250 - 300 Word Press Releases on Hub Hopping needs to be clarified.

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   Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years ago

   Hi,
   
   I think Hub Pages needs to give us some guidelines when it comes to Hub Hoping.
   
   Over the past two days, in all my Hub Hoping, I have seen barely two passable sites. Evrything else has been either a paragraph or two, or have been 300 word promotional pieces from companies promoting their own websites.
   
   Is this what Hub Pages want?
   
   The sheer numbers of these yukky pieces makes me not want to go hub hopping. I really would prefer to read interesting things. But it makes me think in terms of ratio. If this is predominantly what I am getting, then isn't most of Hub Pagesl just going to be spam eventually?
   
   Please can you give us some guides as to what is acceptable in terms of companies using Hub Pages to promote their produ cts. If it's acceptable to you then we don't have to flag them. If we flag them and they continue to come, then I don't want to waste my time and would rather not go hub hopping any more. It's not fun.

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      Huntgoddessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I've never seen anything like that when I went Hub -hopping. Are you sure you scrolled enough?
      
      I've been Hub-hopping several times now. Check out my Profile page if you don't believe me.
      
      It is weird, though. I'd like to know the answer myself, even though I've never seen it. I probably will see it eventually. I agree about wasting time on that.

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         Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         For the past week, when I've gone through, there are a stack of threads that are talking about one company and have links to one company only. Probably, because I work for companies that do this, I recognize that these aren't new hubbers wanting to earn a living, but are companies using Hub Pages to promote their own company. It's probably not that you haven't seen them, but that you haven't recognized them. If you click on the hubbers name, you will see that it's their first hub, and they just joined.

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      Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I have asked over and over for more guidance.
      
      There has not been any yet.
      
      I HATE hub hopping because it is often so unclear what to do. Well, that and because there is so much crap where it IS clear.
      
      But I do it just the same and hope that I am not wasting anyones time by flagging things that HP thinks are fine.

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      darksideposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      No it's not.
      
      Report them. If HP HQ finds that it's contravening their rules or not to their liking they'll deal with it appropriately.

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   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   So far as I'm aware writing hubs to promote a product or another web site is perfectly acceptable provided no more than 2 urls point to the same domain.
   If the content is fresh, and not copied from elsewhere, there is no problem and hubpages has always been used that way, as far as I know.

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      relacheposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      When you go to flag a Hub, the designation for "spam" is as follows (highlighting emphasis is mine):  "Designed primarily to promote other sites, especially hubs containing unrelated links, links on duplicated content, or more than two links to a single site."
      
      Sophia, Hub hopping was purposely designed to get more people to flag the crap on the site.

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         Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         @ Relache. In other words, businesses that come here with the prime purpose of promoting their site, and their site only, and that's all it does, are regarded as spam?

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            Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            That's what I have assumed.
            
            But again: no guidance.

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               Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Well, what gets me is the occasional comment I see at the bottom that says, "nice hub" when it's anything but!

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                  Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Well, when it's obvious spam, I assume that person is a sock puppet, close friend or just returning the favor (you say nice things about my junk and I will say nice things about yours).
                  
                  When it is simply badly written, it helps to remember that the readers can be just as unskilled and incompetent as the writers - they may honestly not know any better!

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                     Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     I realized the latter. Didn't think of the former.

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                        Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Honest people seldom do.
                        
                        I didn't either until I stumbled across a forum where people were offering to trade links and similar favors.  I truly detest those people.

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                           Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           And they're often successful!

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                              Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                              Well, yes. Cheaters do often win. And are often brazenly open about their activities when they aren't illegal. Not mentioning any names, of course, because so many people think of these folks as heroes because they are successful.  The means are unimportant - they made money!
                              
                              They and the people who fawn over them disgust me.

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                                 Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                 I feel about the same way... to me, if a game isn't played fairly, it isn't worth playing...

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                                    Peter Hogganposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                    Do you really think signing up to automated link building networks like Socialmonkee is playing fair? Don't get me wrong, I and many others here use similar services for the same purpose you use and promote Socialmonkee. But if there is one thing that gets under my skin its double standards.
                                    
                                    That said, there is a lot of spam on HubPages, spun content, automatic translations and good old plagiarism are commonplace. These are the areas that need to be addressed.

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   ThomasEposted 13 years ago

   I just ran a test. I hub hopped 10, deciding to count how many I flagged. It was 6. One of those was just in the wrong category, the others were various forms of spam.
   
   Now, I am probably more lenient than others, who have higher standards.

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      Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Nice work Thomas.
      
      Incidentally I checked my most recent hub and you appear to have missed it.  Phew! Still up.

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         ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Your hubs are not spam, Mark. You'd probably make more money if they were :>

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            Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Lol.  That, my friend is where I have gone badly wrong!

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   CASE1WORKERposted 13 years ago

   just had my daily hop and flag session- i must flag half a dozen a day and i bet there are loads that i dont flag that should be.

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      Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Have you ever gone back to see what happens?
      
      I have and I have sometimes been very surprised to see what I think is undeniable crap still there.

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         Hauntyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Some of my earliest stuff was undeniable crap. I'm glad they didn't ban me for it. New hubbers need some time imo.

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            Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Well, some people should be banned, but that's up to HP, not you and me.
            
            The types I'm talking about don't need time. They know exactly what they are doing and why.

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   rebekahELLEposted 13 years ago

   commercial hubs are certainly allowed. I would be careful flagging them just because it's a business. This is what HP says in describing commercial.
   
   What does commercial mean?
   
   Commercial Hubs are required to have an ad level setting of High. A Hub is considered to be commercial if it meets any of these conditions:
   
       *it is monetized through a non-HubPages affiliate
       *it contains links to other commercial sites
       *it promotes a for profit business.
   
        
   but it can't have more than two links to the same site.
   these hubs often give helpful information to someone searching for a business or product.

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   Jule Romansposted 13 years ago

   I just went hopping again, myself. Here's what I did:
   
   Flagged super-short or too-personal pieces= 2
   Voted "down" short, overly commercial, or badly written pieces= 10+
   skipped poetry, commercial, or pieces about which I was unsure= 5
   Voted "up" clearly written, informative, strongly organized pieces, even when I disagreed with their content= 5-7
   
   I think I have a tendency to vote product hubs "up" more than adsense hubs. The shorter  hubs just seem vague and thin to me... even though I have some that are like that, too.

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      Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      @Julie. I also vI ote information hubs up. If someone writes good info that  I can use, then that's beneficial to me.

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   Peter Hogganposted 13 years ago

   I see nothing wrong with using hubpages for press releases as long as they are original and informative. Incidentally there is nothing wrong with a 300 word press release, many are much shorter.
   
   Most hubs are commercial and are written to promote amazon products or adsense clicks. So how is someone promoting another site or product any different?

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      Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Because they're not 300 words which is considered overly short by Hub pages?

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         EmpressFelicityposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Promoting another site or product doesn't lead to any revenue for HubPages - if anything, it protentially reduces HP's revenue because people will be clicking away from the hub in question without buying Amazon products or clicking on Adsense ads. 
         
         I could be wrong here but I imagine the lower word limit is simply due to the fact that if you tacitly allow people to post very short hubs, it will open the flood gates and the sheer volume of short, spammy hubs will drown out all the longer articles!

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8. 94

   wildernessposted 13 years ago

   I have seen several forum threads about this question.  HP must walk a fine line here; they are here for the purpose of making money.  That's all right - so am I and many others.  Other hubbers may be here to write and publish poetry, short stories and such with little thought to actually earning much and a few are here to promote other sites, but even those hubs will make HP a few $$.
   
   If HP went to all poetry, it wouldn't last long.  Neither will it last if it degenerates to nothing but backlinks to somewhere else as that will drastically damage the income from the hubbers that have made HP the quality site it is and they will leave.  But the loss of income to HP would hurt if it demanded nothing but high quality hubs, so some are allowed.  We just don't truly know where the line between acceptable and low quality is.
   
   Now consider the hub hopping.  If I were running HP I would use hub hopping in at least a dual role; to help eliminate poor quality hubs, but also to help determine what the writers of high quality material will accept.  Our flagging "bad" hubs indicate what hubbers don't like on the site but still leaves the final decision to HP, where it belongs.  It is their site.  It is all too easy to say we don't like this or that, but it is not us that depends on those low quality hubs for at least part of our income.
   
   The bottom line is that it is hard for me to complain when HP maintains the quality reputation that it has while giving me a place to write and earn myself.  Should HP decide to let in too much poor quality and the reputation suffers as a result, then I'll complain.  Or leave.  So far they seem to be making the right decisions.

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      Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      That's fine. However, I think quite a few of us are asking this because it's our time. I have little desire to go hub hopping anymore because out of 10 hubs, I will have to mark 5 as unacceptable, 3 as I don't know and I just hop over them, 1 that is okay, and 1 that is the normal quality I've come to accept as from you guys. That means the kind of hub that we're doing is only 10%.
      
      I think there's been an increase of yukky hubs.

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         wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Well, I hope that is unusual.  The last time I hopped, I flagged only 1 out of a dozen or so and marked up several.
         
         Of course the time before I flagged probably 8 out of the 12.
         
         I have to say as well that I've never gone back to the flagged ones in a week or so to see what has been done with them.  Maybe they're improved,  Maybe they're gone, and maybe they are still there with no change - I don't know.  I should do that one day.

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            Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            @wilderness. Maybe, I've just been unlucky. The last few times I've hub hobbed, it's been difficult to remain focused. I honest don't recall one thing that I really enjoyed reading. This is totally different to my first few weeks.

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               wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I'm thinking (and hoping) it is just the luck of the draw.  There are times when I find nothing but junk, flag a few and leave.  Other times I find nearly all interesting hubs, or at least well written ones about something I'm not actually much interested in.
               
               It is even possible that it is seasonal; people just writing hubs because it's too cold and nasty outside to play as they want to.  I'm still way too much newbie to know if that's a possibility.
               
               The bottom line for me is that it is what we have to work with.  Hub hopping is a tool, however imperfect, that we can use to hopefully improve our environment.

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                  Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Okay, I'll live with it for a while longer before I give up on hub hopping as you might have a valid point about the cold!

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         lyndreposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Nobody is forcing you to hub hop.Just don,t do it

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   rebekahELLEposted 13 years ago

   there are so many people who join to spam, which will only increase as HP continues to climb in ranking. I saw a tweet a couple of weeks ago from Maddie (HP moderator) saying she banned 2500 spam accounts in one day! The need is there if we can help even for 10 minutes a day.. if unsure hop to the next one.

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    frogdroppingposted 13 years ago

    The hopper isn't working. At least not for me. Was just on it but couldn't access the flag button. Anyone else having the same issue?
    
    As for the OP - I flag anything that doesn't fit in with the TOS as and when I do HupHop.
    
    
    I see loads of crap, every time I use it. However if I see a good hub I rate it up or leave a comment, so it works both ways.

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       KristenGraceposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Just hopped some hubs, so it worked for me.
       
       Also, I spent about 20 minutes hopping, and I flagged 8 hubs.  I know a lot of people here were commenting on how many they flag, so wanted to throw my figure out there as well.
       
       It was mostly for low quality and spam.

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    skyfireposted 13 years ago

    Few weeks ago i reported one hubber in forum for duplicate content and after that moderators removed that member out of site. So they do take some time but action is likely to be there if they see too much junk from any member.

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    Michael Willisposted 13 years ago

    I believe it would help if when Hub-hoping it would stay within the categories we follow!!!
    I am more apt to read articles that I am interested in than those I just immediately flip through or just leave Hub-hoping since I got bored.

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       Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       @Michael. I think one knows when something is okay but one just isn't interested. I will either hop or do the courtesy of marking it up if it has been well set up, is lengthy,and is a quality hub.

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