   However, anyone who desires views via Google has no option but to try and please Google. This may be an uncomfortable fact but it's true nonetheless.

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   1. 96

      PaulGoodman67posted 4 months agoin reply to this

      The bigger picture is that there is too much SEO work for the editors to cope with and most of the writers are either inactive or just don't want to update their hubs.
      
      Given the situation, I am expecting more articles to be demoted to Discover.

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      1. 96

         eugbugposted 4 months agoin reply to this

         That's probably 75% of my content.

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         1. 96

            PaulGoodman67posted 4 months agoin reply to this

            The logic is that more and more low-traffic articles end up being removed over time, like ditching cargo to keep the ship from going under.
            
            It's a crude tool. I hope they find a better way of doing it.
            
            But Angel's reply to a previous posts suggests that they haven't the resources to edit everything:
            
            "This is not something our editorial team can do across the board, given that there are more than 70,000 articles on our Network Sites."

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            1. 96

               eugbugposted 4 months agoin reply to this

               It's shameful that Google downrank sites just because of the number of low traffic articles on them. And it's frequently Google who are responsible for causing that low traffic in the first place, not the inherent quality of the articles.

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               1. 96

                  PaulGoodman67posted 4 months agoin reply to this

                  Google doesn't downrank for low traffic(!?!?) Google *decides* how much search engine traffic that an article/site gets.
                  
                  HP are guessing that most of the low traffic material is stuff that Google dislikes for one reason or another. They're maybe right in many cases.
                  
                  However, it's a crude tool, so it will inevitably affect some well-written stuff too.

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                  1. 96

                     eugbugposted 4 months agoin reply to this

                     But why would HP remove low traffic articles, just because Google doesn't like them? I thought one of the site ranking criteria was the ratio of popular URLs to those that got little traffic.

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            yulissposted 4 months agoin reply to this

            Me too, my problem is I don't want to edit anything that is officially published because I still can't believe my content made it that far!  Now I'm scared to touch it, those are hubs that are really working out for me.  Most of my stuff is under Discover and I have no real idea what to edit to make it get out of the Discover Zone and into the official published area.  So I just write for my own interest and enjoyment.

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      2. 95

         SerenityHaloposted 4 months agoin reply to this

         I know getting things put on Discover can be a bummer, but I do have things on there that have healthy traffic. Things don't necessarily go there to die. As for really old posts that are stuck on old HP, those aren't even monetized.

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         1. 92

            Kenna McHughposted 4 months agoin reply to this

            Same here; I have a couple of high-ranking Discover pieces. The irony that HP will not move them to a niche platform is baffling.

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               Miebakagh57posted 4 months agoin reply to this

               Same here likewise.                                              My first article which draws in 10,000 views in less than 4 days, still get traffic.                                    Back then I don't know what's SEO. Ignorant of keywords, and search terms, I only write descriptively.

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3. 92

   FatFreddysCatposted 4 months ago

   I came to the conclusion a long time ago that I suck at SEO and therefore I no longer bother worrying about it.

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4. 83

   Venkatachari Mposted 4 months ago

   I think of concentrating on only a few of the articles that are doing enough and keep them up-to-date. You need to change only a word or two or a phrase. Some times adding or removing a bit that need corrections to meet the present status of the content in our articles.

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   1. 96

      PaulGoodman67posted 4 months agoin reply to this

      "You need to change only a word or two or a phrase."
      
      That used to work and I did it too. But Google got wise to it and have specifically warned writers not to do that. HP have reiterated that too.

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      1. 92

         Kenna McHughposted 4 months agoin reply to this

         I am not sure I'd follow HP's advice.

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         1. 96

            PaulGoodman67posted 4 months agoin reply to this

            HP are only repeating what Google has said on the matter. While you're free to disregard it, it's not wise to ignore Google IMHO.
            
            That said, it's not clear what sanction, if any, that Google employs.

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            1. 92

               Kenna McHughposted 4 months agoin reply to this

               I am just saying that TAG stock has plummeted. The overall HP writer consensus is the revenue has also plummeted. TAG got popped for AI content and counterfeit writers. The CEO was dismissed. All in all, I would get advice from a winner, successful platform.

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               1. 96

                  PaulGoodman67posted 4 months agoin reply to this

                  There are a lot of criticisms that I could throw at HP/TAG but I think their advice regarding on-page SEO is generally good and non-controversial.
                  
                  What's tough for HP is convincing people like Rupert and Cholee, who say they know nothing about SEO and aren't interested in learning, to see it as beneficial. I suspect that it's an impossibility.
                  
                  The original idea of the site was that ordinary people would share their advice and knowledge on an open platform. However, as time has progressed, more and more hoops have had to be thrown up for writers to jump through, usually as a result of Google updates.
                  
                  I love writing but I also find the SEO stuff interesting. I realize that many people aren't like that.

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                     Kenna McHughposted 4 months agoin reply to this

                     Perhaps you misunderstood my post. Google is God! I follow the technology.

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                  2. 94

                     Shesabutterflyposted 4 months agoin reply to this

                     Maybe we'd be interested in learning if there was a purpose. The staff is constantly changing their mind on different layouts/guidelines (none of which I saw a bump from), and Eugene has done so many updates and different experiments at the expense of no change as far as I can tell from his different posts. You can't save a dying site with near perfect SEO articles alone. Something else has to give, changes need to be made that are bigger than the content.
                     
                     If my articles that had been edited with SEO in mind, had done well and took off or heck even stayed steady where they were instead of falling to rock bottom, maybe I would be more open minded. The staff and Google can say all they want about SEO, however my experience has been very different.
                     
                     We can go back and forth whether it was correlation or causation, but every.single.time speaks to causation in my eyes. Like Rupert I don't have the time to constantly update,refresh, make new, every article, or even my top 5 just to appease HP/Google. My experience has been different in the sense that updating hasn't helped me. Having old dates wasn't a hindrance. It's going to be hard to convince me that something is indeed good for me and necessary, when that has not been the case for me personally.
                     
                     You cannot dismiss my experience, simply because it goes against SEO advice. My main articles are on the first few pages of Google for different keyword searches, have been for years and I haven't had to experiement and follow the whims to stay there. I was absent from HP for years and my articles continued to do their thing.
                     
                     My Owlcation articles continued to hold steady traffic despite you and Eugene complaining of falling views. It wasn't until recently that I started seeing the same decline. That speaks more volume to me than editors coming in making changes and watching my articles fall into the abyss. That decline is extremely unlikely to be the result of my failure to follow new SEO guidelines.
                     
                     My articles have continued to rank well with minimal to no editing. Maybe it's topic related, but I stand by what I said. The site has bigger issues to worry about before individual article SEO will actually bring about change.

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      Miebakagh57posted 4 months agoin reply to this

      I'm in tandem with your thoughts.

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5. 94

   Shesabutterflyposted 4 months ago

   I know nothing about SEO and tend to not focus on it. My top performing articles continue to be the ones staff have not come in and overhauled. A few minor tweaks or fixing of grammar/sentence structure, but nothing major or changing photo's constantly.
   
   I don't edit them unless I spot an error. With the exception of the one I wrote in 2019, all of my best traffic articles were written 10+ years ago, hardly edited, and up until about 2 weeks ago, they have been doing fine for me. Although I wouldn't say SEO is the reason for their demise. HP as a whole is not doing well, and I'm starting to see what others have been complaining about for awhile now. Like Kenna, I do not think SEO is enough to change it around.
   
   I was doing a quick search for a few keywords for different articles recently, because I noticed one of my older articles that fell off was starting to come back years later. Turns out Google changed up the ranks recently and it had a boost for whatever reason. I updated the Amazon link, but I don't know if that's purely coinsidence or not. I was planning to try some new ideas with the article, but I have not had the chance to implement them just yet.
   
   Most of those articles rank high and have since they made it to the first/second page of Google. If it is not broke, don't "fix" it. You never know when/how Google is going to change. Continuously trying to stay ahead of the curve/fresh is not always necessary. My articles had old dates (2018 or earlier) on them, until the past year or two, and they continuously ranked higher than my competition with the newest date.
   
   I think focusing on individual articles is missing the larger picture. HP is not doing well across the board for reasons beyond individual article SEO. TAG is having issues internally and with money (based on some other forum posts). Those fundamentals cannot be fixed simply with our article changes. We can make them as near perfect as possible, but if staff cannot render the sites in a way that makes them readable (faster load times, less ads, ect) does it really matter? There is more to SEO and SERP's that is out of our control and needs to be fixed by staff, before I take too much time "fixing" and "updating" articles.

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      Kenna McHughposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      I don't believe in HP editors or staff because the company is failing. Why should I listen to their "expert" advice?

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      1. 96

         PaulGoodman67posted 4 months agoin reply to this

         People should always get their info from a variety of reliable sources in my opinion. That's certainly what I try to do. You can then see where there is agreement and disagreement.

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6. 96

   Rupert Taylorposted 4 months ago

   I don't write here to please bots or whatever the wretched SEO filtering devices are called.
   
   I write for two reasons - selfish and altruistic.
   
   The selfish reason is that writing is what I do. It's who I am. It's how I've supported myself and my family for almost my entire working life of close on 60 years. I am incredibly fortunate to have found an occupation that is so fulfilling. I keep writing now in the hope that it will slow down the inevitable brain atrophy of the aging process.
   
   The altruistic reason for writing is the belief that I can entertain and inform readers; maybe impart some knowledge that they didn't have before.
   
   If I had to come up with 98 more reasons for writing, the 100th on the list would probably be finding a way to please some algorithm. It's quite accurate to say I'm not "interested in learning" how to outwit a chunk of computer code that might change within days of fooling it.
   
   Thousands of people (millions in total) read my articles despite my complete ignorance of SEO. I'm quite happy with that outcome.

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