Putting old bubbles into blogs

1. 96

   Thomas Swanposted 9 years ago

   I have some questions for the experienced bloggers here.
   
   I used to have a Bubblews account that I deleted when their dishonest practices became clear to me. I was careful to copy my 70 posts into a word document to use another time. The posts are reasonably well written, original, evergreen, and about 400 words in length. Most are rewritten, condensed versions of my hubs with a link at the end to the hub.
   
   I'm considering creating about 6 different blogs with adsense enabled, and will divide those posts among the blogs. Each blog will be about a particular subject I've written about, e.g. politics, sport, religion, history, etc. I can probably find at least 6 bubbles for each blog. Some will have more.
   
   Is this a good idea? Will it earn me anything?
   
   If each post has a link to one of my hubs, will it hurt my traffic in any way? Should I cut the links out? Each could probably stand alone without them.
   
   I have gone to Google's URL removal tool to remove any bubblews posts of mine that still appear in search/cache. They are gone now. Is there anything else I need to do to avoid the Google wrath?
   
   I'd greatly appreciate any help... and Merry Christmas to you all!

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      peachpurpleposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      after you had deleted them, did you check whether the url still exist? Having 6 blogs would be hard to handle, unless you are okay with it.

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      1. 96

         Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Well, they can't be found in search anymore. I think that's the best I can do. The URLs still exist on bubblews. They're still giving a 404 page.

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   2. 87

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      A blog with only 6 posts would be a very small blog indeed, so my concern would be that Google would ignore them. 
      
      You're on the right track in making each blog focussed on a single topic - generalist blogs do very badly - but they do need to be substantially bigger than just 6 posts IMO.

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      1. 96

         Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Marisa. Yes, I'm dropping the smaller ones. For the remaining 5 blogs, 3 of them have 17 posts; the others have 14 and 9.
         
         Is it important that I update these blogs regularly after I'm done putting the posts on? I wonder if making a website would be better, but I don't want to shell out any money for it. Do you know of any free options that would work?

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         1. 87

            Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Google wants sites that provide either a substantial body of information, or a constant flow of new information, or both.  It doesn't distinguish between blogs and websites in that regard
            
            So my concern with your plan is that your blogs/sites won't be substantial enough by a long shot, so you will need to keep adding new information.  That doesn't have to be daily - once a week would do. 
            
            As Sam says, Blogger works - but I strongly recommending buying a domain name for each one.   It can make a big difference and it's going to be less than $10 for each one somewhere like Namecheap.

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            1. 81

               Sam Montanaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               What are the biggest advantages to buying your own domain name?

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               1. 90

                  TolovajWordsmithposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  You can choose the name, possibly with  keyword in it and your blog will look much more professional with standalone url than with subdomain on wordpress, blogspot or some other platform.
                  
                  There are also disadvantages: having a name costs - it is about 10 dollars per year and you'll probably have to pay for hosting, maintain you site (you need to learn few technical things), ...

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                  1. 87

                     Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     You can have a domain name without the hosting, because you can "attach" a domain name to a Blogger blog. I think you can also attach one to a Weebly blog, but I don't recommend Weebly.
                     
                     I used to recommend Weebly but I changed my mind after helping a friend set up a blog there.  Firstly, the free service loads slowly, which puts your site at a disadvantage.  You also get NO support (they tell you that upfront) - if you want your site ona faster server with support, you have to upgrade to the paid version which is more expensive than other alternatives. 
                     
                     The third problem with Weebly is that if you ever decide you're not happy with their service, there is no way to export your site so you can move it somewhere else.  You'll have to manually cut and paste every post.

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                     1. 90

                        TolovajWordsmithposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        I have several sites on Weebly. All true, but they are valuable part of my network. I still recommend it for beginners. If somebody is talking about six or seven posts altogether, own domain name and hosting is probably not good investment. Ultimate goal should be self hosted site with your own domain. Or several of them, when you figure out if this is kind of business you want to be in. Weebly can be used for starter, to learn the basics, and if things turn o.k., as a support to real thing. With five themes in mind at this very moment, it's very likely too soon for that.

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                        1. 87

                           Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                           The trouble with the theory of "start our somewhere free, then upgrade if it becomes successful" is that there is NO way to transfer your site from Weebly to your own hosting without losing all your links, subscribers, URLs etc etc.  So if you transfer, all the work you've done to build your audience for that site is completely lost. 
                           
                           At least if you start on Blogger, it is possible (with some effort) to 301 redirect your Blogger blog to your new site, which will preserve SOME of your link juice and reputation with the search engines. 
                           
                           However, as someone once said to me - if you don't think your business is worth investing $100 in, why are you bothering?   I recommend hosting with ASmallOrange - you can get hosting there for $60 a year and you can run unlimited sites for that.  If they take off, you don't have to worry about moving or upgrading - if they don't, you can delete them.

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                           1. 90

                              TolovajWordsmithposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                              I think, you misunderstood me. I never said anything about transfer. Free sites/blogs used for testing can be used as a support for 'real business' (I had no idea how much earning potential is in this already existing 70 posts).
                              
                              You can have both - free sites for test things AND payed ones to run a business. I have seen a lot of people who started with your model, which in my country costs 70 EUR min only to see they don't have time, energy, skill, will etc. or simply to find out their niche demands much more than they can offer.
                              
                              Every serious business in web includes testing and in case of this thread we are talking about:
                              - five or six niche blogs (50 or 60 USD per year)
                              - hosting (about 50 USD per year)
                              - technically unskilled user
                              - relatively short posts which, as I understood were from the beginning meant as kind of support of other articles
                              - articles are already transferred from somewhere else
                              This are costs for first year only, but in case of 'serious business', you have to multiply it with number of years you are planning to run it.
                              
                              It is very likely user will not run all five/six blogs with full dedication. Why pay for them until he knows what works? Why learn all the technical mumbo jumbo, if he just wants to write? When one of blogs shows promising results, it can be used as a satellite for 'the real thing'. No need to transfer anything but the authority in form of good old backlinks.

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               2. 87

                  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  The biggest advantage is transferability, as I said - if you need to move to another platform at some time in the future, your domain name moves with you, so people can still find you.
                  
                  The second is credibility:  if you were looking for advice on a subject, which would you trust more - expertguru.blogspot. com or expertguru. com?   
                  
                  I can't prove the third, but in my experience, having a domain name seems to matter to Google.   In the past, I've added a domain name to three or four .blogspot blogs and each time, I've seen a big improvement in search engine rankings.

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2. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 9 years ago

   I didn't know we could use WMT to remove Bubblews posts. Hubs, yes, of course, but Bubblews posts? How'd you do that?
   
   Meanwhile, I, too, will be plaguing the internet with my former Bubblews posts for the next several months.

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   1. 96

      Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      If the Bubbles are still showing up in search results even though you've deleted them, then they'll give a 404 error when the search result is clicked on. This means you can enter the page into WMT URL removal tool and they'll delete it from results. So even though you don't own the Bubblews site, you can do it if there's a 404 error because that shows the site owner no longer wants the page.
      
      -edit- It might not be necessary, but I don't want to be hit with a penalty if google thinks its unoriginal content.
      
      Oh, and I found all my old Bubbles in google by doing a search in quotes for my &username followed by the word Bubblews. Showed up pretty much everything I'd ever written or commented on there.

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3. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 9 years ago

   Thanks! Whenever I'm ready to post a former bubble, I'll do a text string search and remove if found first. Excellent!

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4. 0

   calculus-geometryposted 9 years ago

   My first thought is that if the posts are condensed versions of your older, more in-depth HP articles, and each contains a link back to the original HP article, then wouldn't all these short posts be out-ranked by your original HP articles in the SERPs?  Would you be targeting different keywords or adding something extra to these posts to differentiate them from the HP articles?

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   1. 96

      Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I changed the titles of the bubbles/blogs so they're a bit different to the hubs. So, slightly different key words. As I haven't reproduced any text, there will be other keywords that are different too. So I think that will be ok. I'm ok with them being outranked by my hubs for the same keywords though.

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5. 81

   Sam Montanaposted 9 years ago

   Before you put these articles on your own blog, change the titles and the first 100 words or so. That way they will look somewhat new to Google, so I have read. I also have 6 blogs, each about a specific topic like you want to do, but with many more articles on each blog. I struggled with the decision, all articles on one blog or articles on specific topic blogs, I still wonder if I made the right choice. I decided on topic specific blogs because I continued to read that ads will be better on topic specific blogs.
   
   You might not earn much at all with Adsense with so few articles, you will need to write many more for each blog. Or you could use those articles on your blogs as a link to your hubpages and continue to write new articles on your topic specific blogs since Google likes to see activity when it crawls blogs.
   
   Build up your Twitter and Pinterest accounts and tweet your blogs and hubs every day or every other day to get them noticed by viewers who are interested in those subjects.

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   1. 96

      Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      As Marisa says, separate blogs for topic-niches is better, which is why I'm going this route. So I think you did the right thing.
      
      I'll be using different titles. Changing the whole opening paragraph will probably be too much work for me, but I'll consider it.
      
      I'm going to reduce it to 5 blogs, dropping the ones with too few posts. I have 17, 14, 9, 17, and 17 posts for those 5 blogs, so all good I think.
      
      Is it very important that I keep updating these blogs when I'm done? That certainly would take some work. Perhaps I'd be better off making sites instead of blogs, but I don't know of any free options. Not willing to pay for this.

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         TolovajWordsmithposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         There is no much difference between sites and blogs, search engines want fresh content in both cases. Niche site or blog is always better idea than generic one, because it will be faster recognized as relevant. If you can add some links from hubs to your new blogs, you'll build authority too. Everything else is just matter of persistence.
         Don't be afraid of five blogs, because in reality only one or two will succeed and nobody knows which one. Other can wait for better times, maybe with occasional addition of new post (once a month works for me). By the way, I have 15 active blogs at the moment. (Plus five sites, plus accounts on different revenue sharing sites, etc.) It's doable.
         If you are looking for free option for site, Weebly is worth considering. You are ljmited by their themes, but you can monetize it (Wordpress doesn0t give you this chance).

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            Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            You make a good point about number of blogs - as you say, it can be a good idea to start several and see what works.  However, I don't think 15 sites, or even 5, is viable in the long run.   You may be managing to run them, but it's likely they're not reaching their full potential. 
            
            To be really successful, a site needs a LOT of content, plus it needs its own Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest/Instagram accounts, each of which needs to be updated regularly with additional posts (not just the feed from the site).   So for one site, you've got to post regularly in FOUR places.   That's a lot of work.

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6. 80

   LeanManposted 9 years ago

   No reason why you shouldn't do that..
   
   However
   
   make sure that if you keep the links to here that what is here adds significantly to what you have written in the bubble and that it does not just repeat it in different words.
   
   
   As already suggested target different keywords to what you are targeting on your Hubs.
   
   If you can make them longer and more interesting do so... The longer they are the easier it will be to attract Google traffic.
   
   
   Add more to each blog than just the 6 pages you are suggesting - the more pages each blog has the more chance it has of being found and read..
   
   
   Otherwise - good luck, I hope that it works better than using Bubblews (Could not work worse!)

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   1. 96

      Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Good advice! Thank you Lean Man.

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7. 68

   Mikkunposted 9 years ago

   I think you need to wait for your posts to be de-indexed by google.
   but I agree with 6 blogs being hard to handle.
   Good Luck!

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   1. 96

      Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Mikkun!

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8. 81

   Sam Montanaposted 9 years ago

   I use Blogger for my blogs. I know the general rule is to have your own website and domain name. Some day I will do that also, but for now, Blogger has worked fine and once you get the hang of it, it is easy to use. If you want to see how I did my blogs, you can go to my profile here and click on the blog icon. That goes to an introductory blog with the separate blogs listed to the right. With Blogger, you can add Adsense easily.

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   1. 96

      Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks. Your blogs look great and gave me some ideas.

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   2. 87

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      The problem with saying you'll upgrade to websites and domain names "someday" is that it's not that simple.
      
      Your blogspot blogs are currently building up their reputation with Google.  If one of them starts to do well and make money for you, you may be tempted to upgrade it to a "proper" website - but if you transfer all your content to a new domain name, it will be like starting the site all over again.  You'll lose all your subscribers and links, all your reputation with Google - and all your traffic. 
      
      You can get around this to some extent by attaching a domain name to your blogspot blogs (so they're called whatever.com instead of whatever.blogspot.com).   That way you can move the domain to whatever platform you like in the future, and your readers will still be able to find you.  However you'll still have the problem that individual post URL's will change unless you are very careful about how you set your blog up in its new location.
      
      Honestly, if you're serious about your writing you should be willing to invest in it, just like any other business.   Domain names cost less than $10 from Namecheap (but stick to .com, .org or .net, and never buy anything with hyphens or underlines in it).

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9. 82

   Whidbeywriterposted 9 years ago

   Just out of curiosity how were you able to delete your account with them? I have emailed their customer service and have had no luck whatsoever.  Thanks!

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      LeanManposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Don't worry about deleting your account, just copy and delete the individual bubbles that you want to put elsewhere...
      
      Alternatively just publish a bubble saying that bubblews is a scam and that Arvind is a crook and you will find your account closed pretty quick as they don't like that as it hurts poor little Arvind's feelings - but then the truth always hurts...............

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10. 80

    LeanManposted 9 years ago

    Have finally removed all of the content that I put onto Bubblews also. Almost 80,000 words most of which has never been paid for by the thieves at B, plus a load of stuff that I just deleted as it is just unusable anywhere else.
    
    The content that is usable will be adapted and used within my own sites over the coming months, why waste it and the effort that went into creating it.
    
    I am sure that over time it will earn far more than it ever could have done even if B had paid for the work done which they did not.
    
    To date, everyone that I know here in the Philippines that has redeemed from the end of August onwards has received exactly NOTHING. If you do the math you can see that they have plenty of time to go through and check the accounts for approving redemptions - especially now when hardly anyone is writing there and everyone is earning much less. (There are now only 60-80 posts an hour against the 1500 - 2000+ at the height of the site.)
    
    I guess that the high paying start was purely to get the site as big as possible to encourage potential bidders to buy the site - however anyone that is going to buy the site would do the math also and see that it was doomed.... So I guess that Arvind and his merry band will try to get as much as they can from the site at the expense of those that are still blindly writing there...

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11. 80

    Dale Hydeposted 9 years ago

    I have a Blogger blog that I have quite a bit of content on.  I have done, some time back, what others have suggested, and bought my own domain for my block.  It can be viewed from my profile page here by clicking on my blog/website icon up there in the upper right corner.
    
    This does remind me I should pop in there and do a post or two before the year ends on me.
    
    I do have the blog monetized with Google Adsense and it does pull in a few coins on a regular basis.  The ads are easily set up and the placement and size you see on my blog are the ones recommended by Google Adsense themselves.  Others, in the past, have their own ideas and thoughts about ad size and placement, however I figure Google, themselves, would be the ones who would know what they like to see for the best results.

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12. 80

    LeanManposted 9 years ago

    Just for a little info; Published on B but it will be deleted and my account banned pretty soon....
    
    Can Bubblews Survive on an Income of $5000 a Month? Do the Math!
    
    Lets do a little math to see how Bubblews is doing now that they have stopped paying people and the number of active users has dropped dramatically.
    
    There are now around 1700 posts a day - every post is numbered consecutively so you can check this easily enough. (At the peak B was doing more than this in one hour!)
    
    So this works out at around 51,000 posts a month (30 x 1700)
    
    Lets be VERY generous and say that every person that posts a bubble looks at 20 pages each time. That will give us around 1,000,000 views a month (The site at its peak managed to do that in one day!)
    
    Bubblews probably earns around $5 per 1000 views - so that is $5k per month for the site. Give half of that to the users that leave just $2.5k to pay for servers, Arvind, and his staff. If of course they pay anyone!!
    
    Tell me where my math is wrong &Arvind.
    
    Is this site still sustainable guys

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13. 72

    PinoyMomposted 9 years ago

    It took an hour for me to remove my B posts.  I just published 200 B posts.  I don't think they are being fair with their members, most especially those members who live in Asian countries.

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