Tags are Still Broken

1. 0

   shazwellynposted 13 years ago

   Hi Guys,
   
   The importance of tags is of high priority.  Many of you may not realise that there is a bug in the system and lots of tags are broken.  Many of my tags are and here is an example of a broken hub (broken tags = broken hub = worthless SERPS = No Traffic = No Clicks on ads).
   
   <snipped - please contact support if something is broken on one of your Hubs>
   
   You might read how 'tweaking your tags' helps with SERPs and generating traffic - this is no good if your tags are not working to start with!
   
   You might read how some hubbers are successful - their tags actually work!
   
   <snipped>
   
   His tags work and he has just reported how successful he has been (well deserved, however).  Ive taken a look at his tags.  Successful tags = success on hp (one of many factors, of course!).
   
   So, are you on the 'tag lottery'?
   
   Come on hubpages... please get this sorted!  My success is your success!
   
   Shaz x
   
   <snipped>

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2. 66

   Pearldiverposted 13 years ago

   Really?

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3. 74

   SteveoMcposted 13 years ago

   How can you tell that the tags are broken?  I look at my tags all the time, I know I have to have the tags correct.   So if they are broken, then is this work not working?

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      shazwellynposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Click on your tags and it should come to a collective page of other all hubs containing that tag.  If you see my example of tags (check my recipe for bean soup hub), and you click on them, you come to a page that states 'No Hubs Found' - this makes the tag concerned totally obselete and useless.  Many of my tags, therefore, are useless.  This is a problem that is happening on all my 136 hubs, although the recipe example is a particularly bad in the broken tag department.
      
      This hinders my earning potential and, ultimately, must have an affect on revenue to hubpages.
      
      Unfortunately, my examples (which were not self promotional) have been snipped.  I have been in touch with support a few times now and there still doesnt seem to be a resolve.
      
      I hope hubpages will make this a high priority - the problem was reported over two months now by Edweirdo and I have gently reminded them over 3 emails during that time.
      
      I kindfully and respectfully ask hubpages to PLEASE resolve this as it is starting to make me feel that article publishing is a bit of a lottery.
      
      Wishing you well,
      
      Shaz x

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4. 0

   shazwellynposted 13 years ago

   bump

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5. 74

   SteveoMcposted 13 years ago

   shazwellyn   Thanks for the information, I do check on my tags, but I had no idea how to identify one as a broken tag.   Does it say "snipped"?   I have been looking today and have not run into the problem...
   
   Is there some explanation as to why this happens?

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      Website Examinerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      "Snipped" means that the moderators found that some links here on this forum thread were inappropriate, and so they were deleted.

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   2. 0

      shazwellynposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      If you click on the tags and you come to a page that states 'No Hubs Found' then the tag is broken.  The system doesnt recognise its existance - this makes the tag concerned totally obselete and useless.
      
      
      Does this help?

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6. 85

   agvulpesposted 13 years ago

   I'm finding that I can't put the tags in the order that I want them. Is that normal?

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      shazwellynposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      That isnt a problem - it is the broken tags that are!

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      1. 88

         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         This is quite worrying Shaz!
         I've checked a few of mine and all seem to be working. Anyone else got this problem? If it's only Shaz, what can she do to fix it?

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            Website Examinerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Would it help to have it moved to the "Report a Problem or Suggest a New Feature" forum?

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            1. 88

               IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               What difference will that make?

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                  Website Examinerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  I'm not sure. I thought this forum was mostly about getting help here and now, and the other forum was about bringing attention to some actual flaws etc.. Some people follow subjects through the feed, so they may miss it otherwise....

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         2. 84

            Edweirdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I reported this problem to the HP team a couple of months ago, and last I heard it is a problem in one of their core software systems and a fix date is TBD.
            
            In an effort to make things clearer, here's what happens:
            
            In theory, every tag that you add to a hub should create a "tag page" - i.e. if you click that tag you will be presented with a page that contains all the hubs that include that tag. So if you have the tag "how to" on a hub and click it, you will be presented with a page that includes all other hubs with the "how to" tag.
            
            The problem is that only some arbitrary number of tags seems to work, and any number of tags in excess of the mystery limit will not work.
            
            So if you have just 5 or 10 tags, then you should be fine. If you have 30 or more tags, then it's likely that some will not work. (Also note that this may only be a problem for hubs created in the last 6 months - that's a theory of my own creation, though!)
            
            To see if this is a problem for you, go to one of your hubs that has more than 20 tags (20 seems to be close to the "magic" number of tags). Click each tag and see what happens - if you get a "No Hubs Found" page, then that tag is not working on that hub; same thing if you get a valid page but your hub is not listed.
            
            The only solution for now is to reduce the number of tags on each until they all work.
            
            This is probably not that big a deal for most of us! I used to serially over-tag all my hubs, adding every one of the "suggested tags" that HP provided. Most of these suggested tags are useless, so don't bother.
            
            In general, you only need tags that are highly relevant and that are likely to be Googled. So if you have a hub about dog grooming, "dogs" might be pretty useless - there are hundreds of other hubs with that tag and the chances that yours will ever appear on the first few tag pages are not worth it. But a tag like "how to groom your dog" or "dog grooming at home" might be better if 1) there are other hubs that use it and 2) that's a term that's likely to be searched.
            
            Another good use of tags is for grouping hubs - look at the "HubTrails" project for a good example. The phrase "hubtrails europe" is unlikely to be searched for on Google, but it does allow you to group your hub with other related hubs in RSS feeds for promotion...
            
            
            
            So, yes, it's a problem, but if you keep you tags to 10-15 then they *should* all work. Your results may vary

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      2. 88

         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Shaz, just a suggestion - what happens when you remove the tags, then add them back in?

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7. 88

   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   Oh I see! I hardly ever notice anything more than the title of a thread.

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      Website Examinerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Many threads get moved every day.

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8. 88

   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   Oh I see. I seldom use many tags which is probably why the issue is not showing up on mine.
   I thought I read before that Hubpages only look at the first 15 anyway.

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      Edweirdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Izzy, that "15" limit is what spawned this whole problem! There was chatter on the forums about that limit, so I emailed the team back in April (I think) and they confirmed that there should *not* be such a limit. Every tag should create a tag page.
      
      And thus the "bug" was discovered...

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         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I see the problem. I just went back and tweaked an older hub so that it now lists the products it is selling in the tags - well if they are keywords that people search for it is worth adding.
         All of them are showing no results. The hub allows me 8 tags and after that they seem to be ignored, but the first 8 are generic terms, not brand names or descriptive phrases.

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            Edweirdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Keep in mind that it can take several hours for new tags to appear on tag pages - sometimes a whole day...

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               agvulpesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Did not at one stage HubPages warn us if we had too many tags?

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                  Edweirdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  There is a "reasonability" limit to the number of tags - I believe it's related to word count, and that it is pretty high. So 100 tags on a 300 word hub would indicate abuse, but if you aren't "tag spamming" then I doubt that you would be impacted by that reasonability limit.

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