Hubpages rules changing rapidly

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   sid_candidposted 12 years ago

   Today one of my hub was unpublished by Hubpages stating that it is on a forbidden topic. I never knew debt which is one of the highest paying topic in adsense is a forbidden topic at Hubpages. I would request Hubpages moderators to unpublish all my hubs on various debt topics as I have about 15-20 of them. It would be great if Hubpages decides on its new set of rules and puts it forward instead of making new changes every few days.

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2. 71

   Cagsilposted 12 years ago

   What exactly is wrong with writing about "debt"? That makes no sense. What warning did you get? What about debt is forbidden?
   
   Please explain...

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      sid_candidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      The email from Hubpages says:
      Your Hub has been identified as a violation of our Terms of Use. If this is the first time you've gotten an email like this, don't worry! You'll have an opportunity to fix it.
      
      Problem: Is about a restricted topic. The hub is about
      How to deal with credit card debt?
      
      I am sorry but have no idea why this hub got unpublished. I don't have any affiliate links in it. Not even any Amazon products.

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         Hauntyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Why on earth would you write about topics like that? Have you any idea of the kind of competition you should beat to get anywhere with it? And then you come back to the forum crying and whining about not getting any traffic despite the number of your hubs. Or being moderated. That's p.
         
         @ Marisa: I'm not sure it is reasonable. Maybe the hubteam will put the warnings on the stats page when they get around to do it. At least that's the hope.

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   Ladybird33posted 12 years ago

   Yeah, I would like a little more info too...it's doesn't make sense but I feel your frustration

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4. 71

   Cagsilposted 12 years ago

   Debt consolidation is the usual process for handling credit cards. Unfortunately, there are too many other people already manipulating the term "debt consolidation" for their own scams.
   
   Which is how I understand it. I hope that helps.

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      sid_candidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      So when did this new rule came that you can't write about debt at Hubpages and i have about 15 or so hubs on debt when will they remove the other hubs or was this just a one off instant? Consistency and clarity of action can get Hubpages to its previous position in search engines. Not random and unthoughtful actions.

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         Cagsilposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Maybe you should take a different tactic.
         
         Instead of using "debt consolidation" as your keyword which is ambiguity at it's highest, you should try "money-management solutions"?
         
         Just a thought.
         
         
         
         Edit: HP is eliminating the ambiguity from it's pages. However, as you said, consistency would be nice. It's also a topic that has been beaten up badly by scammers.

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            WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            The trouble is that if someone is desperately searching the Net for advice about debt problems, they are not going be using "money management" as a search term. They are going to put in "how to deal with debt" or "getting out of debt" or something like that.
            
            Hubpages in their arrogance simply veto the topic,thus depriving people of publishing information here that could actually help someone.
            
            Because of the way Adsense works, there are going to be topics seen as money-makers, which will be exploited by people with no quality information to offer. However, forbidding these topics only means lessening the competition for spammers, who are adept in finding numerous ways to get their c__p out in full view. I can see a day when a search on one of these topics will only pull up c__p, because honest voices everywhere will have been silenced.

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            1. 85

               Robinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Just to clarify, ALL Hubs on debt consolidation or other restricted areas are not being unpublished.  When a Hub is in a restricted area it just means that it has to be of exceptional quality to stay published, i.e., we are not taking down all Hubs that are in restricted areas; we are just putting a higher standard to them.  If a Hub does not meet this standard, it needs to be revised to be of higher quality.  We recommend adding original photos, videos, other related capsules, and more relevant/current text. The reason for this is because there are many, many articles and Hubs in these areas and they have similar content, something that Google frowns upon.  If you feel like your Hub was unjustifiably moderated, please email team@hubpages.com.  We make mistakes and are only human.    Thanks for your patience!!  Cheers!

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                  deblippposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Thank you for the clarification. That's quite helpful.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Sid, the thing to do is open your other Hubs and check whether there's a warning, like the one Izzy quoted.
         
         If there is a warning, email HP and ask them to look at it and advise whether it's OK. If it is OK they will remove the warning.   Better to be pro-active, I think, than wait for it to be unpubbed unexpectedly.
         
         I don't think any more rules have changed recently, but I do think they're doing further "sweeps" through Hubs that they didn't pick up the first time around.  I had a Hub unpublished for a link to a "prohibited site" just the other day, without any warning.  Even though Paul Deeds' announcement said our warning email would include all our problem Hubs.

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            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I don't think they are going to remove the warnings, Marisa. I think they will stay for the lifetime of the ban. My 'stopping smoking' hub has a similar warning - 'this hub appears to be about cigarettes'. I'm not bothered, most of my hubs gets no views anyway so it wouldn't make any difference to me if they were unpublished.
            
            I've been lucky in that every unpublished hub I've had so far have been 'no views' type hubs (out of season mostly).
            
            I dread opening up one day to find they have unpublished a good earning hub - they is why I keep a close eye on them.
            
            I wish they would email first though, to give us a chance to fix the error, specially seeing that half the time we are unaware there is an error when the rules are not clear.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I got one removed - I had a "belly fat" warning on a belly dance Hub.  But I guess that's different, because the warning wasn't accurate. 
               
               
               
               
               So do I.  The only silver lining is that they now seem to be quite quick off the mark in republishing, so your Hub doesn't get a chance to drop off the index.

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                  Robinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks, Marisa, for the kind words!  We are working so hard to get faster and better!!  Have a great day!

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               Robinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Hi IzzyM,  The hope is that the warning on your Hub will take the place of an email and give you the heads up that your Hub may be moderated.  If not, like Marisa said, we are getting quicker with our turnaround and that should be getting better, too.  Thanks for sticking with us through all of this craziness!    Cheers!

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  But Robin, Izzy has nearly 500 Hubs - does that mean you expect her to open every single one of them?  Is that really reasonable?

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                     Robinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     That is a very interesting question!  I will look into it if there's a way to filter your Hubs in my account to view only Hubs with warnings.  Great suggestion!

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                        WryLiltposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        PLEASE bring in some way to filter the hubs by warning. This suggestion has been raised numerous times in the last few months and really needs implementing - most of us would rather spend our time writing new articles rather than hours trying to find out if one or two hubs have problems.

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                           Robinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           I agree, WryLit, it would be a great asset to our power Hubbers like you!  I'm working on it and will let you know as soon as I hear anything.

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                              WryLiltposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              Awesome.

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                        Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Robin, it's nice to hear you're looking into it but I'm horrified you were unaware this was a problem.
                        
                        It's been raised so many times on these forums recently, often by Hubbers who were furious about good Hubs being unpublished without warning.   You have lost several "power Hubbers" because they were so upset about this, and for HubPages management not to realise that suggests they are very out of touch.

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                           Website Examinerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           I am not familiar with Robin's responsibilities. But is it not conceivable that she was not familiar with this issue, whereas others among staff did know?

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                              Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              Quite possibly.  But I assume that in order to look into this, she's had to discuss it with staff who work in that area - who would, surely, have said they were aware of the issue if indeed they were.

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   IzzyMposted 12 years ago

   I've got a debt hub - written for the contest. It says at the top -
   
   CONTENT WARNING: This Hub appears to be about getting out of debt
   It appears this Hub might be about getting out of debt, a topic which has become saturated with low-quality Hubs published by affiliate marketers. Because of this, Hubs written on this topic must be of exceptional quality and can not contain affiliate links, or links that point to sales or lead forms. Hubs that don't comply with our rules can be unpublished. However, high-quality, informative Hubs without affiliate, sales or lead form links on this topic are welcome!
   
   It's still published

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   Lisa HWposted 12 years ago

   I had one of mine that's about giving teenagers a credit card (or not) get unpublished (or a warning, or something), and I couldn't imagine why because I knew it had nothing to do with debt consolidation.  The problem with it was, though, that I had a couple of links to either "legitimate"  information or else someone else's Hub about debt and credit.
   
   I just thought I'd mention it in case anyone else with an "innocent" Hub doesn't realize it may not be the Hub, itself, but instead a link to something that originally looked like "legitimate information", but that may be a problem because of the subject of THAT - not the Hub.

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   Richard83posted 12 years ago

   I really don't like all these changes.

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      Multimanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Agreed/

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8. 71

   sunforgedposted 12 years ago

   That is a great suggestion!
   
   but its a suggestion that has  been made dozens of times over the last 3 months - it would almost be a shame if it was included now.

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9. 85

   Robinposted 12 years ago

   Website Examiner, you are correct.  My responsibilities are changing, where I will be in the forums more; I haven't been as much in the past.  The forums are not my only responsibility, nor were they any one else's sole responsibility.  We have many, many things on our plate.  Please consider we are only 20ish people running a huge website and are trying to make the site better everyday. We have to prioritize; I'm sorry if you do not agree with our prioritization.  I wish we could be everywhere and everything to you all, but we are trying our best. I hope you can be patient with us. As for the warnings, I'm working on it for you.  I'll let you know if it works out.  It seems to be a more difficult technology issue than I expected.
   
   Have a great day!
   Robin

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