Organizing Hubs Within Profile Pages

1. 82

   Genna Eastposted 10 years ago

   HubPages used to provide us with an organizational tool within our profile pages that enabled us to group or categorize different hubs.  For example, poetry, short stories, articles, etc.  This issue has probably been addressed previously, but I was hoping HP would consider restoring this tool or something similar.  By utilizing this feature, readers could select those subjects they are interested in rather than scrolling down a long list of hubs.   What do you think?

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      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Many people agree with you and, yes, it has been requested before on the Forum.  HubPages' staff have responded that they will not change it.  So, the Profile page (which is the landing page for each subdomain) is just a long list of unrelated links and is not very useful to visitors.  Also, search engines won't follow more than 100 links on a page, so you should limit publishing Hubs to about 65 per user name.

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      1. 0

         epsonok0posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, you are right but kind of wrong. You can publish more than 100 and Google will still find them based on search results. Google allready expires itself long before even 65 hubs if any have links in them, it follows them first. The HTML is a bit goofy on HP so that is where views and ranks suffer after Panda, and Humingbird. The HTML herarchy is not optimized to first clasify all of your hubs then follow your links, then follow your recent activity. In the current HP system it first follows your first hub, any links that are not marked no follow, then the next hub and so on up to whatever the number is, I think you are right on 100 then it goes on to your recent activity and adjusts your score card to reflect that.
         Currently the only way to have a higher rank is to only ask question and start forum threads that compliment what your hubs are about. Since we can not change the HTML

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      2. 97

         Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         You don't need to worry about Google following links from our profile page. HubPages creates sitemap.xml files for all subdomains and for the top domain (to include EC hubs). Google uses sitemaps to know what to index and to know when hubs are updated.
         
         You can see your own sitemap by looking for the following URL under your subdomain:
         
         username.hubpages.com/sitemaps/hub/current/sitemap-hub-username.xml.gz
         
         replace username with your user name (subdomain name).
         
         I also added this to the sitemaps for HP in my Google webmaster tools to speed things up. But Google finds it anyway via HP.

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         1. 30

            Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, I'm aware of that.  But sitemaps don't give PageRank.  The flow of PageRank is my concern with more than 100 links on a Profile Page.  The better way is to go to a Page 2, 3, 4, etc., with no more than 50 Hubs per page.

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            1. 97

               Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Yes I see what you mean. Even though the sitemaps give Google all the links, it is true that too many outgoing links from our profile (or from any page) will cause it to lose PageRank. But personally, I'm not too worried about PageRank of my profile.
               
               One thing that does help is to have a link to your HP profile from your Google profile. And a reciprocal link (in edit your profile) that goes back to your Google profile. This establishes Google Authorship and having your image appear in the SERPs is helpful.

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                  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes it's a great idea to link to your Google+ Profile, in fact, I do this on every single Hub, not just on the Profile Page.
                  
                  The PageRank I am concerned about is the one for individual Hubs.  Since the Topic Pages lost much of their PageRank when the navigation was changed and most Hubs no longer link back to a Topic Page, getting any PageRank boost for a Hub is now more difficult.  People with 100 Hubs for example, have no PageRank flow to about 40% of those from a Profile Page.  PageRank definitely affects a Hub's position in search results rankings.

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                  1. 97

                     Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     Interestingly, the topics still show to the lowest level category on Editor's Choice hubs. But it only shows the top category on hubs in our subdomain. I guess that's what you are referring to. And I agree, it's useless now. I wonder why they didn't leave it the same way for non EC hubs.

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                        Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                        It's more than that.  The non-EC Hubs no longer link back to the Topic Pages at all.  When the navigation was changed on September 22, the Topic Pages lost 1 1/2 million backlinks overnight.  What this means is that the PageRank of the Topic Pages were affected because PageRank is only a reflection of the quality and quality of backlinks. The only Hubs that provide backlinks to Topic Pages now are the EC Hubs.  Consequently, every Hub has lost a significant amount of link juice because every Hub is listed on one or more Topic Pages.  In fact, other than your individual Profile Page, the Topic Pages are about the only other place your Hubs received most of their PageRank from internal links and from being on the HP website.

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      3. 82

         Genna Eastposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you. Glenn has stated below how these can be grouped by selecting "show" but it is not easy to see at all.  In fact, I missed it entirely. :-)

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   2. 97

      Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean. But the feature to select a specific category is still in our profile page. A visitor can click on "Show" and select the category.  Just make sure you have placed your hubs in the correct topic category.
      
      The only problem I have with this is that visitors usually don't notice the "Show" option. That should be made more prominent, in my opinion.

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      1. 82

         Genna Eastposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you, Glenn.  My goondess -- if I missed that, I can certainly understand why others have as well.  I agree that it should be much more prominent.

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         1. 97

            Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            You're welcome. BTW - you can also give people a URL that shows just a specific category of your hubs in your profile.  When you select any topic from the "Show" link, just copy the URL that appears in your browser. That URL will bring up your profile with just those hubs.

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            1. 82

               Genna Eastposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you!  I've learned more today than I have during the past three months. :-)

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         2. 83

            Faith Reaperposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Wow, Genna, thanks for this post!  I was going to post that I am with you about not having one long listing of hubs not under certain topics, but I will now have to read all of this here!  I did not know about the "show" link either, and I will try to locate it : )

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            1. 82

               Genna Eastposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Hi Faith.  There are some interesting comments in response to this forum question that I am so appreciate.  I didn't notice the "Show" feature either.  The "Show" is at the upper right of your list of hubs on your profile page. Actually, it's pretty neat.  Although I imagine visitors don't notice this either.  Good to see you, and thanks for the comment. :-)

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   3. 0

      Earl Noah Bernsbyposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I agree that would be ideal.  The response I received from Matt, when I queried HP about it awhile ago, was that they may be open to that in the future:
      
      http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/116712

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2. 30

   Writer Foxposted 10 years ago

   The 100 link per page limit is what Google advises.  That is for links on a single page, not how many links will be followed from those linked pages. 'Current Activity' and 'Forum Posts' should only be visible to signed-in Hubbers.  Those are of no use to users and are a waste of time for search engines.

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      epsonok0posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Here is what your profile looks like not signed it by anyone just a non user.
      All of your recent activity is links. I have seen the HTML relationship and yes its nearly at the top with links first to everything you and I do.
      

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         Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, I'm aware of what it looks like.  What I said is that it shouldn't be that way.  Outside visitors and search engines shouldn't see those links.

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            epsonok0posted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I suggested a feature that allows us to hide our recent activity as a profile setting or set it for just our followers. But the community gave me a severe sand blasting over it.
            http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/118143

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   2. 82

      Genna Eastposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for that very helpful info. :-)

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3. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 10 years ago

   Our data shows that google can handle up to 200 links for listing type pages.  Google is also pretty good at executing javascript now (they once weren't), but ever loading pages can still be a bit problematic (more items load as you scroll down a page), so we handle this with no script tags.  If you turn off js in your browser, you'll notice that the profile does actually paginate.  Google crawls these pages frequently.
   
   We see no issue with having as many Hubs as you like under a single account.

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      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      The latest word from Google is that a long list of links is a bad user experience ("overwhelming users") and more than 100 links on a page divides PageRank up into minuscule amounts. Moz still recommends 100 links per page: "The 100-link guideline is still probably a decent rule of thumb for most sites."
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6g5hoBYlf0
      http://moz.com/blog/how-many-links-is-too-many
      
      You do realize that you have Hubbers with 1,000 Hubs on a single Profile page.

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      1. 0

         epsonok0posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         And some of those hubs have thousands of comments. And frankly and this is just me, but when i visit a profile I don't care after about 20 and that is pushing it. You could not read someones work after even a week of nightly visits. In my own opinion, separate hub pages by category then article. On the main splash page. And unless someone has a new point of view on a singular issue do not allow repeat hubs regarding the same things. HP already separates by category but if I did not know that this was a collection of articles a mile deep, I would not come here and search for information.
         Rework the main page to say something like, Hubpages, a vast collection of information.
         Then a big search bar in the middle of the screen that asks what are you looking for?

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         1. 82

            Genna Eastposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Interesting.  At minimum, at least make the "Show" feature far more noticeable.

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            1. 70

               Matthew Meyerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Test message three.
               Posted 11.07.2013 12:54 PT

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