Changing the titles of long established hubs (good idea or bad?)

1. 85

   John D Leeposted 14 years ago

   I just read Ryan Hupfer's very interesting blog post on optimizing your hubs for keywords:
   
   http://blog.hubpages.com/2009/08/hubpag … great-one/
   
   I have never spent much time optimizing for keywords, for better or worse, I have always just written it straight - maybe I have been foolish! Anyway, it does seem that optimizing makes a lot of sense, but should I do it retroactively?
   
   What I mean is, if i have a hub written 1 or 2 years ago, that is getting good traffic now, but that may not be optimized for earnings, should I change the title to improve the CPC on the keywords?  Will I pay a very large price in lost traffic for changing the title, and I guess, starting anew to fight for rankings on different keywords?
   
   I write mostly about food, so the keywords aren't super big payouts in any case!

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   1. 60

      freelanceworldposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I Strongly would not advise changing it now.
      Better to concentrate on Its layout, keyword tags and keywords in content .
      My opinion
      Regards

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   2. 68

      lrohnerposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I can't see where changing the title is going to hurt you all that much. There's no way to change the URL and having the proper keywords in the URL is quite important.
      
      Tags are important, but as to keyword density and all of that other stuff, has Google changed algorithms again? I thought they stopped looking at keyword density a loooooong time ago? Or at least it isn't high on the list of important things they look at, no?
      
      And Mark, I'll bring the brownies!

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2. 58

   Mark Knowlesposted 14 years ago

   Good question. I have just gone back through a few of my own recipes, done some research changed the titles, tags and modified the content.
   
   They were all getting pretty good traffic, so we shall see. I will let you know next year. .
   
   No body searches for " barbecue hamburgers in November, so it may take that long to find out if it was worth it. This particular one was because I forgot the American mis-spelling of barbeque only to discover that Cue is much more widely searched for and pays far better than Que. Oh well........

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3. 63

   Mishaposted 14 years ago

   You have to cater to the market Mark

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   1. 58

      Mark Knowlesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah I know. Not my first mistake, and I am sure it will not be the last.

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      1. 63

         Mishaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Not that I am free from those either. Sometimes it smells that bad I cant' cater any more

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4. 68

   cindyvineposted 14 years ago

   Could do with a cider and one of your barbecure hamburgers now, Mark!

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5. 63

   Mishaposted 14 years ago

   Oh, sorry, and answering the title question - it does not really have one-fits-all approach IMO. You have to assess what you may lose, and what you may gain, and this will give you grounds to making a decision.

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6. 78

   Mighty Momposted 14 years ago

   I heard Mark was bbqing burgers over here and came by for a taste. Delish! MM

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7. 58

   Mark Knowlesposted 14 years ago

   I will actually be cooking them this afternoon - all that keyword research made me hungry for burgers.

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8. 78

   Mighty Momposted 14 years ago

   Cindyvine will bring the cider and I'll toss together some macaroni salad.
   Sounds to me like we're well on our way to solving the issue of world Hub Pages peace:-).

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9. 72

   relacheposted 14 years ago

   I've changed the title of a long-established Hub before.  I didn't lose any traffic, in fact, the results were much improved.

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   1. 57

      AsherKadeposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I did that too the other day to my hub
      http://hubpages.com/hub/Do-You-Recogniz … t-a-keeper
      
      it has a new title now...
      sometimes it works, sometimes not...

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10. 0

    Nelle Hoxieposted 14 years ago

    There is a belief by some SEO experts that changing the title of a webpage can be one of the most disruptive things you can do to your google rankings.
    
    I've had it cut both ways. If I have a page that's performing well I don't touch the title or meta description. But if one is tanking and other things don't work then I do change it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

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11. 79

    Uninvited Writerposted 14 years ago

    I just spent an hour changing some titles and rearranging some hubs, hopefully my time was not wasted.

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12. 0

    Nelle Hoxieposted 14 years ago

    The interesting - or scary - thing about making money online is that there are so many variables you really don't know what's working. You think you have it gamed and then it all falls apart. There have been so many times when I thought I was going to be a millionaire....

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    1. 72

       livewithrichardposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       I go through that twice a week.  I don't know why I keep buying those lottery tickets

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13. 72

    livewithrichardposted 14 years ago

    I've changed titles here and on some that have been online for over a couple years.  I only optimized them with my keywords but everyone of them have realized an increase in traffic.

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14. 55

    jcalesposted 14 years ago

    Hubpages and your score is helped when you name edits, improvements to your already established hubs. Why would this hurt?
    
    But can you in fact change the title if the title is sometimes the actual URL link?
    
    BTW, I am craving a BBQ hamburger now.

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15. 85

    John D Leeposted 14 years ago

    Thanks everyone, very much, for the replies.

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