From Red Skull/Unfeatured Engagement to Unfeatured Quality After Edit

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   naturegirl7sposted 9 years ago

   I am so tired of trying to second guess the requirements. It seems that it takes 2-3 edits to go from UF engagement to Feature. Could someone please check out my recent edit which I edited again after getting the circle? I removed 1 of the 2 Zazzle links and another to a blog which may have been bad, but didn't show up as bad. Also deleted a product link. Did I miss anything. There weren't very many links to begin with. The hub is Early Spring Nature Walk. I hope it's okay to put the link.   naturegirl7s.hubpages.com/hub/early-spring-nature-walk
   
   Thanks for any input or insight into this tortuous process.

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   1. 91

      Millionaire Tipsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      When you first go to edit the hub, there is a box at the top which explains what the problem might be.  Do you have a box like that. I think it is black.

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         naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I cleared all the problems that were listed in the yellow box, wrote a summary and every box on the upper right is checked except 2+. I have 1612 words. I'm not a newbie, but the rules have changed. I need fresh eyes to see what I may have missed. Thanks

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            psycheskinnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            If you click on the black box it should say why your specific hub was dinged

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      Millionaire Tipsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I took a look at your hub.  It is a good one, and could just use a little change of focus. I don't know how to get it featured, but I try to make each hub I write the best it can be.  These suggestions are to help you do that. I think if you follow them, though, they will also get the hub featured.
      
      I would change the introduction to draw the reader in.  Come take a walk with me, instead of We took some photos.  By the way, the "we" is not identified. Maybe explain the benefits of a nature walk, etc.
      
      The way it reads now, is more of a sales hub.  Buy my photographs, buy these books.  You need to keep the sales an offshoot instead of the primary focus.  I think you can easily do that with the word choice.
      
      There are a couple of books you are selling that are for growing plants.  Your audience is out on a nature walk with you. They aren't home to garden and will likely not be interested in planting things.  I would limit the number of items I am selling.  I wouldn't think most people going on a walk will be interested in going home and sitting with a book.  The bird identification guide may come in handy though, and if you have just that book, and explain how to use it and its benefits, etc., you may get some sales out of that.  I have found that when I pick just one thing and really explain why it is a good choice, more people are likely to buy it, because it doesn't look I am trying to sell them everything. I'm just helping them find something cool that I found.

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      1. 86

         naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Millionaire, I'll change the intro a bit. As for the books, I am a retired librarian and recommend good books to people. I am also a Master Gardener and native plant enthusiast. The books are to share my knowledge. I will delete a couple, but there are only 4-5 for goodness sake! I did find a bird call link that was dead, but was not marked as dead and fixed it. Thanks again for the look see.

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   3. 82

      peachpurpleposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      i had this problem too. So, I removed the external links in the photos and in my article. The red skull vanished

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      1. 86

         naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         This is one of the 200 pages that were transferred from Squidoo. Many had red skulls because of the different TOS between Squidoo and HP. The red skull was cleared by addressing the items listed in the box in the upper right on the edit page. While it was waiting to be edited to meet HP TOS, it was unfeatured for engagement (traffic). After going through quality control because of the half circle, it was labeled "unfeatured due to quality". This has happened with most of the transfers which were unfeatured due to lack of traffic.
         
         I was hoping that I was just missing something, but it seems that we are all playing on a new ball field. Like you I may have to strip it down to text only so as not to appear too promotional. We shall see.

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            Virginia Allainposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            You can check the little box inside the capsule for DON"T DISPLAY THIS CAPSULE.
            That's what I do for extra Amazon modules. It stashes them out of sight but keeps them on hand in case you want to activate them later.

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            1. 86

               naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Good tip. I thought about that and have done it with photos that didn't line up correctly, but was afraid that the would still be counted against us. Glad to hear they won't be.
               Right now I'm having fits trying to edit a hub. Hub tools has crashed a zillion times today. This is crazy!

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               1. 86

                  naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  From now on, when I am dealing with a transferred lens/hub with a red skull that has also been unfeatured due to "engagement", I am clicking "don't display this capsule" on all product and affiliate links. The only links I leave are to HP articles. Basically stripping it down to text.

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                  1. 86

                     Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Sorry naturegirl, I missed this post.  I am so sorry you are having so many troubles.
                     
                     As I'm sure you realise, stripping your Hub down to text is counter-productive, because then your only possible income is from views.   It's not necessary, either.
                     
                     Remember that if you've made multiple changes to get your Hub Featured, it's very likely that only the LAST change was the one that mattered - and that means you could reinstate everything else.  I know you probably can't face trying that, but what you CAN do is approach future editing with that in mind.
                     
                     I've noticed some key items which regularly cause problems for ex-Squids:
                     
                     1.  An Amazon capsule in the top right-hand corner.  You can't start your Hub with an Amazon or eBay capsule, but the system allows you to create a right-floated one - unfortunately that becomes full-width on mobile devices so is also not allowed. 
                     
                     2.  Amazon capsules which are not separated by text. If you have several Amazon capsules one after the other, either full-width or right-floated, that is a no-no.   If you make sure there is a reasonable amount of text between each capsule, you can use several Amazon capsules without any problem at all - they just can't be together.
                     
                     3.  As you probably know, you are not allowed more than two links to the same website.   You may not know that links in the photo credits count towards that limit.   I wrote a Hub about how to use photos (you'll find it in the slider on my profile).
                     
                     4.  All links must be completely relevant to the subject of your Hub.  That's very strict:  you can't link to your own profile, for instance, or to social networks, or your blog (unless you link to an article that's relevant).   Two links to Etsy, Zazzle, AllPosters or all fine, BUT the items you're linking to must be directly related.  Vaguely related isn't enough.

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                     1. 86

                        naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        Thanks Marisa,
                        All the points you outlined were covered. Apparently with the transferred lens/hubs that were unlucky enough to be unfeatured due to lack of traffic, the rules are a little different. Only 2-3 product links like Amazon and sometimes you have to remove 1 of the 2 Zazzle links before it is featured again. They appear to also count unlinked key words. I've done away with all the red skulls, but the ones with unfeatured status will have to wait. I have magazine articles to write and a newsletter to publish plus the Christmas Bird Count to do.
                        It's odd though that my original naturegirl7 account follows the original rules you outlined and all is well.... but I'm glad I edited those 40 hubs before the 200 from Squidoo were tranferred to the new account.

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   Writer Foxposted 9 years ago

   Your Hub is featured now.

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      naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, thanks. I finally found the right combination to unlock the mystery of the unfeatured hub.

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3. 87

   Virginia Allainposted 9 years ago

   Keep in mind that a Zazzle product featured comes with 3 links. I suppress the seller and the general one for Zazzle and just leave the link for the actual item.

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      naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I hide the one Zazzle does and just use the code for the seller and put the title of the product in plain text. That way several products from the same seller are referred to the same seller/designer link and only use one of the 2 allowed to the same site.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      On HubPages, you're not allowed to use ANY of the HTML-type links provided by Amazon, Zazzle etc.  You need to extract the URL that contains your affiliate link and use it to create your own hyperlink. 
      
      It's interesting because that probably  explains why some ex-Squids have had problems with Zazzle links, even though they appeared to have only one.

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         naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Excuse me, I mispoke. When I said "code" I was referring to url. I copy the link which includes our referral number. The fact that most Zazzle product links have a link to the product and the designer is why our transferred lens/hubs were covered with red skulls. Most of mine had the right number of products, but since I used prints as illustrations, the 2 Zazzle links per product killed me.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            A URL can't have links to two different places in it, because a URL is the address of a single web page.  So I'm thinking the links must be HTML links, which can have more than one link in them.
            
            Were you using the "Link to this" link on products?  That produces an HTML link.

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            1. 86

               naturegirl7sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Yes, at Squidoo we were able to pop those in to a module and manipulate the size of the picture and how much of the text we wanted to show by changing the code. The text links transferred over to HP and the pics were put into a photo module.
               
               Actually you can use some code at HP. You have to click the little html button when editing and it shows the code that was used and if you know how to write code you can add links and such that way. I believe you can also put the "link to this" w/o the pic from Zazzle there, too. However since it puts 2 links, it would be better to copy the Zazzle code to a word pad doc and take the parts you need.

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