Can we boost Hubpages viewings ourselves to weather this storm?

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   Ethan Greenposted 11 years ago

   So the other day I was looking for a vegetarian gravy recipe. I decided to type my google search as 'hubpages vegetarian gravy recipe' to do some random hubber a favour and give them a viewing, which I also left open on my laptop in the kitchen for a good 15 minutes, thereby doing them another favour with the long view time which would look good for their Google ranking.
   
   I wonder what would happen if we all did this, and asked our family and friends to do the same. It would be great for viewings to make up for the current decline.
   
   I wonder how long it would be before Google redirected such searches to Youtube instead though!
   
   Personally I am going to do it for an experiment; the word 'hubpages' before every search entry first. If I can't fin what I am looking for from a hub, I will go back and search again without it.
   
   Any thoughts?

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      Mazzy Boleroposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Nice idea, Ethan, but it would probably be a drop in the ocean. It would be interesting to search in Hubpages' own search box if you don't find a hub on Google, because they seem to have relegated many hubs to the boondocks of the Internet

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         Ethan Greenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         would it be a big drop in the ocean though? hehe

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      livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Personally, I think this idea will skew the real metrics that are needed to make improvements to you content.  Real metrics come from natural searches on search engines.  Google and the others know that Hubpages has its own internal search function so placing Hubpages before each search phrase will not be a natural search. 
      
      I believe that the current drop in traffic is an internal issue from a coding mistake made in one of the last tweaks HP has attempted in that last couple of weeks.  They will sort it out, I'm sure.  It seems as though not all hubbers have been caught up in this, if you believe what they say.  Quantcast numbers show that HP as a whole has taken a real nosedive where other similar writing platforms were unscathed.  This is a big indicator that the issue is internally driven.

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      moonlakeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Actually I tried this and was surprised at what nice hubs came up. I just put in hubpage cupcake recipes. We should be able to search for what we want on whatever site we want. I also did this with blogspot cupcakes recipes and got some nice results from there.
      I don't see how this will hurt anything.

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2. 84

   psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

   Faked results will only ultimately lead to Google penalizing the site.  They are getting pretty good at telling when traffic is not spontaneous and organic. It also risks scaring off the advertisers who support this site as this kind of traffic is no good to them.

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      Greekgeekposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This.
      
      Google's internal guidelines define webspam as any artificial practice which attempts to manipulate or trick search engines into ranking a page better than its content deserves.
      
      Most of the Google penalties and algorithm changes that have come out in the past few years have been explicit measures taken to fight such practices and penalize sites that use them.
      
      Here's things we could do that might help:
      
      (1) learn how to use social media to share and tell people about good content on Hubpages,
      (2) improve our own content, learning and considering what people who search the web want,
      (3) educate ourselves about how search engines work, what things they penalize and reward, and how we can use SEO not to trick search engines but to help them understand what searches our content is relevant for, what we're talking about, and what kinds of people might find our page useful.
      
      (1) is the easiest, and has the advantage that it's an ALTERNATIVE traffic source to Google and search engines, so it doesn't matter what Google thinks of Hubpages. But note that I said "learn" -- there are sites like Twitter and Facebook where it's acceptable to share stuff you've written or find interesting on the sites you frequent, and then there are social communities like Reddit that will ban members who self-promote or try to exploit their site for promotional purposes. Learn which sleeping dogs to let lie. And also, alas, you gotta learn enoug marketing and psychology to have a sense how to share things so  that people will be interested enough to click instead of dismissing the link as spam or not worth pursuing.

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3. 84

   psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

   If you really search and really read, sure.  But that was not what was being suggested.  And remember, the advertisers that ultimately pay us can read this forum too.

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      Ethan Greenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      actually that it was I suggested - I made the gravy, ate it and it was great:-) but I won't be doing that again until the next time I need a gravy recipe!

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   Doodleheadposted 11 years ago

   yeah---I don't know about you, but I have to do my "real job" today and can't sit around doing searches all day to improve my searchability!

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      Ethan Greenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      that also wasn't what I suggested. I have a 9-5 job too. just to be clear I wad only thinking to do this kind of search when you would naturally be searching for something. crikey - you really though I was suggesting we all sit around making fake searches all day!!

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5. 79

   Uninvited Writerposted 11 years ago

   Instead of doing that. If you find a hub you like share it on Facebook, Google + or Twitter.

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