Knee-jerk reactions alone aren't going to cut it

1. 68

   lrohnerposted 13 years ago

   Warning: This is a bit of a rant. Please ignore if you're not in the mood for it.
   
   There's been a lot of scrambling and drastic knee-jerk reactions since the Panda update. Some have been well thought out and planned (like Nelle's move), and others are an understandably desperate attempt to get traffic and earnings back on par. But I think we're missing the big picture.
   
   It's only a small percentage of hubbers that are active on these forums and that see the posts from the HP team. I've read most of your hubs, and I can truly say that for the most part -- we're not the big problem. You guys are really awesome.
   
   Yes, we need to tidy up our hubs and change our way of thinking going forward (including all of the cleanup work that Paul has indicated we should do), but I'm afraid it's not nearly enough. Please read this recent comment (about halfway down the page) from Steve Wysz, Google employee:
   
   In addition, it's important for webmasters to know that low quality content on part of a site can impact a site's ranking as a whole. For this reason, if you believe you've been impacted by this change you should evaluate all the content on your site and do your best to improve the overall quality of the pages on your domain. Removing low quality pages or moving them to a different domain could help your rankings for the higher quality content.
   
   We all need to do our part to clean up the site and get rid of the TONS of garbage that's out there. I've been spending an inordinate amount of time hubhopping over the past month. I know it's time-intensive, boring as all heck and aggravating, but it has to be done.
   
   And to those calling it a "witch hunt" (that means you, Misha) and the others crying the blues because their hubs got dinged -- I don't give a rat's arse what you think or say. I would like to see my earnings rebound and grow, and it's not gonna happen simply by a few of us active members removing a few capsules on otherwise good content. I, for one, am not on HP to win a popularity contest (not that that was ever an issue ). I'm here to make money. Full stop.
   
   For those of you who say HP should be held responsible for cleaning up the content, well yeah. They should be. But right now they can't keep up with it let alone get to the stuff that's several years old.
   
   So yeah. Let's get 'er done. And that means ALL of it -- not just ours.
   
   /rant

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I agree with everything that you say with exception to the keeping up with the content bit.
      
      If they can't tackle old content as a result of the new content then they need to freeze publishing for a month or something.
      
      That alone isn't an excuse.

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         lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I agree. But we can sit around being all righteous and waiting for them to do the right thing, or we can just take matters into our own hands.
         
         I've done my fair share of the former. It didn't get me anywhere.

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         Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I think HP IS doing something about old content - at least for ultra-product intensive hubs.  They will be unpublished in a few weeks if they don't adjust them.
         
         That is not a criticism of product hubs - I have had to adjust a boat-load of the myself.
         
         If folks don't monitor and adjust, then **poof** they will go away - which will hopefully help everyone who is active.

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   2. 94

      wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      This may be a rant, but it is a rant that needs to be said.  We all have a stake here - a stake that is sinking because of the actions and laziness of some.  HubPages has the writers to be an absolutely top notch "content farm", full of hubs that are truly informative and useful to readers.  Hubs that are well written, well researched and presented attractively.  Instead we apparently have the reputation of a link farm, somewhere to go to put a few words of junk in order to game the system.  A place to blog and inform the world what you ate for breakfast and that your train was late today.  Somewhere to copy your other content to and stick a few ads in.  It needs badly to end and HP simply doesn't have the staff to do it all.
      
      I'm part of that witch hunt that is being denigrated.  I want the place cleaned up and will do what I can to accomplish that.  I don't care who writes the garbage; I want it gone and HP turned into something we can all be proud to be a part of.  Of course, the additional income from such actions won't hurt either!
      
      I hub hop daily, and have begun to check the profile and other hubs of those with egregious violations.  Large quantities of copied material.  Large numbers of links to the writers own sites.  Fifty word hubs.  Pathetic grammar and spelling.  I find that if a hub has these problems that it is most probable that the writer has other hubs with the same problem (particularly for duplicate material and too many links) and has likely been here a long time (or perhaps has written 30 hubs in the 10 days since signing up).  In these cases not only all the hubs but the profile gets flagged.
      
      With the recent google changes most of us have some problem hubs, and for the most part are trying to take care of them.  Nelle Hoxie is a great example - with hundreds and hundreds of hubs she is changing and deleting just as fast as possible.  I did my own and found several in violation - they are fixed or deleted.  Many other hubbers have indicated in these forums they are working on them (although a few have said they will wait until penalized).
      
      It is, rather, the thousands and thousands of grossly substandard hubs, written and forgotten or written purely to game the system that is a problem that HP staff cannot handle alone.  There will certainly be many irritated hubbers out there as this junk is removed (and there will be dozens of complaints and accusations posted throughout the web about how terrible HP has become), but removed it must be if HP is to continue.  Rant all you will, but let the witch hunts continue!

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2. 62

   Mishaposted 13 years ago

   LOL Love ya too, Lisa

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3. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 13 years ago

   Rants are a good thing!

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4. 86

   rebekahELLEposted 13 years ago

   A hub which was brought up in another thread about keyword stuffing is now gone. I can't find the profile any longer. When I saw it a few days ago, it had over 1800 hubs, two days ago it was down to the 1200's. Yesterday I couldn't find the hubs at all.
   this was not a new hubber. Flagging brings it to the attention of HP, then it's their decision.  I just found the profile. Banned from HP!
   
   ok, off to enjoy this gorgeous day.

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      lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I only wish more people saw it that way and did their part.
      
      Enjoy your day!

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5. 0

   Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years ago

   I think it's hard for people to watch a significant portion of their income decrease by as much as 80 to 100 percent.
   
   Some of the numbers quoted yesterday were truly devastating - and it was helping pay for essentials not extras. While I'm hopeful, there is no guarantee that HP will come back. Sorry, I remember the long-lasting effects of the Google Florida update and Mayday update. Lots of good people and sites didn't make it to the other side.
   
   This update really hasn't been as widespread. But the people who built a living on shared sites are feeling a lot of pain. Many, having relied on places like HP, haven't built up the skills to rapidly move to their own sites. So I understand the panic mode.
   
   It's never a good idea to let other people control your destiny - online or off. This has been a painful lesson for many I think.

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      lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Totally agreed, Nelle. I built my own sites before I even found HP, so I consider myself one of the lucky ones. But if I didn't think HP was at least capable of making it to the other side, I wouldn't be here responding to your post right now.
      
      At the end of the day, though, even if we all do the right thing, it won't matter a bit unless HP decides to do the right thing. That means they'll take a financial hit for a while. Will they do that? Only time will tell.

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      lakeerieartistsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      You are absolutely right, and this is a lesson in diversifying as well as taking your destiny into your own hands.
      
      I am truly glad that I have learned this lesson before, and try to teach it to newbies every single day.

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6. 63

   lakeerieartistsposted 13 years ago

   I agree with you Irohner, and Hubpages can help by changing their filter to unpublish hubs that are less than 300 words as well as for other things that have been sneaking under the radar for too long. 
   
   This is one of my problems with the idea that I need to reduce the amount of products that I offer on hubs from Amazon and Ebay.  These were planned out in a way that they illustrated the text I had on those hubs and gave people a variety of options.
   
   Another possibility is a filter that requires a minimum number of capsules. 
   
   I am also here to make money to support my overall business, and do not want to waste time on activities that will not support that endeavor, nor do I believe that deleting perfectly good hubs that I wrote a year ago will do what we are hoping to do.  Most of my hubs that were making money before still are making money and getting traffic in the same percentage that they were before, it is just that the overall traffic is down across the board.
   
   I will comply with the new rules because I believe that Hubpages is an awesome site, and I know that the staff has done a lot of thinking, study, and consideration before they asked us to do what we are being asked to do.  But you are totally right when you say that the forums are mostly speaking to the choir while there are reams of substandard hubs that potentially affect the site as a whole.

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7. 85

   camloposted 13 years ago

   Couldn't agree with you more, lrohner.
   
   As for HubHopping ... well, I don't find it boring. I never look forward to doing it, but once I start, I can't stop. There's so much bad content coming into the site that it's totally unmanageable, from what I can see. Can the amount we are flagging possibly be moderated by the small team?

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      lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      It is a bit like watching a train wreck, isn't it? You really don't want to watch but can't take your eyes off of it.

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         camloposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Sad, and too true.

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8. 92

   habeeposted 13 years ago

   Great post, Irohner! I think all hubs with less than 300 words should be unpublished...perhaps make an exception for recipes.
   
   I have a question for you guys: I'm deleting any news feeds I have, but should I delete ALL my Amazon capsules? Some of the products are good sellers.

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      Mishaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Why in the world would you want to delete your good sellers? Habee, come on, I always thought of you as a reasonable woman... Nothing is clear yet, sit back and enjoy the ride

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      camloposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Yes. And I think this is a step that could be implemented immediately. Personally, I think there should be no exceptions, not even for recipes or poetry. Hubs with less than 400 words are said not to do very well anyway, so why not set the filter at a 400 w/c.
      
      This would certainly lighten the burden for hoppers and moderators.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with you, Camlo.  As you say, HubPages is a business and I doubt that single-poem Hubs or short recipes are making money for HP anyway.
         
         It doesn't mean poems and recipes can't be published, it just means that poets and cooking writers have to change the way they do things:  either add commentary to the poem/recipe, or publish several in one Hub.

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            Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Ah - but they are - that is the problem.
            
            Adsense rewards garbage content. Arrive at a page with low quality content and the reader is far more likely to click on a google ad.
            
            HP need to clear out whatever content it is that marks us "content farm."
            
            I don't know what that is exactly, but I would start with "published elsewhere," first.
            
            Then probably "quack medical and legal advice," followed by "quack financial advice," and then "religion and political opinion," followed by "known scams," then "personal."
            
            I have a substantial amount of hubs that fall right on the edge of too many amazon/ebay products - and the HP flagging system is not working properly. I have already put hours into editing these hubs but I fear it is a total waste of time unless we get the "content farm," label removed.

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               Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Totally agree Mark. I've edited 1,500 hubs so far.

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                  Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Not sure how many I have done, but I think you have got me, Interesting that I am finding a few niches relatively unscathed. Generally the least financially rewarding unfortunately. Pretty sure I need to drop quite a lot of the more profitable arenas.

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      Uninvited Writerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      If I have made an Amazon sale on a hub I am not deleting the ads.

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      Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      And why should recipe hubs or poems be any different. If length is one of the metrics of low-quality, then all hub lengths need to increase. It's easy enough to fill them out with background info.

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         ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Or multiple poems on one page
         
         Or two alternative recipes, eg. a second 'lower fat' recipe underneath.

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            wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Good point.  There really is no reason for even 300 word hubs.

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            livewithrichardposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I would rather HP just put up some code that tells the search engines not to crawl content that is less than 300 words.  Many of the poems and recipes that are on here are of a benefit to the community and most, if not all of the poets here are not trying to earn adsense from their poems.
            
            We have to remember that this is a site for writers and we all need to support well written content no matter how short it is.
            
            As for the knee jerk... I have complied with the requested changes by reducing the numbers of products to comply with the 50 word ratio.  I have not and will not remove my news capsules because nearly all of the top ranking sites are still scraping tidbits of less than 50 words in their news and rss feeds.  I consider them like quotes and add value to the reader if they find them below my comments module.  Since they change frequently they are dynamic and the SE's will see something new on the page each time they crawl.

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               FaithDreamposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I have to agree with Richard. Some of the poems are well written and for those writers I think they add some value to HP.

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                  Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  possibly - but they could just set up a new domain strictly for hubbers to publish their poems.  That would still give poets an outlet and not impact other hubs.

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   5. 94

      wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I didn't see it that way and haven't removed all my amazon capsules.  There were  a few, even on info hubs, that have proved themselves and they are still there and will stay until instructed differently.  I certainly haven't deleted all the capsules on sales hubs - they are what the hub is about!
      
      I've even left a handful that I don't know produced sales, but are very definitely pertinent to an info hub.  Perhaps a picture and description of an unfamiliar product that I'm using in the hub but not really pushing.  That sort of thing.

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      lorlie6posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Holle-perhaps this is a silly question, but why should we dispose of the newsfeed?

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      1. 85

         camloposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I'll quote the Hubber Ryankett from another thread:
         
         "Yes. We ran several tests and Hubs that used Amazon were the most likely to see a decrease in traffic, followed by the news capsule. We can only guess at the reasons, but it's possible that it looks like copied content, possibly resembles a scraped site, and could have an ad to content ratio that is to heavily weighted toward ads that the new algorithm doesn't like as much.  Again, just possible theories.  However, we are pretty sure that if the content engages the reader, the search engines will come around."
         
         "I'd only recommend adding an amazon product when it's critical to the content of a Hub.  For example, if you're reviewing a product or book it makes sense to add the product.  Another way it makes sense to add a product is when you are describing how to do a project and you list the items needed to complete the project. If it's not a perfect fit, I'd suggest leaving them out.  We have several authors that haven't seen their traffic drop, they rarely use amazon, links capsules and news capsules."
         
         Both Paul Edmondson

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9. 81

   Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

   Here's a suggestion.  Based on most of the new stuff being pretty substandard why is it allowed to be published at all?
   
   New Hubber presses Request for Publishing.  That request goes direct to HP moderation or whatever they're called.  THEY decide.
   
   Once ten hubs published (or whatever number) via the Request process then maybe it's ok to allow the immediate publication and old style hub hopping.
   
   That would cut down a lot of the pointless merry go round with spammers.
   
   Would I have minded when I started?  No.  It's what I would have expected to be honest.  Even on some forums you can't just post and publish - someone moderates.

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      lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I agree, but I don't see that happening in the near future. Look at it this way...
      
      Let's say it takes two minutes to skim over, evaluate a hub and take action. That means a person could do 30 hubs per hour or 210 hubs in a seven hour day. (People do need to take breaks, after all.)
      
      Now, Paul Edmondson said that 3000/day are published here at HubPages. That means it would take 14 full-time people dedicated to evaluating hubs to get the job done each day. Isn't that about the size of their entire staff right now?

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         Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         OK then, apply a similar rule to Hub Hopping.  New hubs (for unproven authors) join a queue awaiting publication and until they have been checked as OK by the great and the g...
         
         Oh, I don't know. We're doomed.

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            lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            LOL! Now that actually is a very good idea! New hubs have to be put through the hubhopper before being published. You should propose it to the Pauls.

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         camloposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I'd guess that I flag about 70% of what I flag because it is too short (ca. 200 words or less).
         
         Now, if HubPages were to add a filter that stopped Hubs of under 400 words (let's say) being published, then they'd only have about 1000 Hubs being published each day.

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10. 79

    Uninvited Writerposted 13 years ago

    I deleted my poetry hubs, they didn't get that much traffic and they were mainly part of a challenge that is long gone.

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       IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Surely they would have been better put together in one large hub with a keywords researched title that might have brought traffic?

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          Uninvited Writerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Nah, they were not that good I'm just going to put stuff here that a future client and the general public might be interested in checking out.

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11. 0

    Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years ago

    Has something else happened? I only ask because I don't understand the need for the NEW rant. We've had this discussion going on since late February. I had honestly hoped that we had moved beyond this type of topic into more positive actual actions and strategies.
    
    Given all the hubs that have been fixed, modified and deleted and the new standards that have been proposed, I thought these had been worked out.

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    1. 68

       lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Nelle - I was just reacting to the large number of hubbers who are being quite vocal about why we shouldn't hubhop. Many have expressed a hesitance to "judge" other people's work, while others have called it a "witch hunt."
       
       While we need to do the cleanup work that's going on right now with our own hubs, I also don't want people to get their hopes up and think that the work ends there.
       
       Besides, rants don't always need a definitive trigger. Hence the "rant" part of it.

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12. 0

    Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years ago

    I went to hubcamp yesterday. The CEO has been working 24 hour days (no sleep) in order to fix the system. I have absolutely no doubt of the sincerely of the owners of this site in their desire to look after their writers and provide them with an income.
    
    Each of us needs to hub hop each day in order to help them clear up this mess.
    
    I asked about hub hopping and it's better to err on the side of caution. Anything that, in the least, looks under par, flag it!

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13. 61

    TomC35posted 13 years ago

    This is why I feel it will be hard for Hubpages to bounce back as quickly, if at all, as some are hoping.  Many Hubbers will not feel that their content is the problem, and thus will not edit it nor remove it. 
    
    It would be a massive undertaking to find all of these Hubs, let alone point out what revisions need to be made.  It would also be a huge waste of time if you did so only to find the person you made the suggestions to ignored you.

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14. 80

    Aficionadaposted 13 years ago

    Someone suggested a freeze on newly published Hubs for a while (was it ryankett?).  That's not totally a bad idea, but it does seem like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to me, especially if some good new content, well-written would actually raise the ratio of good:poor Hubs. 
    
    Maybe require more moderation of new Hubs for the next few weeks?  Add that to the Elites' duties - i.e., to read new Hubs, require 2-3 to agree that it is worth publishing, something like that - before allowing it to be published (unlike HubHopping, which does the weeding after it is published).  Maybe unrealistic, because of volume.  [ADD: lrohner and Mark Ewbie posted same/similar idea while I was typing.]
    
    A different freeze I would propose would be a freeze on new Hubbers for a couple of weeks, while this is all being sorted out.
    
    As new filters are being designed (I missed the thread where that was mentioned, but saw reference to it), I hope there is a filter that flags accounts by some ratio of number of Hubs:number of days as a Hubber.  While there are some very legitimate reasons why someone could join with 100 Hubs on the first day, I still believe that is the type of account that should be checked manually.  Obviously, some of our best Hubbers have produced high numbers of very good Hubs in a comparatively short time.  But on the whole, I believe my proposed filter would help to locate spammers more quickly.

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       Susana Sposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       On another site I was on recently the way they screen content is that 9 members have to say it's ok for it to be published. That seems a bit extreme in my view, but the idea of a few members saying yes to allow good content, rather than flag unacceptable content that is already published, may be a good way forward.
       
       @ Lisa - I would love to see some kind of system in place where hubbers can review the old content. Start at the beginning and work forward.

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15. 61

    White Teethposted 13 years ago

    Well…an alternative viewpoint...the problem with burning witches is identifying who is really a witch. Maybe they just look ugly but are not really a witch (as far as Google is concerned…) Maybe it is a noble cause to get rid of the uglies, but noble causes don’t necessarily make you money (often they cost you time, which is money…)
    
    People read certain paragraphs and decide they have it all figured out, while other people read different paragraphs and decides that it is spammy keywords like “penis enlargement” that is the problem. Someone else might decide that the real problem is hubs that contribute nothing beyond Amazon product pages (e.g. “Buy Caspari Christmas Cards Online”…witch!)
    
    Hubpages could definitely stand to be cleaned-up – years ago I complained about the Indian aunties, the nothing but picture hubs, the wholesale copyright violation of images, etc… It is just not clear that any of this would have any bearing on the slap though. Many of the sites that got slapped required human editors prior to publishing, and they still got slapped. Some had no affiliate links at all, and they still got slapped.
    
    Again - sites that required human approval before publishing still got slapped just as bad as Hubpages. Is going back and doing retroactive moderation on a small percentage of hubs really going to matter at this point?
    
    It might be a noble cause, but maybe a more profitable cause would be if everyone spent this time going out and getting some better backlinks to their hubs (and thus to Hubpages as a whole.) Just a thought.

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       lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       People who hubhop don't "burn witches." We simply bring what we perceive as low-quality hubs to the HP team's attention. I'm sure that sometimes we're right and sometimes we're wrong. But at the end of the day, the site owners are the ones who make the decision about what happens to the hubs. And they do it in a consistent, unbiased manner.
       
       You can guess about what caused the HP smackdown and what may revive it all you want. I'm just going by what Google actually said -- low-quality pages will pull a whole site down. I've read and read and read, and the only absolutes I've found are about low-quality, generic or thin content, user experience, number of ads on a page, etc.
       
       If you don't like my Caspari Christmas card hub, flag it. I have no problem with that. If the HP team thinks it's substandard or doesn't fit with what they want, I'll unpublish it immediately without whining about it. If it's still up next fall, there will be a whole lot of folks who (again) found it useful enough to purchase the darn cards.

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          Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I like it.  It's better than my product hubs.

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             lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Ha! I doubt that! You are a magnificent writer who has an innate capability of injecting your personality and humor into all of your work. Me? Factual, but dry and boring.
             
             Oh, wait...you don't have any product hubs! *face palm*

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          Mishaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Lisa, you understand this, and I do. And a handful of other people or so. Judging by the forum posts on the topic of flagging that get created with a railroad regularity during all my years here, most people don't. And never will, no matter how good you explain the real thing to them.
          
          You don't do witch hunt. Many do. Based on my life experience I find encouraging such a behavior having a destructive effect on a community.

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             lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             If I understand you correctly, you're saying that some folks do go on flagging sprees just because they don't like a hubber or a topic? Well, what I said still applies. It does no more harm to a hubber than if someone unbiased flagged the hub. All it potentially does is cause unnecessary work for the HP team.

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             wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             The method I use in hub hopping is basically this:
             
             1.  Block a section of text and search for it.  If found open the site and compare it to the hub.  If the same flag as duplicate.
             
             2.  Look for too many links to one site.  If found, flag.
             
             3.  If either 1 or 2, look at other hubs by the same author.  I am finding that these two violations are very often repeated.  If links are found on many hubs to the same domain, flag.  If many hubs in violation are found, flag the author for HP moderation.
             
             4.  Estimate length of hub; if under 300 words flag.
             
             5.  New and as of yet unused: check for 50 words per amazon product.
             
             6.  Skim read, looking for excessive misspelled words or missing punctuation such as capital letters or periods.  If massive in number, flag.  Also look for spun wordage that makes no sense, flag as necessary.
             
             In no case will I try to judge the content; I am looking only for clear TOS violations.  I have seen hubs promoting scams and left them alone - that is not my job as I see it.  I am not a quality judge, nor a morality censor.  Just a cop on the beat, looking for lawbreakers.
             
             Numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 as well as spelling check could all be done by software filters (maybe punctuation?).  Even filters for objectionable words (sex, breast, gambling, etc.) could be put in place to flag for human moderation, as could the spell check and maybe even grammar.
             
             If you have a better concept of what to look for, I'm certainly open to suggestions.  Particularly on a way to find duplicate content; that one is the most time consuming.

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                lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Agreed. Now that there's a clear-cut rule that dupe content isn't allowed, maybe (just maybe) the HP team will not allow dupe hubs to be published period. There's always hope...

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                   camloposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   That's how I understand this new rule: '... the HP team will not allow dupe hubs to be published period.' For me, that means nothing dupe will ever be published, completely filtered out, and will therefore never need to be hopped. Hope I've understood correctly.
                   
                   Of course, even if I have, we still have the huge problem of spun content.

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          White Teethposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I am actually pretty indifferent about those types of hubs – I was just using it as an example.
          
          I myself would probably whine a little if I was making money off the hub and they asked me to remove it.
          
          (I personally might also try removing the Amazon affiliate capsules/links and try using 3rd party affiliate links instead…just sayin’…)

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    2. 65

       theherbivorehippiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       On a side note...I don't care for your first paragraph..comparing ugliness to witches.  I'm personally offended...just saying! 
       
       Recipe and poetry hubs are not witches and not all witches are ugly!  Surely there is something else we can call them?

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16. 80

    Aficionadaposted 13 years ago

    Also, is there any way to simply list accounts by the number of Hubs in them? (Just as Hubbers can be sorted by author score and that sort of thing.)  Wouldn't that help us to find some of the undesirable accounts quickly?

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17. 67

    NateSeanposted 13 years ago

    I'd like to think that my writing has grown quite a bit in the year or so since I started hubbing.
    
    Some of my newest hubs are scoring newer hits every day. So the only people who are going to suffer are the ones who can't adapt to the changes. Who can't grow and learn new ways of presenting information.
    
    I refer mostly to the bloggers who post...well, crap, on their hubs.
    
    The people who post unique hubs, like one person who wrote about how to take care of mantids, will soar and benefit.

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18. 61

    CASE1WORKERposted 13 years ago

    its clean up time- even those of us who hope that we are proficient have to do it- 3 hours checking and editing yesterday- why do it? cos i like Hp and want to see it rise again.
    If my UK traffic sunk like the US I would not bother and unfortunatately they will roll the panda and it will sink again unless we clean with a vengeance

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    1. 85

       camloposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       It's our only hope of getting our earnings back.

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    2. 67

       NateSeanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       HP isn't the only place to create content. And in anycase, if someone has a problem with my hub, I'm always open to constructive criticism as that is precisely what I give when I comment on other hubs.

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19. 78

    FaithDreamposted 13 years ago

    Ok, I did some hubhopping today. I have done it in the past, but most times, I would just skip over bad content.
    Today, however, what I saw was terrible. I did not intentionally want to flag hubs, but when I saw in those hubs of short content, the misspellings, and the lack of punctuation, I was beside myself.
    I see now what everyone is talking about. My eyes were opened. This is what they mean to flag content! How did such hubs get passed to this next level, I wondered.
    So thanks hubbers for opening my eyes to see this differently. I am a passionate writer and I believe in my writings. If the community suffers, I suffer too.

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    1. 82

       CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Thing is it is just not the new stuff in HubHopping that needs weeding out. I was rooting around some older hubs yesterday and there is a a lot of substandard stuff that has been around for a few years. I also wonder if some of these hubbers are still active and so will they do any work to bring their hubs into line with the new layouts or try and improve them?
       
       I think that HP is a bit like a vineyard, where a lot of stuff at the moment has to be ruthlessly pruned back to encourage new growth, and if it is some of my stuff then I will just have to bring it up to standard or pull it down.

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       1. 68

          lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I agree.
          
          Someone said we could use the hub feed to get to the older stuff since the hubhopper is just new stuff. How do you get to that? when I click "Feed" up top, it only shows my own stuff.

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          1. 85

             camloposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             What about a second Hub Hopper that works backwards? Then we could hop old Hubs too. Of course, the backward one wouldn't need to be a permanent feature - just until the bad old Hubs are weeded out.

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             1. 79

                Sally's Troveposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Or, we could choose "latest" among the Hub offerings and then spend hours getting to the bginning. Sort of like an endless journey.
                
                I agree, there ought to be a way to get to the oldest Hubs in a much more graceful and efficient fashion.

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                1. 85

                   camloposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Right.

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          2. 69

             ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             If you go into the topic page http://hubpages.com/topics/
             
             select the category (i.e. crafts & handiworK0
             then subcategory (i.e. beads and beadswork)
             then click on best and more you get into the category feed for best.
             
             THEN, at the bottom of that page, there is a section that goes page 1, 2 etc
             use that to try to get to the point hubs are under 60 hubscore.
             
             From then on you see how bad a lot of hubpage content really is.

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             1. 69

                ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                For example, this fine specimen http://hubpages.com/hub/mephixo

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                1. 68

                   lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Sheesh! Words fail me.... And the hubber too, evidently!

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                2. 78

                   Penteposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Are you prejudice against people who only have 3 working keys on their keyboard?

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                   1. 61

                      White Teethposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      Or only three fingers on their left hand...WITCH!

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                   2. 87

                      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      

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                      1. 69

                         ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                         I found this one http://hubpages.com/hub/heyyyy quite funny.

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                         1. 87

                            IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                            OMG how is that still up?? Maybe someone thought it was poetry? It's not any worse than some of the stuff I've read!

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                            1. 60

                               lyndreposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                               He even has a follower

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                               1. 82

                                  CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                  And he left himself a comment! There seems to be a spate of that lately, hubbers making a comment on their own bad hub that is not answering another comment. I have also come across a lot of underage hubbers in the last few days.

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                                  1. 63

                                     Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                     18 months it has been up.  Looks like it is time to go through old hubs/!

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       2. 78

          FaithDreamposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          You make an excellant point CMHypno. If the account is inactive for a period of time and is not up to the standards, then HP should pull it off the sight.

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20. 75

    barryrutherfordposted 13 years ago

    I have one hub (only) which is deliberately short which continues to get good traffic.  It has nearly 7000 views and with 77 comments so far

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    1. 68

       lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       As long as your time on page is decent, it would be a shame for HP to take it down based on length then. Remember that if hundreds (or thousands) of spammers didn't come on here to slap up a paragraph or two for a quick backlink, I doubt that hub length would ever be an issue.

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21. 81

    skyfireposted 13 years ago

    If we're going to react against panda update without knowing and how our competitors survived this update then any attempt we do to cleanup is going to backfire us.
    
    1. Copied/Spun Content Removal- Agree.
    2. Affiliate Links Removal - Why ? Site with more affiliate links are still performing much better than HP.
    3. Personal content - If the content has no personal touch then how come it passes Non-farmer criteria. So we're playing two-faced argument here. One side talks about so-called ethical SEO and unethical gaming, no-keywords and other side talks about no personal content. Awesome, let's dance in deadlock.
    
    Celeb/auntie content is going to cause some trouble if you're presenting this site to premium advertisers. If i'm not wrong then big publishing companies like splashpress media, demand media are not into this type of junk.
    
    
    
    As for witchunt, i'm ready to remove product hubs if they're standing in between HP's progress. But if HP is going to be ignorant about celeb/auntie stuff and members feel urge to call witchhunt for poetry/recipe/product hubs  then i see no reason for wasting my time on any cleanup using hub-hopping. Sorry lrohner if this is in anyway sounds against OP.

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    1. 68

       lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       No, not at all, Skyfire. You make really valid points. And I agree to most of what you said.
       
       I don't know how aff links hurt/help us, just like I don't understand (post-Panda) how backlinks hurt/help us.
       
       I do know that unoriginal, stolen, thin, generic and just plain bad content DOES hurt us.
       
       Personally, I have no problem with poetry or recipe hubs as long as they are held to the same standard as the rest the hubs. I'm on the fence about product hubs. Most of mine are useful to readers, if sales and time on page is any indication. But it leaves the door open to many people who abuse the system.
       
       As for celeb/auntie photo hubs, I wish the HP team would delete the whole batch of them. If nothing else, all of the photos are stolen and a clear violation of copyright. I'm not so sure they hurt us as much as other poor content, though. I would imagine that most of the people who see those hubs are folks who were specifically looking for that type of drivel. And you certainly can't say that those hubs are poorly written, since most have no content at all!

       replyreport
22. 80

    Aficionadaposted 13 years ago

    Another method for hopping/weeding older hubs:
    
    Click on "Topics" -  top left link on page.  Choose a topic that interests you; near the top of that page will be several small buttons with subtopics, and you can choose one of those if you wish.  From the list of Hubs generated, sort by date (or "latest"), and choose the page (number at the bottom of the list) that leads to the oldest ones you can find.  Then work backwards.
    
    But honestly, I like camlo's idea of a backwards-working HubHopper better!

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    1. 68

       lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks!

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23. 80

    Aficionadaposted 13 years ago

    wilderness, I like the outline of your methodology, but I thought the filters would take care of the copied content and excessive links.  Am I mistaken?  I have not fooled with trying to catch those things myself, because of that belief - unless it just sounded copied to me (for example, a writing style that was extremely different from the profile style or what I have seen in the forums - then I would at least check).  Usually I jump to your #4-6 right off the bat.  I'm interested in others' methods. How do you all proceed?

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    1. 81

       Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I normally check the name first.  Is it someone who has dissed me in the forums?  If it is then flag.
       
       Then I look at the subject.  If it's a recipe for something I can't bear to eat, like pancakes, I flag it. 
       
       Same with products - if I don't use 'em, what's the point?  Flag.
       
       Next up, spelling and words and grammar stuff.  If it's all Queen's English, you know, all hoity toity and making me feel inadequate... flag.
       
       Religion and politics - flag, unless I'm in a charitable mood.
       
       I don't like sport so... flag.
       
       I pay particular attention to so called comedians who think they are being funny.  If they actually are being funny then I flag them.  I don't want their sort in here.
       
       Anyone foreign, and by that I mean outside the UK.. flag them.
       
       I think that's about it and I wish now I'd done an advice hub on this instead of wasting it in the forums.

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       1. 80

          Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                        
          
          It's nice to step back and have a good laugh sometimes.  But I'm seriously thinking of flagging your post here!                 

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       2. 68

          lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          

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       3. 94

          wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Now THAT sounds reasonable.  Although you left off hubs from stick people and those with hubber scores over 98.  They are the worst of the bunch!
          
          

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          1. 81

             Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             You have a point there Wilderness, and actually a little close to the truth.
             
             I am waiting for the hammer to fall....

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    2. 68

       lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       No. The filters do not catch it all. There are tons of hubs out there that are dupe, copied, filled with aff links, etc.
       
       See Thomas E's post for an example.

       replyreport
    3. 94

       wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       No, the filters certainly don't catch it all, or even a major portion.  Any of the seniors on here will tell you that they have caught many of their own hubs stolen long before HP does - that's why hubdefender was created.
       
       I also don't think they catch multiple links (although they certainly could).  I found a fair number with that problem.
       
       I just think that software could be catching soooo much of this and kicking it right back to the author, with a note as to what was wrong, without it ever being exposed to daylight.  I might suggest such niceties as when 2 links to one domain are found it is sent directly to a moderator who can then peruse it to see if it has any real content at all or is just another backlink.  I have seen a few hubs with more than 1 link to obvious authority sites, but most are just being used for backlinking purposes.

       replyreport
24. 85

    camloposted 13 years ago

    This is what it says in the FAQ section:
    
    Your Hub's content has been detected as published previously on another site. Duplicate content is not allowed on HubPages, and duplicate hubs are considered to be Substandard. Your Hub may also be moderated for duplicate content in cases where we determine there is substantial similarity to another work. This includes close paraphrasing, among other forms of misappropriation or copying of content.
    
    If your Hub is truly unique to HubPages, you can request a review of the Hub by contacting us. An exception is typically granted only when quoting is done to a minimum, or some commonly-used, public domain, or historical phrases have triggered the duplicate content detector. If your Hub has been certified as original by an administrator, a notification signifying so will appear at the top of the Hub. Once certified as original, your hub can remain published.
    
    Is this to say that Hubs detected as duplicated content will be automatically unpublished if not certified original?
    
    Do we still need to look out for duplicated content when hopping?

    replyreport
    1. 68

       lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       A lot of what I see is dupe content. I don't know if they haven't checked it already or if the filter just isn't catching it. Probably the latter. Their filters don't pick up most of the instances of my hub having been copied.

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    2. 80

       Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       
       
       I am really glad to see this.  Not too long ago I saw a Hub that appeared on the same day as a nearly identical, much better article on Yahoo!  When I compared the two, I could see that some paraphrasing had been done to create the Hub; but in many ways it was simply the same article but condensed just a bit and very slightly reworded.  I didn't know whether that counted as dupe content or not.  I actually did flag it to allow the moderators to make the determination.

       replyreport
25. 63

    lakeerieartistsposted 13 years ago

    Since it is most likely that Hubpages does not want to pay full time editors, why not have volunteer editors that get a percentage of ad revenue from any new hubs that they edit and approve?  Hubpages can have one team member monitor the editors to make sure they are not abusing the position, and then it costs them less and improves the system more.  It would work like the referral system.

    replyreport
26. 0

    Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years ago

    There is no way that I'm putting up with "volunteer" unprofessional editors. If that happens, it will be time to leave. I can only imagine the BS emails I'd be receiving - from people who make a living editing not selling. Wasting my time is the most abusive thing a person can do to me right now.
    
    And would this "referral fee" come from my 60 percent or their 40 percent. I'm not willing to take a pay cut.

    replyreport
    1. 63

       lakeerieartistsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       It would come from the HP just like the referral tracker percentage.  I am talking about hubbers as editors.

       replyreport
27. 80

    Aficionadaposted 13 years ago

    Another method for weeding out spammy articles....
    
    Check out the list of Squidoo-disliked keywords in potpiegirl's article, here: http://www.potpiegirl.com/2011/03/my-th … go-change/
    
    Run a(n) HP search for those keywords and start reading and flagging where appropriate.  A lot of those will have to fall within the category of over-saturated topics, won't they?
    
    EDITED

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    1. 72

       sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       those are not "google disliked" keywords ... the list begins from pre-panda squidoo policy and then ppg has her theory
       
       none of it has any well executed testing associated to make a solid statement like "google dislikes"
       
       
       but, they are topics likely to be filled with substandard crap nonetheless

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       1. 80

          Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Sorry 'bout that.  I defer to your wisdom. ...trying to do too many things at the same time and rushing to finish to leave here.

          replyreport
          1. 63

             Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this

             I haven't seen many good hubs that include those topics, so I am in full support of prohibiting hubs about FOREX, etc.  If someone thinks that their hub is special, then they should submit it for review.

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             1. 70

                Cagsilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Review by who? Just curious.

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                1. 63

                   Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   I would assume HP - It takes time and costs money, but I personally have not seen a FOREX page that I would consider good - most are meant to serve as a backlink to someone's site....Now, I am sure there are good ones, but I suspect those are in the vast minority.

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             2. 80

                Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                
                
                My apology had to do with what I originally called the list - "Google-disliked keywords."  SF was correct that it wasn't Google's list, it was Squidoo's.  And I heartily agree, it is a good list that should be used to help with the weeding process - not that every article about the subjects on the list should be unpublished, but rather that they should at least be reviewed.

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28. 0

    Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years ago

    Yes I understand that. I'm not interested in volunteer editors, who may have no professional training in marketing telling me how to write and sell. I can see a bunch of retired English teachers thinking they know more than I do. In fact there have been so many scrary scenarios put forth today, I can't bring myself to work here right now. It could just be a giant waste of time.

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    1. 61

       TomC35posted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Scrary? This is why we need editors.

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       1. 0

          ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          No, that is why we have spell check.

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    2. 87

       Len Cannonposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Right, I actually suggested(something) like this last week. But it wasn't a mandatory editing process. Writers who were having trouble getting content that was flagged as appropriate for the site could send their articles (voluntarily) to a pool of editors who would be willing to show them what's wrong, give a few grammar corrections, and help with the layout.
       
       If I had to sit and let every retiree that comes through read my stuff before it goes through I'd go nuts too.

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    3. 81

       skyfireposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       *Sigh*
       
       So True.
       
       I'm sure these type of people never heard of joe sugarman,  ted nicholas before commenting on any sales copy.

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    4. 85

       Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Nelle, just because Hubbers are making scary suggestions, doesn't mean the HubPages team will adopt them!

       replyreport
29. 63

    lakeerieartistsposted 13 years ago

    That's not what I meant.  I meant that instead of a team of Hubpages staff having to go through each and every hub to determine if they fit the rules of the site, and/or needing the community to voluntarily hub hop at such a volume, have a team of trained hubbers "volunteering" to do the bulk of this job for a small percentage on the hubs they review.  Their job wouldn't be to tell you what to write or not write, nor would they directly interact with hubbers that way, they would interact with the Hubpages hired staff member who would be in charge of them.  Hubpages staff would still be the ultimate arbitrator of whether something fit the rules.  The volunteers would pass their findings up to the staff member who would make the ultimate decision.  I guess editors is the wrong term for what I meant.

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30. 86

    rebekahELLEposted 13 years ago

    I'm sure that HP, as a business, will figure out what they need to do and implement it in a timely manner.
    Everything seems to be in a continual state of change so things are going to take time..

    replyreport
31. 72

    sunforgedposted 13 years ago

    ThomasE wrote:
    For example, this fine specimen http://hubpages.com/hub/mephixo
    
    Thats not even funny.
    
    Thats shows that HP needs to get it act together on a much better system of automated filters. All the tweaking in the world by the honest members wont do a thing if something like that can just be autoposted unhindered.
    
    ..again you will notice no profile picture .. another simple security step ..

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    1. 63

       Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this

       It's sd asd asd ads asdasd sad asd
       
       SAD!

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       1. 62

          Mishaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Why would someone want to do that - other than to provide an example to fuel hysteria? But then it was published long before... I don't get it...

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          1. 63

             Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this

             me neither.  Hopefully, HP launches an "Operation Spring Cleaning" to cleanse itself from the old hubs that are blatantly bad
             
             http://hubpages.com/hub/Alliances-in-th … w-to-guide

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    2. 63

       Mutiny92posted 13 years agoin reply to this

       What is REALLY sad is that the hub looks to have been published for quite a while, which makes me think that there may be some need for periodic, automated review for some of these content issues.

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    3. 0

       Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I did not have a profile picture for 6 weeks. Not everyone has a digital camera. I just got my first one for Valentines Day - and it hasn't been easy for me to learn to use it.

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       1. 72

          sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          exceptions exist.
          
          at this moment there also exists software that can register a hp account and post hubs automatically.
          
          the software cannot select upload and select an image from a hard drive.
          
          
          this simple feature could stop hundreds of submissions daily im sure.
          
          i bet  you could have found any image of a monogrammed letter or even a rooster, if it was a simple required part of the registration process.
          
          my image is a very close likeness but its not from a digital camera

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    4. 68

       lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I totally agree.

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32. 72

    sunforgedposted 13 years ago

    any similarity to avatars in existence currently is coincidental.
    
    <cut>

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33. 0

    Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years ago

    I've actually found some sweet niches, that are still making money, despite my overuse of products. Oh well, I just hacked off the products, left the text - and used phpBay or phpZon to make a competing niche site.
    
    This will be the last communal effort I ever am involved with.

    replyreport
    1. 69

       ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Why would you do that? At the end of the day, what is acceptable on hubpages is determined by the hubpages CEO and shareholders.
       
       Unless they have unpublished your hubs, or asked you to change anything, everything you read on the forum is just speculation. Hubpages itself has the last word.

       replyreport
34. 87

    IzzyMposted 13 years ago

    It's gone now. Well done staff!

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    1. 85

       camloposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I just took alook - it's still there.

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35. 61

    CASE1WORKERposted 13 years ago

    I have spent a lot of time looking and flagging as i was waiting for a computer cure on my  it
    
    I have to be honest and say that for every good hub there were 50 ( yes 50) that were absolute rubbish. I admit that these were all new but i managed to move a little  further in and there were still a questionable content on many.
    
    I see no alternative but to close for new hubs and clean up

    replyreport
    1. 67

       NateSeanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       So, here's a question. If it appears that the hubber is still active and has recently made comments and/or activity, do you try to offer suggestions to help them improve their hub or do you just flag them?

       replyreport