should I unpublish and combine hubs?

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  1. Danette Watt profile image83
    Danette Wattposted 6 years ago

    I'm trying to decide what to do with some of my 'unfeatured" hubs, which don't get much engagement. I have 2 series, one on 'how to write a great hub" the other on a organic CSA farm. I'm thinking of unpublishing one of the series and combining and rewriting the individual hubs to be just one. Then after a while doing the same to the other.

    Do you think this would cause things to be "duplicated" in the eyes of google/HP?

    is there a better way to do this?

    1. Marisa Wright profile image95
      Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Your series on "how to write a great Hub" is never likely to be Featured, because it's only of interest to other Hubbers, and we're a very small community.   

      I have a few "how to Hub" Hubs which are Featured, but only because I've put them in my slider, and I'm also very active on the forums helping Hubbers out, which leads to them looking at my profile and therefore seeing them.  Before I put them on the slider, they were unFeatured.

      If your individual Hubs on the CSA farm are over 400 words, then I wouldn't bother combining them.  Several interlinked 400 word Hubs are just as likely to get traffic as one huge one - and you get more chances to catch Google's attention with a unique title for each one (even though it's a series, it's a bad idea to repeat the same title with Chapter 1, Chapter 2 etc - Google sometimes interprets the repeated words as a sign of keyword stuffing or article spinning). 

      Do make sure they all contain links to each other (don't just rely on the Groups feature to get readers to move between them).   A highlighted links box, floated right, is a good way to do it.

      1. Danette Watt profile image83
        Danette Wattposted 6 years agoin reply to this

        Thanks. They aren't titled Chap 1, 2, etc. so I'll go back and do some linking.

    2. larakern profile image69
      larakernposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Danette, I'm suffering from the same problem! I am taking an hour (atleast) everyday to improve my unfeatured hubs. I typically add more content and other things that will engage the readers. I'm currently trying to combine some poetry hubs because a poem on its on does not generate much traffic. In my opinion, if you delete your hub series and condense it into a single hub, I do not see how hubpages or google would see this as duplicating content. That is basically what I am doing as well. Good luck!

    3. Drax profile image75
      Draxposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I think that too much preoccupation with what Google are doing does not benefit your writing, Google will do what they will do and I think it a waste of energy trying to second guess what is in their algo and how that will percolate down. Also Google is not the only Search player with the market spilt approx 65% in their favour. (you could look at  if you want to see the Search wars scores)

      Personally I think the entire idea of Featured hubs is flawed although at the same time I appreciate that Hubpages will endeavour to act in the best interests of the community and the authors. IMHO the Hot, Best Latest with scores was a much better way of categorising Hubs to help readers choose. I have never been that keen on overt editorial control, if I want that I will go and work for a newspaper.

      Publish or Unpublish? well you have to be really objective about the quality since if the Article is not getting traffic that tells you something. I had about 240 Hubs here and a lot of them were in the doldrums. I unpublished 150 of them and am slowly adding them back, after I have spent a good deal of time improving them.

      In order to help with this I graded them into 4 Star, 1 Star, No Star. I am focusing on the 4 Star first and then perhaps the 1 Star but the No Star I will probably delete eventually. Except you have to remember that when you delete you lose that aggregate traffic count. (I've learned that the hard way)

      One thing I have found very useful is Google Trends  - you are limited to a number of searches here unless you have a Google/Gmail account. Ideally you should also be using Google Webmaster tools since then your url here is verified, one Google account will give you access to all this. Here is the HB How To

      You can run the searches in Trends, see the traffic index, not actual search numbers, then when you have narrowed down your terms you could use the Keyword tool to get real good detail.

      Assuming you have done all this then you are in a much better position to decide. Your own subjective ranking will have allowed you to categorise your Hubs into The Good, The Bad and the Ugly :-)  Trends will give you an idea of external search demand and Adwords will give you specific numbers. 

      In the final analysis I believe it is more important to focus on what one is writing and to find a niche that can be worked upon since that will bring rankings and traffic and $$ in the long term. Really anyone who wants to make a lot of cash quick would be better writing songs. :-)

    4. profile image0
      Jennifer Sucheyposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Just to be clear, if something's published and featured, I wouldn't unpublish it to combine it with unfeatured material. If you want to combine info, unpublilsh the unfeatured hubs and edit the published ones to combine information.

      Maybe that's your intention, but wanted to clarify. Your published hubs are slowly gaining ranking with Google, so editing is fine, but you don't want to mess that up by unpublishing them.

      1. Danette Watt profile image83
        Danette Wattposted 6 years agoin reply to this

        Jennifer, thanks for clarifying. I probably would have (unthinkingly) unpublished ALL of them, even the featured ones. So I'll double check their status and be sure not to do that.


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