Evergreen Pages

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   Holly22posted 9 years ago

   In many ways I consider myself fortunate to have some successful hub-pages and about 40 in total all brought over from Squidoo. At the same time, given the amount of work involved, I am glad I only have 40 hub-pages, I feel sorry for my friends who sometimes have in excess of 250 articles (can we say lens any more). My goal before I do a new article on Hub, is to make all my articles evergreen. Get rid of all the skulls, check. Clean up all bad links and photos, check. Remove all excessive Amazon links, check. Spread out all remaining Amazon links, check. All this took several sessions. But the final job is to convert all my lenses into Evergreen by adding good content, photos and polls etc. Many of my lenses were pretty close just needing a poll or video or map. Others were a lot of work. I am about third of the way through at this point and YES, as Hub says, it does increase traffic. Long dormant lenses are now showing daily visits. So Evergreen is now my mantra and I am very much encouraged. To any Hub administrators out there, new lenses ( can't let that word go) will come but for now I am working on 100% evergreen.

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      makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Evergreen lenses are only be counted as really evergreen in my book when they are continuing to demonstrate increased traffic three months down the line and the temporary boost associated with introducing new content has worn off
      
      Twas ever thus - nothing different about HubPages will change this fact.

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      1. 81

         Holly22posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Probably what you say is true, no doubt. I still say better evergreen than no.

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      calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Sounds like an admirable goal to add more content to your articles.  But evergreen is a characteristic of an article's topic, not its depth or richness.  An evergreen hub is one that doesn't cover something fleeting or seasonal, doesn't require the reader to be familiar with the author's other work, and isn't an opinion piece. See http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/evergreen-content for HP's definition of evergreen.
      
      Adding polls, maps, and quizzes to already evergreen articles is a good way to help them stay in search engines. But adding these elements to a hub whose topic isn't evergreen to begin with will not make the hub so.  That's something you have to examine at a deeper level.

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      1. 70

         makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I think my point is that irrespective of how HubPages defines evergreen - the reality is they only remain current if they continue to interest people and that, factually, at the end of the day is reflected in a hub's traffic (or the traffic to a blog post or a page of a website).
         
         In other words, although the points in the HubPages evergreen article are well made - the proof is in the pudding.
         
         Judge a site on outcomes not inputs!

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         1. 78

            Lionrhodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Caveat: I certainly don't know it all and won't pretend to.
            
            Just as an example:
            
            But an article discussing  "Strong Women in Hunger Games"  will never be as powerful for me as "How to be a powerful woman." Both articles (even the same article) could reference the same movie. But someday the Hunger Games will go out of style. Sure it might get hits for a short time because of name appeal. Eventually that'll die off. Face it...other than hit movies, how many can you name from 20 years ago?
            
            LOL Here's a fun game: For those of you who grew up when I did, during the 60's and 70's try to reference a movie that was important to you at the time.
            
            I'm already predicting what'll come up and what probably won't.

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            1. 81

               Holly22posted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Great idea Rhod. I cannot disagree with anything you say. But then for me this thread was never about   the dispute over whether any reference to a topical subject should be made. I still stand by my original premise that whatever a lens is like, if it aspires to the evergreen mantra then it is likely to more successful, not guaranteed but a guide for sure.
               
               Case in point I do the hub hopping where you are asked to rate random hubs. Without being specific there are some appalling hubs out there, one was about a style of car and how much the person liked it. The style was obvious and therefore not helpful, the article was short less than 500 words and the grammar was very sub standard. This is not sour grapes but a simple fact. No matter how the article is embellished it will never be evergreen because the premise is useless, we all know cars need four wheels. But certainly better grammar and 1500 words would at least make it at least respectable on hubpages if a little naive.

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               1. 86

                  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  If the grammar was bad, I hope you flagged it.

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                  1. 81

                     Holly22posted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     To the extent I set the slider at 2. Not sure beyond that. I'm a squid learning to be a hubbie.

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2. 81

   Holly22posted 9 years ago

   All admirable comments. So a well written article that is not time sensitive, has all the evergreen qualities and sees a steady increase in traffic will always be better than a time sensitive article that does not have all the pieces yet may see a limited time surge of traffic because it is somehow flavour of the day.  Thank you everyone.

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3. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 9 years ago

   I was confused by this post because I couldn't understand how you could take an existing Hub and "make it evergreen".
   
   Then I noticed that sometimes, next to the "Stellar Hub" guidelines, there's the question "Is your Hub Evergreen?" 
   
   That has nothing to do with the Stellar Hub guidelines - it's something HubPages wants you to consider in addition to to those guidelines.  If you watch, you'll notice that it's just one of several "tips" that can appear in that space.
   
   HubPages' definition of an "evergreen Hub" is a Hub where the information is not time-sensitive, and will not become dated. 
   
   So what you've been doing is trying to meet the Stellar Hub guidelines.  Which, by the way, are only advisory not compulsory.   If a poll, video or quiz doesn't fit well with your topic, it's better NOT to add one.
   
   Not that it really matters what it's called...

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   1. 81

      Holly22posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Marissa, I understand what you say. I have the gist of what it all means. BUT there is a really good parallel between my bad lenses and low marks in the box top right. When I add more good content and more good photos and add a relevant poll the article looks ten times better and the box top right shows a much better reading. Yes its a guide, yes a hub needs to be relevant over time and not topical in order to be evergreen. But forget the word evergreen for a second. The box still allows me a rough guide to decide which of my lenses are already good and which need improving. Thanks for explaining but I will still use it as a guide. In particular the word count, low word count = bad lens as far as I can tell.
      Cheers
      Peter

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      1. 86

         Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, you are absolutely right.   All I'm really doing is pointing out that what you're referring to are the "Stellar Hub" guidelines, not the "Evergreen Hub" guidelines (which don't exist).   
         
         When joining a new site, it's always useful to understand the right jargon, otherwise the natives don't understand what you're saying!

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