Amazon and Ebay Capsule Update

1. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 10 years ago

   Today we will reduce the number of search driven products that can be displayed to one in the eBay and Amazon capsules.  See last week's announcement.
   
   Also, when a product capsule is aligned to the right and it has a single product listing, the product picture will now be enlarged. 
   
   You may want to check your Hubs to see how they look after this update rolls out in the next two hours.

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      Patty Inglish, MSposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      The enlarged picture sounds good!

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      sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      The ads look great Paul.  Thank you very much.

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         rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, the larger picture does look nice, and I'm glad it's not any bigger.

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      Rosie2010posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Oh Paul, this change is awesome.  The bigger amazon product photo looks much better.  I love this change.  Thank you. 

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      Laura Schneiderposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      For those of us who can no longer use Amazon capsules at all, only one search-driven eBay product module simply further limits our earnings. Thanks a lot. My earnings are down by half, as are my warm fuzzies for HP.
      
      Some of my hubs depended on advertising certain products, not just plopping in a capsule with the store of someone random (or non-random--someone a person KNOWS) on eBay who could be selling ANYTHING at the time their ad was served to my page. There goes targeted/responsible advertising.

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         CraftytotheCoreposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Oh man Laura!  I read about some states eliminating Amazon affiliates.  You make a valid point that your earning potential has now been minimized.

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            Laura Schneiderposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks for recognizing this, CraftytotheCore! I thought I was the only one who saw what this would do to those of us without Amazon abilities any longer.
            
            I've started moving some of my underperforming content to another site--repurposing it for direct sale to customers. So far, I've just started a few days ago (upon notice of this latest restriction)--no success/failure to report yet.
            
            I love HP, but I don't write JUST for fun, either; I expect some profit from HP: I see my name in print all the time as a full-time, 20+ years tech writer, so my ego doesn't need publicity nor does my portfolio need plumping.
            
            Sadly, I notice more and more "broken links" that lead to empty former Hubber sites where others have apparently completed this process. This makes me worried for HP (and annoyed at still more rework to hubs to correct the problems).
            
            Also, I notice that they now say (when you respond to a question), something like, "Want an audience? .... 26 million visitors a month on Hub Pages." I think the number was 35 million just a few months ago, but I don't remember for sure. It's steadily going down in any case (it was 29 when I first took specific notice of the drop a few months ago).
            
            The loss of writers and content, as well as visitors, should be a big concern of HP as it affects their future growth.
            
            (Sorry, off-soapbox now. I'm just sad about HP's state and future prospects.)

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      travel_man1971posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks CEO Paul. The enlarged photos will be appropriate for promoting our hubs.

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         Jean Bakulaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Although it is a pain to change all the hubs, it does force you to consider what product you want to try to sell more seriously. I believe that people do just ignore a whole line of products.
         
         So I have mixed feelings. It's supposed to be a way we can make money, but we can only display one item. I thought HP was negotiating with Amazon to get us a higher percentage. All the changes have left me with virtually no traffic at all.

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      lobobrandonposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Finally the enlarged Pictures - Yay! Now I can get rid of the double images as the actual product pic is large enough. Thanks so much for this update.

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   Kathleen Cochranposted 10 years ago

   Has HP hired a consultant?  Is that why there has been such a long string of changes?  Can you tell us when we will come to the end of these changes?  It's getting a little tedious.
   
   Thanks.

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      David Trujilloposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Changes are tedious, I agree. But they are all for the greater good that will ensure the site grows in quality and remains profitable in the long future. In my opinion they are a healthy reponse that everything is going well.

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      Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Since the internet is constantly changing it's to be expected that websites change as well. There will never be an end to it! There certainly hasn't been in the 4 years or so I've been on HP.

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         Kathleen Cochranposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Susana:  You've been here longer than me.  Do you respond to every suggestion?  Which ones have worked for you?  Thanks.

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            Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Hi No I don't always do what HP suggests, but I do always make sure I keep my hubs within TOS so that they stay published. I tend to use analytics data, info from reputable SEO sources (such as Moz) and my intuition about what seachers coming to my page want/need, to make decisions about my hubs.
            
            I think with ebay and amazon you have to look at whether you actually make regular sales from a hub. If you do leave the hub as it is because it's obviously satisfying what your searchers are looking for. If the hub never, or very rarely, makes sales then take the products off. I've used this approach for a couple of years now and it works for me (in that I've mostly kept on the good side of Google Panda).

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   EricDockettposted 10 years ago

   The is great news, and the bigger, clickable images look fantastic.  I have a lot of reformatting ahead of me, but it will be well worth it.

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   Will Apseposted 10 years ago

   Any chance of a choice on the pic size? At the present size, I can only use them when not aligned to the right.
   
   The pic is too small to really show a product to a potential buyer. At the same time it is big enough to mess up any attempt to show a big picture. Pages look like they have been invaded by a hoard of mini-mes.
   
   To me, it seems that the bigger pic is only useful for people who decide to throw out a few casual, barely-related links without much hope of a sale.
   
   edit: went through my pages, fairly painless. I can live without right alignment, and, in a couple of instances, the big pic was a surprise aesthetic success. So ignore my complaints, lol.

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      jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for sending me to this forum, Will Aspe. I recall the change about one ad per capsule but overlooked (or forgot) the part about size changes. As you said, initially it does create problems but most appear fixable. However, I don't like losing the flexibility of being able to left or right align an ad and create my own aesthetic. Also, if the ad pic was originally small, the enlarged product is now grossly pixelated in some cases. Those are the capsules I unfortunately had to delete even though the product was germane to the hub.

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   vocalcoachposted 10 years ago

   This is a good change.  I like the "bigger picture" no pun intended:)

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   Glenn Stokposted 10 years ago

   Last night I was updating a couple of hubs to reduce my Amazon capsules down to 1 item and I noticed the larger image of the single product. Very nice. I think it's better than those tiny images we used to have with multiple products.  One item per capsule provides more focus. I like the change.

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   aa liteposted 10 years ago

   Really like the bigger pictures.  Many people had commented in the past that HP's amazon capsules don't seem to convert as well as those on other sites.  Maybe this will help.
   
   But at any rate I think it makes the hubs look nicer.

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   Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years ago

   It does look nicer with the bigger pictures.  It will take some reformatting work though, since it does change the size of the capsule, and sometimes leaves extra white spaces if the text capsule on the left side was small.

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   earnerposted 10 years ago

   Yeah ... you may wish to open and check each of your 200-400 hubs, to see if you've got such modules and check/make adjustments for each one.
   
   Or, as it's a holiday weekend in the UK, you could just say "bugg4h that" and go to the beach.
   
   

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    Cheeky Girlposted 10 years ago

    I think this is an awesome step in the right direction. It pleases Google as it reduces ads clutter, and it makes those famously small to read Amazon ads that bit bigger and easier to read. They have needed to address the small Amazon ads thing from way back. Also, people suffer from seeing too many ads and learn to recognise them and so ignore them. People "blank" them out. So varying things a bit and shaking things up does help. It forces the reader to look differently at the pages and the content.
    
    I am also in favor of looking at ways of having some "One- Liner" style ads incorporated into the body of text in a hub page. I think it works, having seen it successfully work on many blogs and websites.But perhaps that is for the future. This is a good step in the right direction, Paul. And the new ads look great, when shown to the right of content.

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    AMAZING THINKERposted 10 years ago

    An under performing site can lower your adsense revenue on other sites. The ad value is decreased by Google, so you get paid less for each ad. If your main adsense income is from other sites, I suggest you disable adsense ads on HP.

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       Laura Schneiderposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Very good to know! I had no idea! Thanks for the tip!
       
       It's not applicable in my particular case (I'm transferring content, repurposed, to Constant-Content.com, for direct sale to buyers), however I'll definitely keep that in mind and disable AdSense as appropriate.

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          TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

          I thought you had to have adsense in order to be part of the HP program.  What did I miss, and how do you disable it?

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             Laura Schneiderposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             If I remember right, in the Edit mode of an article under "Display options" (a drop-down at the right of the screen) there is a box you can set to choose whether you want ads on or off from being posted on a particular Hub. Check the Learning Center docs for specifics, though. It's "on" by default.

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    Research Analystposted 10 years ago

    I like the bigger image with less eBay and Amazon products, because it compliments the page really well.

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