Suggestions To Improve HubPages

Here are some ideas that came to me over the past year being on HubPages. I think they will improve the HubPages experience for both hubbers and readers. I hope to add to this list over time. I am also hopeful that Hubpages staff will pay attention.

-Aug. 2015

Here are some ideas to improve the front end (for viewers and commenters).

• It would be nice to be able to add an image to the left side of the text module. Currently, you can only do so to the right side. This simple format change will allow the creator some flexibility in designing their content.
• Some current Ads have audio that come on when the page is loaded. This is very annoying and should be discontinued. Any video/audio ads should require the user to click to activate.
• The current comment section should be restricted in length. There is no reason to provide unlimited space for comments. It should be limited to less than 200 words.
• It would be nice to have a simple link feature to allow the hubber to link to another hub of his creation that is related in content. This will make it easier for hubbers to group hubs that are related. It would also be easier for the reader to find the related hubs.
• It would nice to view the hubs by "groups" as designated by the creator. Currently, the hubs appear in the order they were created in reverse order.

For the back end and HubPages, here are some suggestions that can improve the hubber's experience.

• It would be nice if HubPages will allow the earnings to be designated for some charity. When I was on Squidoo, that was one of the attractions that lead me to Squidoo and online publishing.
• The Statistics page can be improved to include a column that shows the current Google search Rank of the hub. Since Google search Rank is so important on being found by search engines, it would be a big help for hubbers to know what their rank is and it will also be a good feedback on choosing future titles of hubs.
• The current page view "count" is a bit off. It includes all access to the hub even though some of the page views are from the same visitor posting comments and replies. I suggest the page count to be adjusted to subtract out the number of comments. This will also have the added advantage of discouraging some from goading the readers to make replies to comments.
• When a hub is updated, it would be nice to notify all followers and people who have made comments to that hub. Sometimes, new related information is added and it would help contribute to the discussions.

Currently, HubPages seems to have a unique connection to Google search engine. In many cases, the hub will rank high on Google SEO but not in other search engines. It would be an improvement if other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo can also be targeted.

Here are some additional suggestions...

• The Export To PDF option on the Safari browser seems to not work very well with Hubs. The formatting of text seems to be off especially when there are images.
• It would be nice for the hub creators to define categories that are more specific to their topics. The current choices are not sufficient to cover all categories.

Over the past year publishing on HubPages, I came up with a few ideas of improvement. Let me know if you have other good ideas. We all want to help HubPages succeed.