Hubscores in their 80s can still get idled

1. 80

   Bard of Elyposted 11 years ago

   As I have found today! I was led to believe that hubs of 75 and over were worth holding on to but obviously not!  I just had one with a score of 81 getting the zzs!

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   1. 72

      relacheposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      As HubPages has never, ever indicated just what leads Hubs to become idled, you should not be surprised when purely speculative information about the process turns out to be wrong.  This also reaffirms that fact that HubScores are purely an internal motivational feature and don't really provide any functional feedback about Hub content.

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      1. 80

         Bard of Elyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         So are you saying they are worthless and have no real value at all? If that is the case my hubs down in the 60s should be worth hanging on to here!

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   2. 85

      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Why do you think the Idle feature has anything at all to do with quality? 
      
      I think you need to get over the idea that the "Idle" feature is a criticism of your work.  It's not. The main factor in the Idle algorithm is whether or not the Hub is getting traffic.  If it's not getting traffic, it will be idled regardless of how high the score is.  It's not a judgment on your writing.
      
      Most of my idled Hubs are in the 70's.

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      1. 80

         Bard of Elyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I would have assumed that high quality would equally high traffic or at least likely to get good traffic. Looks like I was wrong!  Quality of material is no longer important.

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         1. 85

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Oh Bard, you should know that you can write the best quality article in the world online, but if no one is searching for it, you won't get traffic.  Quality does count, but you have to choose your keywords with an eye to your audience first.  That has been your fundamental problem from the beginning.

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            1. 82

               Wesman Todd Shawposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               And....if the subject is one "everyone" is searching for - the corporations will have their SEO team keep their favorite article at the top of the list....
               
               In other words, if someone wants to make a name for themselves writing about Presidential politics...they'd better be good, and be at it daily.
               
               I see some excellent essays here on Hubpages, it makes me kinda sad to know a little about "how the game is played."  I practically cry when I see good short fiction on Hubpages....
               
               I think I could make a living online if I focused entirely on ONE general subject....but that would be too much like work, and I don't want my computer to stop being my playground
               
               Someone go write some "honey boo boo" page with whatever amazon has for sale regarding that mass media monstrosity....it'll make some cash.

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2. 66

   2uesdayposted 11 years ago

   Bard, is the problem possibly caused by some of your hubs being 'kind of' seasonal?  I was thinking that  more people will possibly search for items related to the island you write about when they are booking holidays.
   
   I know that is not the only topic you have hubs on; but I have noticed my travel pages are 'seasonal' in the amount of traffic they generate.
   
   Not meaning to distract from your topic which is about hub scores and hubs falling into the idle status.

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   1. 80

      Bard of Elyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think so: King Arthur Pendragon is at Stonehenge campaigning all year round with his current protest being about getting the bones of the ancient dead returned to where they were laid to rest. Arthur has my support and total respect because I know what he puts himself through to make a point and get things done! A hub about him with an 81 score just got idled!

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3. 56

   wabondposted 11 years ago

   There an old rule of thumb, "where there is secrecy, there is corruption".  If hub pages are keeping it a secret why they are de-listing some hubs, then they had dubious reasons for doing this.  It would be easy for anyone with wealth to pay hub pages or Google to de-list hubs with subject matter that is inconvenient to them.

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   1. 80

      Bard of Elyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Could this be a real Inconvenient Truth? It certainly seems very odd!

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4. 89

   bankscottageposted 11 years ago

   I have one with a score of 75 that is idle.  I also just updated one on income taxes that went idle.  It is a seasonal Hub.  Of course there wouldn't be many views in September and October.

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5. 70

   seanorjohnposted 11 years ago

   Surprised to hear Hubs with a score in the 80's get idled. Obviously they must be well written but suddenly get no traffic. I only have 15 Hubs and 3 got idled. They were in the 60's. I made minimal changes and they came back to life. It is all  a mystery.

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   1. 45

      Ericdierkerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      How silly that it all be a mystery. That is ok though here, as long as they are not a monopoly. I got new stuff on google today. They are not nice people and let machines run woman.

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6. 85

   rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago

   Is this written somewhere? I don't see this to be true with my profile.  I've only had 2 hubs idle, which went back to featured within 24 hours.  Some of my hubs don't receive steady traffic.  They are all featured.
   
   Bard has hundreds of hubs.  Maybe quantity of hubs in relation to traffic to a certain percentage of hubs has something to do with it?

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7. 82

   Wesman Todd Shawposted 11 years ago

   Hey Bard, if you like - you can send me the links to hubs of yours that have gone idle, and I'll do some totally clean backlinking for you ...and also share on my social networks.

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   1. 80

      Bard of Elyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you, Wesman, I have just sent you via Facebook a link to one with a 77 hubscore that is now idled.

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8. 0

   EmpressFelicityposted 11 years ago

   Going just by my own idled hubs, I would say that traffic is *a* factor, but it's definitely not the only one.
   
   Pretty well all my idled hubs are "politics and social issues" type hubs. Yet I have a couple of recipes which have a similarly low level of traffic, but these haven't been idled.
   
   I would say that the purpose of the idle algorithm is to ensure that HP's content is more in line with Glam Media's emphasis, which is on lifestyle/food/fashion.
   
   See
   
   http://www.glammedia.com/verticals/
   
   and
   
   http://www.glammedia.com/about_glam/
   
   (Thank you, James Charless, for pointing this out on another thread.)
   
   
   ETA:
   
   

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   1. 80

      Bard of Elyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think you have hit on something there! Many of my hubs and indeed, my lifestyle, are simply not 'GLAM' enough!  This might also explain why we have NING GLAM SOCIAL at the bottom of the page!

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   2. 85

      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The other possibility is that the Hub Hopper (and the outsourced version of it) play a large part in the Idle algorithm, and people aren't hopping dispassionately:  instead, they're rating down subjects they find boring, or opinions which they disagree with.

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      1. 80

         Bard of Elyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Let us hope this is not the case!

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         1. 85

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I'm beginning to get a horrible feeling that's part of it, Bard.  But I think someone (was it paradigmshift?) may be on to something - he suggested a Hub will be idled if (a) it hasn't been updated for over a year and (b) it's had less than 1,000 views, ever. 
            
            I took a look at all my idled Hubs and sure enough, all of them fall into that category.  How about you?

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            1. 54

               janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Nope - there's no rhyme nor reason in most cases.
               I have 3 hubs published in July 2012 that got ZZZd. Traffic averaging less than one hit every second day over the last 6 months seems to be  the traffic theme for my older ones. In my case the recent ones appeared to have links to external sites ? Its a mystery  - I just edit them and move on.

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            2. 80

               Bard of Elyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Mine don't fall into those categories always, no! In fact I have had hubs idled that had over 1,000 views from one traffic source alone. I know that to be the case because I was amazed last year when a hub promoting my book suddenly got very high traffic at Facebook totaling over 1,000 though why I don't have a clue. Then it dropped as quickly as it went up. Recently it got idled.

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               1. 85

                  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  It's official - Idled Hubs are chosen by real people. 
                  
                  http://blog.hubpages.com/2012/11/qualit … t-process/
                  
                  On another thread, Derek G confirmed that scores aren't relevant at all - it's all determined by real people using the Hopper over at Mechanical Turk and here.
                  
                  I'd say that's why your Hubs are getting idled, Bard - the kind of people who sign up for Mechanical Turk aren't going to think your subject matter is interesting.  Of course they shouldn't let that influence their decision - but let's face it, these are ordinary people not professional editors, so you can't expect them to be completely unbiased.

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                  1. 94

                     Daughter Of Maatposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Not to mention they are only paying $0.05 for each hub hopped.
                     
                     REALLY???
                     
                     5 cents is not going to inspire mturk workers to take the job seriously, it's only going to make them want to get through as many hubs as possible to make the $$.
                     
                     I work for mturk, and when I went through the hubs and saw how much they were paying, it even made me want to plow through the hubs to get the cash and I'm a Hubber!!!
                     
                     It's like outsourcing to China....

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                     1. 56

                        wabondposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        So if it is outsourced to China then we need to be writing hubs about how wonderful China is, to make money.

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                        1. 94

                           Daughter Of Maatposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                           

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                        2. 56

                           wabondposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                           So why is hub pages putting in the time and money into deactivating hubs?  We are, after all encouraged to write as many hubs as possible.  Surely the criteria should be on how many hits you get, or even how many times people click on adverts on your hub page.  Why make things so complicated?

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                  2. 80

                     Bard of Elyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Marisa, this sounds like this place has become like the horrible slicethepie music reviews and find the 'next big thing' site where reviewers earn per track and most clearly don't even listen to the songs properly and cannot even write a sentence in correct English. You get paid a real pittance there.

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                     1. 85

                        Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        HubPages are claiming they've got quality measures in place to ensure raters can't get away with poor quality rating.  I expressed my scepticism and this is the reply I got:
                        
                        http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/105917? … ost2254277
                        
                        So it looks like they accept the rating system can't be perfect, especially at first, and that some good articles will get "unFeatured" unfairly.  However, they're not worried about that so long as the system is doing its job of removing the really bad stuff. 
                        
                        As I said in that post, HubPages may not care about the collateral damage, but it's tough on the authors concerned.

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      2. 92

         Jean Bakulaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I also had an idled hub with an 80 score. I understand it may have not gotten many views, but everyone who commented on it told me it was well written and interesting, they learned a lot from it. So what does that say? We can write good pieces, but they need traffic. I see less Christian blather on the Hopper now. I am not against religion, only a hub which consists only of copied scriptures. I also think people mark down topics they don't like.
         
         Is the large black H supposed to replace the impossible to see yellow dot which indicated our hubs were "featured?"

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         1. 85

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Yes.  They've decided calling Hubs "Idle" was copping them too much flak, so they've decided to turn the whole thing on its head.
            
            Now, if your Hub is idled it won't have any notation next to it.  If it's NOT idled, it's called "Featured" and has a black H next to it.
            
            Personally I think that's a bit mean.  Newbies will be happily writing Hubs, blissfully unaware they're invisible to search engines or other Hubbers because there's no warning to tell them so.

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   3. 74

      Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I wondered why my food hubs weren't getting ZZZ'd. Now I think I know. Some of them get almost no traffic.

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      1. 92

         Jean Bakulaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Interesting. I couldn't even understand why recipes would be allowed on a writer's site. A recipe is something you copy from a magazine, or from somebody you know. It takes no writing ability whatsoever. Yet every site is making special capsules for recipes, like they are as important in the literary world as War and Peace.

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9. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   Well, I took a look at the two links. I didn't have to be a rocket surgeon to figure out that Glam is a firm believer and practitioner of the philosophy that sex sells; which, incidentally, is the exact same philosophy that all major-brand advertisers have. I am also becoming aware of certain other gestalts.
   
   Paradigmsearch wanders off to contemplate his next hub project...

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10. 57

    Dame Scribeposted 11 years ago

    Don't feel badly Bard I write about topics which I dissect and assemble to present in easy (as possible!)  to understand language (not everybody will know medical terminology ). I wrote them out of curiosity and even got a comment from a Dr on one of them. I was tickled but alas, they're idled. They are more for 'educational' material but not everybody who 'assesses' our material, will/may understand that. As Marisa and few others have said, bias will be difficult to overcome.

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