What to do with old dead hubs?

1. 66

   snakebabyposted 10 years ago

   Most of my hubs are getting no traffic at all, some of such hubs are basically dead - they are not even indexed by search engines.
   
   I tried to fix one of them (the blue topaz), by reducing number of products the least. Later I see it was picked up by google, but with no traffic at all.
   
   Another hub about lemon water, soon after I made minimum changes, I received an email from hubpages, saying this hub had potential to be featured if certain changes were made, obviously the message was triggered by my early action.
   
   If changes to the lemon water hub was "seen" by hubpages, why the blue topaz hub did not trigger any notification from hubpages about potentially getting featured?
   What would happen if made proper changes to lemon water hub?
   What really happens if an old hub gets featured on hubpages?
   What should I do with those in google but with 0 traffic?
   What should I do with totally dead hubs? Should I unpublish, modify and replublish them? Or should I move them to a new account and treat them like new hubs?
   
   I may have more questions, but my brain stopped working now, I'd post this for now.
   
   Thanks!

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   1. 85

      ShyeAnneposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting to see this topic posted.  I just unpublished a handful of my poorly producing hubs. I will let them sit for a bit and either edit or delete them.

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   2. 78

      formosangirlposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Move them to your own Blogger site. Almost no restrictions, and when you do have visitors, they pay is better.

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      1. 71

         That Grrlposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I do the same. I've been moving posts HubPages ignores to my own sites where they can bring traffic, and thrive again. Of course, I've been busier with my own sites (even created a new one) and have not added fresh content here. Not having updates here has made a big difference to the traffic my posts on HubPages get. I'd suggest you move your posts over, and keep posting both on your own site and at least monthly on HubPages too.

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         1. 81

            Dale Hydeposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I have had great success in moving my unfeatured hubs to my blog as well.  They get much more traffic after a period of time and my blog is monetized with Google Adsense as well and an affiliate ad or two.
            
            The one thing to remember to not have the Big Boss, Master Google, find duplicate material when you publish your material elsewhere, is to follow a few steps that has worked for myself repeatedly.
            
            1. Unpublish your hub.
            
            2. Go to Google Webmaster Tools and have it deindexed from search and cache via submitting the URL. (This has always transpired for me in 24 hours or less)
            
            3.  Copy your hub to the new location and then leave unpublished here, or do as I do and delete it.

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            1. 86

               Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               The other important point to note is - move ONLY those Hubs which are relevant to your blog's topic.  These days, Google hates to see irrelevant material on a blog.

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               1. 81

                  Dale Hydeposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  Overall, I blog is a variety of things, not a particular topic.  I am not sure how this would apply to that type of blog.  Of course it leans towards "pagan", but I do a variety of posts there.

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                  1. 86

                     Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     You will eventually damage your traffic if you post on subjects not related to your core topic.   Google wants authority sites these days - your site has a track record in that field due to its longevity, so I would strongly advise against diluting that.
                     
                     There's nothing to stop you broadening your field - for instance, I've been told I should broaden my ballet site to the bigger topic of dance in general, because I'm starting to run out of material! - but to stray into unrelated topics is very risky.

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   3. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      First of all, are those Hubs "unFeatured"?   I have a Hub on what to do with UnFeatured Hubs - you'll find it in the slider on my profile.   You'll find a couple of other Hubs there that would be relevant if they're still Featured.

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   4. 85

      rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      If they're not indexed, that's your first goal.  Lean Man gave excellent advice. Know the purpose of your content.  Can your blue topaz article stand up against Blue Nile, Macy's, Overstock, etc?  Rather than a title with the word, 'buy',  you could try making the title more compelling for those seeking info and knowledge about blue topaz.  What is it about blue topaz that your targeted audience may not know, besides basic info they can find anywhere? 
      I would start with new titles and drop the word, buy, from every title.

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2. 59

   paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago

   I am likewise doing a hub migration; both dead and alive. I'd also be interested in hearing any advice.

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3. 81

   LeanManposted 10 years ago

   If you want traffic then there are just two things to think about before you even consider thinking about SEO and the quality of your hub.....
   
   The first is does anyone search for the keywords that you are targeting? If no one searches for it then you will never get visitors!
   
   The second is competition, search your keywords in google and see what is shown on the first page. If they are dedicated sites which are long established, .gov, .edu, and other very reputable sites (Amazon etc) then you will have little chance to better them in the search results.....
   
   There is a third thing that you may want to consider also, the competition here within HP. If there are already several good established hubs targeting the same keywords is your hub significantly better as google is not going to show a page of results just from HP!
   
   So if you fail on competition and number of people searching there is zero point in trying to think about SEO, quality improvements etc.. You need to deal with your keywords etc..

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   1. 31

      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Everything you mention here is part of SEO.  Why did you think it wasn't?

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4. 93

   Suzanne Dayposted 10 years ago

   Consider taking different angles to hubs that need freshening up. For example, I wrote a hub about buying Russian dolls online which is a terrible hub. When I want to redo it, I will be rewriting along the angle of the tradition and history of Russian dolls instead and forget the buying stuff.
   
   Just a thought.

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5. 72

   bn9900posted 10 years ago

   I let them sit, in rality, if I dump them I've dumped hours of my time and who knows one day they might just go viral.

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6. 0

   lambservantposted 10 years ago

   I have been going through all my old hubs too. Some of them were so bad. Three years on hubpages and looking back on the old ones - ugh. So I have either been deleting or doing overhauls and sprucing up. Like you say, when I go back to an old hub to fix it up a bit I get the note saying it can be featured with some revisions. It pays to take the time.
   
   Looking at key words too is a good thing. I'd rather have less hubs and have quality in the ones I keep up.

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7. 63

   Lisa HWposted 10 years ago

   I have no illusions of any of mine going viral, but I took out over two hundred Hubs, all (or all but one or two - not sure) were featured.  It was just that I started writing on here awhile ago, and they were obviously not right any longer. 
   
   In a way, though, I sort of regret being so quick to delete them because, of course, that meant chopping my income from here down to a third of what it was (and that was "what it was" after it had already dropped a couple of years ago).
   
   So now, I still have a bunch that I'll probably delete, but I didn't want to strip the subdomain down to too few, because at least I am earning a little something from them (even if there aren't any dynamos in the bunch - and that's how it was when I had the 330 or so).
   
   I would have deleted all but a very few, but there's an element of mixed-messages when it comes to some things on here; so I haven't wanted to be too premature.  So for now, I'm just kind of letting them sit and seeing where things go.  I won't be adding more of the same (many were experimental anyway). What else I delete and/or what else I do/don't decide to write on here remains to be seen.  Based on some of the stuff that is still being posted, I'm thinking I was way too much in a hurry with my thinking that some of the old things ought to be deleted so quickly.  (Some, no doubt, should have; but many weren't any worse than what I now have left on here.  It's just that I stopped deleting before I dipped below 70 Hubs.    )  Right now all but one are featured, so having stuff unfeatured has never been the problem (although it has  kind of contributed to some of that element of "mixed-message" that I referred to.)  (Not removing the unfeatured one because it has been copied a few times, so I can't see "giving it" to those who copied it.  )

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8. 81

   Fateslayer99posted 10 years ago

   Hey! I have some advice for this . If your hubs are old and dead, look at the competition and see what they did right. What made them stand out and yours not? It might be a layout issue or a content issue or something like that, so the best thing to do is ask yourself a question. If you were stumbling on hubs, would your article catch your eye? If not, then try messing with it until it does . Good luck!

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   1. 73

      choosetoliveposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      For all my old hubs which doesn't drive any traffic, I tried revisiting them. Fine tuned all the niche keywords in my hub. Added couple of images related to my hub. This made one of my hub active in receiving traffic.
      I would be observing this hub for couple of months. If it doesn't drive traffice or again if it's dead, then moving it to my blog would be another option

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