De-indexing of idle hubs that are poems.

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   Senoritaaposted 12 years ago

   In a recent initiative, HubPages has begun to de-index all those hubs that do not get much traffic. One way, they say, is to edit those hubs and refresh the content so that they generate traffic. While this may be a solution for articles, it does not make any sense to poetry. I am sure all fellow poets will agree that you cannot edit/add anything to a poem once you have written it. However, you still want people to read your poems, and find them on search engines, for the sole reason that you want to share what you write about with the world. Are there any thoughts from fellow hubbers about the best solution to this issue? Poets or non-poets, any suggestion/thought is welcome.

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      Tom Rubenoffposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      HubPages is all about traffic.   While poems may last forever, public interest in them comes and goes.  It has been a longstanding idea that one of the best thing one can do for their HP garden is weeding - weeding out those hubs that get little or no traffic.  I am behind in this myself because I have never been a big fan of weeding    However I have known for some time that I should move my un-visited poetry over to WordPress or Blogger where we can all care less if it gets traffic or not.

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      phdast7posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I know almost none of us would want to change the body of our poems, but as several of you have suggested, REWORK your Title (I have had success with this)  and think in terms of using a colon or dash.   What do I mean?   You don't have to give up the title that you love...add to it an mad make the poem crop up in more searches.  No offense to anyone, but I just wandered through the lyrical poem category and there were 35 "Love Poem" -- most of the titles were very tired and overused.    Here are some examples:
      
      Splendor in the Grass - A Summer Love
      Two Lovers:  The Distance Between
      The End of Springtime - A Love Poem
      Sleep Well My Dear:  A Poem for Night
      With the Wrong One - Hiding from Love
      
      Another way to generate a unique and compelling title is to base it directly on one of the kines within the poem itself:
      
      Dressing the Bones:  A Quiet Poem
      Coming into Womanhood - Lavender and Lace
      Drowning in Sorrow:  The Loss of a Child
      The Sphinx Watches Quietly - A Poem of Egypt
      
      Along with all the other good suggestions I suggest you consider revamping your titles.   Good luck everyone.

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   Hyphenbirdposted 12 years ago

   I have been thinking about this subject also. Perhaps adding a new image or capsule will help, at least for a while. It seems new Z's are popping up every day so I think it is a lost cause. sigh

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   Mark Ewbieposted 12 years ago

   The problem is that the reason they get Zzzzzed is no one is finding them anyway.  So although they may be great pieces they are already invisible, or rather, not looked for by the outside world.
   
   You can 'cheat' and refresh a piece by adding or subtracting words, perhaps putting an explanatory paragraph or a fresh picture.
   
   In the end though, it won't make any difference to the traffic conundrum.
   
   I am in the same position.  Lots of writing with no attention to keywords and net traffic.  It is an interesting problem.

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   WriteAngledposted 12 years ago

   It might be better to start your own web site/blog for your poetry.
   
   That way, you will not need to keep thinking how to refresh it or be forced to add superfluous words/capsules you don't really want.
   
   If a number of HP poets set up a Facebook group to communicate with each other and then started their own sites instead, these could be linked together in a webring or given mutual promotion in other ways.

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   Sue Adamsposted 12 years ago

   What a marvellous idea! I'll join a HP Poets Group on Facebook.

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   whonunuwhoposted 12 years ago

   I think that I shall never see, as fine a poetry from you to me..enough said?

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   Senoritaaposted 12 years ago

   Thanks all for your inputs. I think a common suggestion here is that poetry should be moved to a different site where traffic is not a concern. Your own page or a common platform like Bloggers or Wordpress seem to be good options so far.
   
   @whonunuwho: You couldn't have said it better.

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   Polly Cposted 12 years ago

   I write poetry, but thankfully none of my poems are in idle status ( at least not yet).  The five hubs that I do have in idle are definitely hubs that don't get traffic anyway, but also I think that they do not have much potential for future traffic because they are not very search friendly. They were mostly hubs that I wrote when I first joined, not my best writing, and I'm just going to leave them.
   
   I had two other hubs in idle that I was less pleased about and I made a couple of very small changes and now they are featured again.
   
   I don't think there is necessarily any reason to assume that all poems are particularly at risk of being idled. I think that the reason many poems don't get traffic is because writers don't think about how the poem is going to be found online - i.e. the titles are too obscure.

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   AudreyHowittposted 12 years ago

   I have a lot of poetry on HP in idle status. I also have a poetry blog that I write on regularly. I have enjoyed HP in some large measure because of the sense of community and I am loath to just going back to my poetry blog--it feels much more solitary to me. I am all for an HP poetry group on Facebook---

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    Senoritaaposted 12 years ago

    Polly, it is lucky you don't have poems de-indexed yet. Maybe you are right, maybe its the topic of the poems. I agree with Audrey. Even if I go ahead and publish all those de-indexed poems on a blog site, it won't be the same without the immense support from fellow poets in the HP community.

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    cmahanposted 12 years ago

    I say do what I did and self-publish your poetry on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords and Kobo. You will make a lot more money off of it than you do here or putting it up on a WordPress or Blogger website. Once I clear out my idle hubs, I will be self-publishing some more creative writing. It's not hard to do at all and pretty rewarding.

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    JayeWisdomposted 12 years ago

    This is what I did for the few poems I have published on HP.  In the title capsule, I added a descriptive word or phrase relative to the poem's meaning, placed a colon after it, then enclosed the title of the poem in quotation marks after that word/phrase.
    
    Here's an example:  rather than "Dilemma: a poem about the senses", this poem is now listed as The Human Senses:  "Dilemma", a poem.  The traffic has increased somewhat, though it's never garnered a lot of readings. 
    
    I've changed/improved titles for most of my hubs and updated/edited content as well. I no longer have any idle hubs. (Knock on wood!)

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    AudreyHowittposted 12 years ago

    I like the idea of reworking the titles as opposed to the body--and it is something that I did not think we could do--so I will try it and that you everyone!

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    brakel2posted 12 years ago

    Cardisa wrote a hub about getting more traffic for poems. I read it, and it is excellent She mentioned making titles more searchable and expanding the hub and discussing the inspiration for the poem. She may have mentioned putting several poems on same page on same subject. Some of these ideas may not be from her hub  anyway - for what it's worth, these are some ideas.

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    Rosemay50posted 12 years ago

    I was planning to rehash a poem that I wasn't completely happy prior to this initiative was put into place. It was a long poem with several verses so for that one it was easy to do and bring back from the ‘zzz’ zone. But I am wondering how long it will stay there.
    
    I have another poem which includes an explanation and thoughts written 7 months ago and still gets double figure views daily, so perhaps adding a paragraph will make all the difference.
    
    Making changes to the titles is a great idea so thank you JayeWisdom and phdast7 for your help tips. I will certainly be trying this

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