Petition to HP to Tell us Our Hubs' QAP Scores

1. 85

   aa liteposted 10 years ago

   I've see a suggestion that this will be a "perk" of the revamped apprenticeship program.
   
   I don't think this kind of feedback should be a perk, it is something that could be really valuable in helping all of us improve our subdomains.
   
   I think I write quite high quality hubs.  So far none of mine have been idled because of low quality.  But maybe I am too big headed.  Maybe my hubs simply haven't been Qapped yet.  Maybe they are good enough to pass, but not really much better than that.  I need to know!
   
   Perhaps my hubs are ok overall, but there are a few threshold ones that are holding my whole subdomain back.  I promise you that if I knew my scores, I would go back to any 6s (or whatever my lowest scores were) and would improve them.
   
   The only reason that I think HP is withholding this information is because they are worried about the reaction from hubbers who will think that they are being QAPPed unfairly.  That is a valid concern.  But I  think HP should bite the bullet and let us know anyway.  Maybe only tell people who apply to know this. Have them sign a legally binding promise (in blood if necessary) that they will not bitch about the data!  Get your lawyers involved, but TELL US!

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   1. 70

      Matthew Meyerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      We will discuss this at our next community meeting.
      You can see Paul Edmondson's reply below.
      http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/113427#post2413436

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   2. 70

      Matthew Meyerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      We discussed this in our community meeting today.
      Our plan going forward is to have the HubScore more accurately reflect the QAP ratings for a Hub as we collect more data going forward.

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2. 88

   SimeyCposted 10 years ago

   +1
   
   One of the hardest things for me to understand is why (or why not) I am drastically losing traffic. I know I am a good writer as I have sold quite a few articles on other sites recently. I understand that it has something to do with engagement (that's what the icon says) but without deeper analysis there is no way for me to focus.
   
   I have 400+ articles - most of which is featured - while traffic and the 'score' are some indication of what I need to work on, I have no specifics. Is it my voice? Is it the lack of pictures? Is it my grammar and spelling? I simply do not know.
   
   I for one would love the feedback so that I can understand where I need to work and where I don't. I've tweaked quite a few hubs recently but may be wasting my time if these already have a high QAP score.
   
   Perhaps this is something we could subscribe to? Or perhaps have the ability to view say five QAP scores a week? QAP is a very powerful tool for Hubpages, I think it could be even more powerful for the writer.
   
   I know there is concern that some people will complain about their score - but I think the vast majority would be OK with it!
   
   Why not make disclosure (and/or discussion) of the QAP against the TOS - it won't stop private discussions but will stop harmful arguments on the forums.....
   
   I have to be honest - the major reason I am less active on HP is because I simply do not know what I need to do to improve things for my sub-domain....

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   1. 85

      aa liteposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I very strongly suspect Simon that it is not the quality of your writing that is the problem. 
      
      You've also done pretty well in the past, so it is not your topic/keyword choice that is the problem.
      
      I have some hubs that are outranked by absolute rubbish on wiki answers etc.
      Quite frankly, it is hard to believe everything Google (and HP) is telling us about quality and rankings.....but, really there is nothing else that we can do.
      
      If I knew what my scores were, I would aim for an average of at least 8 across my subdomain.  I would attack my lowest scored hubs first, and would try to improve them. 
      
      It is possible that you might have, lurking amongst your 400 hubs, some low quality ones that are pulling you down.  If you had the scores, you would know which ones to tackle.

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3. 62

   prettydarkhorseposted 10 years ago

   Is QAP static? I think it is not static, it is dynamic, so this is difficult if it is revealed. If it is revealed, then it is always updated. I think the QAP score or rating can go up and down because user interaction is one of the variables in calculating it.

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   1. 85

      aa liteposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think the QAP score depends on "user interaction", it is the score that's giving to hubs by Mturk appraisals.  I guess it changes every time you edit a hub.
      
      The big problem for me is whether the QAP score actually means anything, other than whether a hub is featured or not.  Whether "quality" as defined by HP is the same as "quality" as defined by Google. 
      
      To be honest, I am rather doubtful about this.  But Paul E. obviously feels that it is, and that we would get out from under the Panda if we raised the score of the hubs here.
      
      So for the time being I am suspending my disbelief, assuming that Paul E. is right, and would like to improve the QAP of my subdomain.  To do that, it would be really useful to know the QAP rating of my hubs, so I know which hubs to work on.

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4. 88

   Will Apseposted 10 years ago

   Sorry, not interested. The only opinions that matter to me are the opinions of readers coming from the SERP's. Read times are a good enough metric.

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5. 62

   prettydarkhorseposted 10 years ago

   Or there should be a study of the correlation between high score in QAP and visibility/number of views. The relationship can be inversely proportional depending on the keyword perhaps.

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6. 95

   wildernessposted 10 years ago

   Recognizing that the QAP is NOT the final answer in quality, that it could actually be completely off base, I would still very much like to know that score, including the individual portions of it.  It is, at this point, the best indicator we have of what google wants to see.
   
   I'll go further, as well - I would very much like to know how the hubs scored in the individual portions of the program if at all possible.  While it would be helpful to know the average, it would be considerably more so to know the score in each section - a good guideline as to what likely needs work.  Does the hub have grammar issues?  Does it really need some additional capsules (map, chart, etc.) to improve layout or engagement? 
   
   While I would like to discuss the issues on the forums, just as we did in the AP between ourselves, Simey's suggestion of making it against TOS might be workable, IMO.  Recognizing that the forums could well become a morass of screaming complaints, the interaction between hubbers genuinely trying to help each other in the AP might have been the most valuable part of the program.  Knowing our QAP scores just might kindle that same cooperation in the forums but if that sounds unworkable it would still help to know the scores.

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7. 83

   Marcy Goodfleischposted 10 years ago

   I agree with aa and Simey. If HP already knows a certain level of quality brings in good traffic, it only makes sense for anyone serious about writing n this site to have that feedback. As with aa, even though none of my hubs are unpublished at this point, if I knew which of them were given lower scores for any reason (and if I knew the reason - which of the three scales had which rankings), I would be motivated to use that information as a guideline for improving them. 
   
   The site somehow thinks it makes sense to have public Hubber scores, but that specific quality feedback should be a big secret. That is so contradictory that it defies logic.  It does, however, help explain why we have 'Hubbers' with no content and no activity whose 'Hubber' scores regularly increase.
   
   We all have different talents.  Some people are great engineers, or brilliant scientists, or gifted musicians. Some are compelling and coherent writers. We all know that not everyone is cut out to be an engineer or a singer, but the Internet seems to have created a culture where everyone thinks they can write, and that they have something worthwhile to say.  This is one reason there's such a plethora of bad content and poor writing on the Web.
   
   Anyone who is serious about writing will take valid feedback as a valuable tool for helping them to further their skills.

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8. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 10 years ago

   I gave some color on an issue with disclosing QAP scores here.  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/113191? … ost2413279
   
   We will consider it!

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   1. 95

      wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      You beat me to it - I just came back to post that same link. )
      
      That's a little disappointing, too, as it takes away much of the value we might get from seeing our own scores.  It could still be valuable, but not nearly as much and any score would have to be taken with a grain of salt.

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   2. 85

      aa liteposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Yep, I can understand that you would not want to spend money on getting an absolutely accurate score with over a million hubs to assess.
      
      The main benefit I can see from knowing my scores, is that I could order my hubs by score, and try to improve the lowest ones.  I think inaccurate scores would still be useful.  I would just have to exercise more of my own judgement, if a hub was scored low, but it looked good to me, I might choose to leave it alone.

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9. 62

   prettydarkhorseposted 10 years ago

   http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/Featured-Hubs

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10. 62

    prettydarkhorseposted 10 years ago

    G algo is changing a lot to adapt to different seasons of buying and clientele/searches experiences, so this is difficult overall. HP is trying its best, QAP score can go up and down.

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    1. 85

       aa liteposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Ok, I guess I should specify that what I would like to know is the rating the hubs receive from the hub hopper (substance, organisation and grammar).

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       1. 62

          prettydarkhorseposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          Have a good day!

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11. 88

    SimeyCposted 10 years ago

    Just added an 'idea' in a different forum - if we cannot get detailed scores for featured hubs, why not split it:
    
    Featured (with a QAP score between 6 and 8).
    Featured (with a QAP score 8 or higher).
    
    This gives an indication of what needs work and what is working....
    
    Please add comments in the new thread:
    
    http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/113430

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12. 88

    Will Apseposted 10 years ago

    A couple of months ago, the herd reaction to mTurkers was to despise and devalue what they were doing.
    
    Now the herd want to write their pages for them in the hope of a high mark!
    
    All I can say is, baaaa!
    
    I think I will continue to keep the reader in mind, instead.

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    1. 88

       SimeyCposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       LOL I always defended the Mturkers - one of the few I think!

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    2. 85

       aa liteposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Oh come on, I would hardly describe myself as "the herd".  Ok I've been joined by a few people, but I can assure you there are still plenty of people who  despise mTurkers and devalue what they are doing.
       
       I challenge you to find anything I've written that showed I despise mTurkers.
       
       I have to say actually, that I am not at all certain that improving the quality of my hubs is the way to get Google traffic.  But I thought I'd give it a try, along with voodoo magic, dancing naked at midnight, bitching about how stupid Google is/ how bad my traffic is on forums. 
       
       As you've pointed out elsewhere, HP did actually conduct some experiments where they showed that Stella hubs got a lot more traffic, on average, than Norma hubs.  So one might as well try to use the mTurker ratings to beat the one sentence wiki answers that Google seems to love so much.

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13. 88

    Will Apseposted 10 years ago

    Seriously, unless hubbers can get the school room mentality out of their systems and and start to look at the real (virtual, lol) world, they are never going to get anywhere.
    
    People would be a lot better off reading articles on quality sites and asking themselves.
    
    What is this writer doing that I am not?
    
    And just as importantly, how do I find subjects that make me money?
    
    QAPers won't tell you the answers.

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    1. 95

       wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Are you better off copying what someone else has done or finding a new, more effective method in order to outrank that someone?  If the second, is it possible that QAP is such a method?

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       1. 88

          Will Apseposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          Frankly, you are better off modelling your writing on other people who know what they are doing, unless you are intent on writing Finnegans Wake 2.

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          1. 95

             wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             I don't know, Will.  5 years ago, HP was the model to follow - about the most successful start up content farm around.  And full of trash that wasn't worth a mouse click to look at - the site architecture was what made it valuable and that isn't something easy to model, particularly when you're tied to something else.
             
             Some hubbers (Misha comes to mind) were extremely successful, but the methodology used wasn't very useful there, either, as few people could or would want to model their own work on it.
             
             Times have changed, but looking at what is visible when we look at other works are still a small part of what makes an article successful.  Useful, yes, and worth copying, but still a small part, and that part may just fit very well with unseen parts that we can't effectively copy.
             
             Seems to me we need a model that fits with what the site is doing.  It fits with the site architecture, the site interlinking and with what google expects and wants from such a site (outside of just going away! ) 
             
             HP has designed such a model, measured by the QAP, and has verified that the model works.  Follow that model closely and the odds of seeing good traffic rise dramatically - why then look elsewhere for a different model that uses a different base to produce it's traffic?

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    2. 85

       aa liteposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       When I started, your advice would probably have been valuable.  It is still valuable for new hubbers or old hubbers who target impossible keywords or no keywords at all.  I still wonder at people who write a wall of text about "my depression story", and wonder why they are not earning.
       
       However after a year here, I did manage to write a few hubs that worked well, a month ago.  The plan was to write more hubs like them.
       
       One hub was #2 for its kw.  Not a roaring success, it got 30 views a day.  But if I wrote 100 hubs like that, I would be a pretty happy hubber.
       
       Another hub was #1 and got 100 views a day or more, and regular Amazon sales.  I was very happy with that little soldier.  Now it gets 30-40 views (and the sales have disproportionately dried up which is mysterious).
       
       I think the easiest explanation is that my subdomain/HubPages is again under the Panda penalty.  QAP might not help with finding the right keywords, writing for the 6-year-old-with-3s-attention-span typical internet reader, but it should help with Google panda. 
       
       Equally, SimeyC, I think once had good traffic (way better than me).  So I don't think his problem is that he doesn't know how to write online (or write in general).  It is this mysterious hatred that Google has suddenly developed towards us.  My hub #1 is outranked by 20 word "answers" that are complete rubbish.

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       1. 91

          Judi Beeposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          I have the same issue - hubs that used to pull in traffic are now ranking below the "answers" sites.  There seems little point in me producing more "Stellas" if Google loves "Sub-Normas".  Problem is, I can't produce a "Sub-Norma" - QAP won't let me.

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          1. 95

             wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             Thinking back and working this decrepit old memory for all it's worth, it seems that every time google has done a major tweak it has resulted in garbage coming to the top.
             
             It doesn't stay too long, a few months at the outside, but it comes up and the forums fill with gripes that the SE is worthless because of it.  Eventually, usually in a month or so, the SE begins to come up with better results and our hubs begin to rise.  Recognizing that HP has played a part in our regaining position, I still have hopes that the tweak will again settle out and better results will be ranked better.  Including our hubs.
             
             THE Q&A sites are something relatively new, and google is going to have to learn to deal with them.  Presumably they will, and more detailed content will again outrank one line answers.

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             1. 91

                Judi Beeposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                You may be right - but I do wonder if these quick, easy to digest answers are what people actually want.  In particular, I wonder if students browsing on their phones like them - just an easy to copy down, simple answer to a homework question that fits on a small screen.

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                1. 95

                   wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                   I'm sure that you are absolutely correct in that sometimes that one line answer is the perfect solution.  I want them, too, sometimes - how far away is the moon, the value of pi to 10 decimals, etc.
                   
                   But google needs to figure out the difference between those questions and one's needing more detail because those are also getting too many one line answers in the SERPs.

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             2. 88

                SimeyCposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                The one good thing (bad for me in the short term) is that a few of the Q&A sites have been 'killed' - Webanswers has some very good writers, but there are literally millions of bad quality answers on that site.
                
                I used to get the same amount of views from WA as I do on HP - now I get 1/10th of that. Sure it's lost me some revenue - but in the long term it does mean that Google are focusing on these sites and removing garbage...

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          2. 85

             aa liteposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             Exactly.  What I hope is that Google's love for Sub-Normas is not permanent.  It is some brief misguided experiment that Google will discontinue soon
             
             Or maybe it is not that it loves the Sub-Normas.  It's just that it has suddenly decided that it really hates HP for some reason.  Perhaps it is something that QAP can help with.
             
             Or it honestly thinks that the Sub Normas are the way to go.  Perhaps it thinks it's the way to beat people using Pinterest for search, or it is the way to go with the increasing use of mobile stuff. 
             
             In which case we are all doomed!

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             1. 91

                Judi Beeposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                Didn't notice your reply before I answered Wilderness - I also wonder if the popularity of "answers" and short, image-free pages are popular with Google due to the increase in browsing with mobiles.

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       2. 88

          SimeyCposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          The main problem is Google. I had one hub on a very topical subject back in December that was number one spot for some great long tail key phrases - suddenly in one day it dropped way down the SERPS on (December 10_ - on December 20 it turned back up on number one spot.
          
          I estimate I lost between 50-60 thousand views on that one hub thanks to Google.
          
          I know I'm not the only one this has happened to - there are many better writers who get far less traffic than I do now - even though I'm 50% down from last month.
          
          While I understand the QAP isn't going to give us answers it is one small piece in a very large puzzle.
          
          I agree with most on here including Will - the one thing that I think Will has wrong is that he is trying to equate the online world to the real world. In the real world you can look at a top newspaper and expect quality - and learn from it - on the web - this is not the case - some very popular quality sites have lost nearly all their traffic - not because they are poor, but because Google suddenly hates them. So looking at those sites isn't going to help at all!
          
          The only thing I can do (as a mathematician) is to analyze every statistic I can get my hands on and see if there is a correlation - that's the reason I want these QAP scores - they are a measure, perhaps a poor and subjective measure, but they give me some information to work with...

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14. 81

    Mark Ewbieposted 10 years ago

    I agree with everyone.
    
    Will - is spot on - it's what the outside world thinks of it.
    
    "QAP need to know people" - they want to see the score - and that seems fair.  I am not convinced that a high QAP will equal high traffic but if that's the rules for remaining published then it would be good to know.
    
    I am hopeless at this game.  Wrong subject, no knowledge... BUT... I am learning.  By constantly monitoring EXTERNAL traffic behaviour and trying to think "what were they looking for" I would be slowly inching forward - if not for the Google problem.
    
    Maybe QAP will fix it.  As someone moaning about quality more or less since I started - I mean my first stuff was REALLY bad -  I welcome the attempt by HP.

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15. 88

    Will Apseposted 10 years ago

    I have nothing to say against Paul's belief that booting a proportion of average hubs up to excellent might get us some relief from Panda, which is what people seem most concerned about.
    
    But you should weigh the negative side of giving out league tables: hordes will start writing for the mTurkers pat on the head and forget that readers actually exist.

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    1. 85

       aa liteposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       True, but I don't think Google can be too upset with HP if they fill the site with long in depth hubs with many modules, pictures and youtube videos (which get the Mturkers pat on the back), which don't get much traffic.
       
       I mean none of us know exactly what panda looks for, but it is supposed to be against 'thin' content, rather than pages that don't attract much traffic.
       
       So the people who write for Mturk approval will only be hurting themselves.  Whereas people who write low quality stuff hurt everybody.  I am not unhappy with that kind of scenario.

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16. 69

    To Start Againposted 10 years ago

    A computer generated email with a single number score would greatly reduce the amount of why did my hub not get featured Q's in the forums. I am definitely all for that!

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