Quick fix for your idled hub status (The sleeping Zzz's)
One of the most recent changes that the hub pages has made is the addition of the new "Idle Status". Unlike the highly disliked new profile page, there is something that you can quickly do to correct an idled hub to get it back into the lime light on the Hub Pages.
The hub pages has decided to play the role of big brother, and they are policing up old hubs which are stale and not receiving much traffic. All in all it's really not all that bad of an idea, and it encourages active hubbers to edit some of their less seen hubs.
I decided to write this hub after reading some of the negative feedback in the forums, where the idled hub has became a very hot topic. On the official hub page announcements forum, the thread "Introducing idled hubs" has close to one thousand comments and replies already.
Judging from all of those comments there are an awful lot of excited and very alarmed hubbers out there on the hub pages because of this new change. There are some hubbers who feel that the idled hub status should be optional. Other hubbers are accusing the hub pages of turning into Squidoo, and opening a can of worms. Still other hubbers are acting as though the hub pages, and the world are all coming to an end. Calm down and get a grip on reality people, because it's really not all that big of a deal.
Hubs are now classified into one of three different categories. Go to your account page and scroll on down to the bottom where you'll locate your list of hubs. On the far right hand side of your hub list, you'll find the new idle status. The symbol with the little green dot means that your hub is featured, and that you don't need to do anything. (On November 7th the featured symbol was changed to a "H" inside of a black circle) The symbol with the two curved circular arrows indicates that your hub is pending, and that it soon may be featured. Your brand new published hubs will automatically receive a pending classification prior to being treated as featured. The symbol with the three little Z's means that your hub is idle, and that you may want to do something about that. (On November 7th the idled hub symbol was changed to just a blank white space, but it's still a sleeping Z)
When you find that one of your hubs has been classified as "idle", you can easily correct this problem, and change it's status back to featured. This can be easily done by simply adding photos, fresh content, or media to your idled hub. (You don't ever have to unpublish your hub)
There is a super fast quick fix which I discovered to correct this. I'd now like to share this method with you, so that you can quickly get your hubs featured once again on the world wide web.
Quick Fix:
1) Hit the "edit" button on the hub in which you want to change from "idle" to "featured".
2) Select any sentence in your hub, and add just one word.
Example - (Original sentence) Jason found the box was too heavy to move.
(Edited sentence) Jason found the big box was too heavy to move.
3) Save your changes, and hit the save button on the paragraph that you just added your word or words to.
4) Republish your hub, and hit the "Done Editing" button which is located at the very top of your hub.
5) You are now done, and the "idle status" symbol will be replaced instantly with a "pending" symbol. In about 24 hours your hub will be featured once again for all of the Internet to see.
Special Note - If you do not write your own summary then the first couple sentences of your hub are included in the summary that describes your hub. Keeping this in mind if this applies to you then you may want to consider adding a word in a paragraph further on down in your hub, so as to not change the meaning of the original hub summary.
On November 7th 2012 the hub pages also decided to roll out another new program. They have released the ability for you to choose if you would like to "Show only Featured Hubs on my profile". So you have a choice of "Yes" or "No". Choosing "No" which is automatically defaulted allows for your idled hubs to show up on your profile for others to view. Choosing "Yes" does exactly what the sentence says, and it will only show featured Hubs on your profile, not idled hubs. Every hubber has the right for all of their time and hard work to be seen by others, and the choice is all yours, so choose wisely.
