Removing HubPages Referral Links From Hubs

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   Marina Lazarevicposted 8 years ago

   As part of our ongoing efforts to improve site structure, we are removing HubPages referral links from published Hubs by deleting their tracker IDs. HubPages referral links were always intended for use outside of HubPages, and because they redirect, they may cause some page rank to be lost.  Referral links added to new Hubs will be automatically rewritten to the same URL without the tracker on the live, published versions of the Hubs (i.e., not in edit mode/the HubTool).  Given this, the best course of action for Hubbers moving forward is to discontinue placing referral links in new Hubs. You may also want to remove any "Sign up for HubPages" sections from existing Hubs.

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      jansharesposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Will do. I think I have one, maybe two.

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         jansharesposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         "You also may want to remove any 'Sign up for HubPages' sections from your hubs."
         Did I understand this to mean when we highlight and link the word "Hubpages" to the main page for the sole purpose of inviting people to join? I had one like that and broke the link. I never had any referral links for making money.

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      PegCole17posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      We were warned this was coming. Thanks for the update.

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   paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

   Didn't HubPages announce a few years ago that in-hub referral links were already being ignored for earnings purposes by HP anyway? If so, then there is no reason for anybody to become perturbed by their now being actually removed. So hopefully none of the usual forum riots this time around.

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      calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I don't remember that.  Do you have a link?

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         paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Not a clue, not even 100% sure. The only specific things I remember are HP saying in-hub referrals were a no-no and Paul Deeds saying something to the effect that HP could ignore the referral aspect of a link without it being necessary for us having to go through all our hubs and manually finding and removing the tracker ID's.

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            calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            All I remember is HP (for a long time) discouraging it.  If the internal referral links are indeed counted, and if a person has been diligently interlinking his hubs and using his referral tracker for those links, he could very well see a small drop in income when these referral tracker links are nullified internally.

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               paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               I hope I haven't missed out on 3 years of extra 10% income because of my discontinuing the use of in-hub trackers. Oh, well. If true, I'll buy some extra popcorn for when it hits the fan.

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                  calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Probably not many people were doing it because it does require some extra work and most of us are lazy.  But I'll bring my popcorn too just in case

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                     Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     I had done it years ago. But as I said in my post earlier in this thread, the people signing up mostly never published any hubs. And those that did, didn't do well. So I never made any money from the referrals. I stopped wasting my time with it. But I'll be glad to share the popcorn.

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                        Rochelle Frankposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                        I think I tried it a couple of times, but not sure when or where. This is going to be done automatically? or do we have to do something?  I'll have some popcorn.

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                           Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                           See Marina's explanation at the beginning of this thread. That post answers your question.

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                        calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                        It's not just sign ups, when someone clicks on a url with the tracker embedded a percentage of the impressions go to the tracker owner.  That's why some people were tracker-izing all their interlinking, to supposedly get a larger share of impressions than the usual 60% (though maybe as PDS says, it didn't work if it was your own hub you were referring).
                        
                        http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/referral-program
                        
                        In addition to earning rewards by introducing new people to HubPages, you can receive a percentage of the total impressions just by sending visitors to Hubs - no Hubbing necessary. If the Hubber who wrote the Hub was referred to HubPages by someone else, you’ll get 9% of the total impressions. If nobody referred this Hubber, however, you get 12%.

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                     DasEngelposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     You and 'Paradigm Search' seem to be very good friends. In fact, it was entertaining to see you both speak as if you were but one soul.

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   Glenn Stokposted 8 years ago

   I stopped using Referral Links a long time ago since I never made any money from signups anyway. Looking over my referral report I see that most of them never even published any hubs. It will not be missed.

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   WryLiltposted 8 years ago

   What about tracker IDs in hubs specifically written to bring in referrals? That's where a lot of my referrals came from at one stage - and still do sometimes I think.
   
   Also, what about, for example "How to earn money writing" articles etc, where organic traffic would be most likely to sign up through a link?

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      Marina Lazarevicposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      The tracker IDs are removed in these cases as well. The redirect issue applies regardless of the subject matter of the Hub. It's also more practical for us to maintain uniform policy on this. I hope it doesn't impact your earnings too much!

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   DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years ago

   Are we talking about the "link to this page" utility at the very very bottom of all the pages on HP, including forum posts, that can be shared to Facebook, or what-have-you???

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      WryLiltposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      The links created through that will still work and include your referral tracker on OTHER sites (from what I read).
      
      The links just won't include your referral tracker when used on Hubpages.com

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         DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         okay--I never use them within HP, anyhow--I never thought that was the purpose. 
           I only sometimes put links (in a separate link capsule) to link to other of my own, related hubs on a topic.  But I don't use that gizmo to do it; I just copy the URL from the hub or the "my account" page.

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            WryLiltposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            In that case, this change shouldn't have any impact on you

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         Marina Lazarevicposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Yep, this is right!

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   Gloriousconfusionposted 8 years ago

   I don't understand what this all means - please could you explain it in less technical language and in a lot more detail.  Sorry about this   - I don't understand what it is we were doing previously and therefore how to put it right so we don't do it in future.

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   1. 91

      Christy Kirwanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Gloriousconfusion,
      
      If you haven't been manually placing HubPages Referral Trackers in your Hubs, then you have absolutely nothing to worry about and this change will not affect you.

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      Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Glorious, here is an explanation in non technical terms:
      http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2769792

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