HubScore is decreasing- Help!!!

1. 60

   Janellegemsposted 7 years ago

   I am sort of disappointed.  I try to be active in the site as much as possible, comment on other people's hubs, help out in the forums, add new hubs once every two weeks, participate in the question and answer and my hubscore is slowly decreasing.  Any advice from expert Hubbers on how to increase my score or why it is decreasing.  The funny thing is my traffic on my hubs are increasing and my earnings are increasing as well.  So what do you think?

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   1. 90

      Michael Kismetposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      44 is shockingly low, that is my input. 
      
      I perused your hubs, and they seem to be well written.  I can't help but notice that most of them are religion-based articles.  You'd think "the Lord" would bypass Hubpages "Hubber score algorithm", and hook you up with a few brownie points at least..
      
      All kidding aside, I have no clue or justification why your score would be THAT low!

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   2. 85

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      When you write about topics that are extremely popular, your competition is huge!  You have to put extremely original and search friendly articles out there in order to get views on those topics.  Religion, for example...can you imagine how many people must be writing on that topic?  Pretty hard for people to find yours when it is buried in the crush!  Same with movies, food, music, etc.  Also, every word you write needs to be yours...forget the quotes, copy and paste items, etc.  If you don't know enough about a particular topic to keep the wordage yours, then you need to either do a ton of research OR find a better topic!  It should be something you know a lot about and/or have extensive experience with to seem genuine to your readers.
      
      Think about this:  would someone want to read YOUR hub about Catholicism, or would they prefer to read work written by a priest, nun or historical researcher who specializes in the Catholic faith.  Some may choose yours, but most will choose the others because they will feel it is more credible.
      
      One more thing:  I would work on my titles.  Some are far too long, and several almost repeat themselves  "best movies for" ,  "best songs for", etc.  Titles can be very tricky but are the first thing that people see when they are searching. If they are bland or boring, people will ignore them.  Also, I notice you use a lot of photos that appear to be non public domain.  Do you have permission to use them?  If not, you need to replace them because using photos of famous people or logs without permission can bring a lawsuit your way because doing so is copyright infringement.

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      1. 60

         Janellegemsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks TimeTraveler.  These are some good points, advice and suggestions.  This was very helpful.  I will take a lot at my hubs and the photos.

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   3. 89

      NateB11posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      If your traffic is good and your earnings are good, you don't really need to worry about Hub Score. I know that wasn't your question, but to me that's the bottom line.

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      1. 60

         Janellegemsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I guess you are right, but still wish if my score was at least in the 50's-60's.

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         1. 86

            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Hubber Score is made up of several components, and one of them is an average of all your HubScores.
            
            Take a look at your HubScores.  If you have a lot of low-scoring Hubs, there's your answer.

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         2. 89

            NateB11posted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I looked over some of your Hubs and I think they look good and they're well-written and the titles, I'd say, are search friendly - list articles tend to do well. The one thing I notice is you hardly have any images in your articles. I find it a good general rule to follow the guidelines in the Hub Tool (what you use when you write a Hub) for what to put in a Hub in terms of bells and whistles - images being among the bells and whistles. I think the usual advice is to put about 3 images in a Hub. You find this advice/info in the upper right corner in the Hub Tool, I think it's called "Goals" or something like that - it will show how many words you have and how many   the "most successful" Hubs usually have; how many images, etc. The guide suggests different things you can add to the Hub; plus there is a template.
            
            For me this guide helps and I think it might be an indication of what is expected as far as Hub Score goes.

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            1. 86

               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Good advice.

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               1. 89

                  NateB11posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks, Marisa.

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            2. 60

               Janellegemsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks Nate.  I will try to follow that advice.  Thanks for your input.

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               1. 89

                  NateB11posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  No problem, Janelle. Hope it helps.

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   4. 92

      Sherry Hewinsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      My score has never dropped below 90 since two weeks after I signed up here. In my experience, being more active with commenting and questions and answers didn't have much effect. In fact, if you are too active, that can count against you. It seems like the algorithm sees it as gaming the system.
      
      I advise you do just do what comes naturally. Don't be extra active because of the score. Focus on improving your hubs, and writing new ones.
      
      Oh, one more thing. If your score is important to you don't follow a bunch of people at one time. That definitely decreases your score.

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      1. 81

         jackclee lmposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Hubscore does not mean anything. Don't worry about it. I don't think it affects your number of views, searches results, or payout...It is just an index created by the Quality Process of HubPages. My suggestion is to just ignore it. One of these days, HubPages will come up with a better improved algorithm to determine the ranking of hubbers based on actual content.

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         1. 69

            stephenteacherposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Hubscore must mean something or else there would not be one. Your hubscore does affect certain things. Some magic number of 85 is floating around....so I've been told.

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            1. 81

               jackclee lmposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               I did not know that. If you have credible information, please advise. Personally, I think the hubscore is just a poor metric of ranking hubbers.
               I wrote a hub recently suggesting how it can be improved-
               /hubpages.com/community/"How-To-Improve-The-Hubscore-Algorithm"

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            2. 84

               tsmogposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               This is what I have learned . . . HubScore is an indicator of quality. For more see The Meaning of HubScore. It is a queue for featuring a Hub. At Featured Hubs and the Quality Assessment Process it states aim for Rating of 6 - 8 while 8 is preferred. That is a collective rating between three categories. I presume a collective rating of 6 may correlate with a Hubber Score in the area of sixty. Those categories are:
               
               Substance
               Organization
               Grammar and mechanics
               
               See Hub Rating Scale
               
               It is also a queue used by the editors when reviewing Hubs for the Niche Sites. The HP Blog stated to aim for a Hub Score of 80.
               
               The magical 85 number applies to Hubber Score. It queues if out going links are a no-follow vs follow. If Hubber Score is below 85 HP makes them no-follow in all of your Hubs. I don't know how HP deals with articles at the Niche sites. There has been talk to be very wise using links especially Amazon. To understand more about links as follow / no-follow take a peek at Follow Links Vs. No Follow Links: Should You Care?
               
               An additional HP article that may be helpful is Elements of a Stellar Hub

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               1. 86

                  Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  No, you can't assume that the QAP rating equates directly to HubScore because the QAP rating is only ONE element.  Other elements are:
                  
                  - Ratings on the Hub Hopper
                  - Reader consumption of and interaction with the Hub (i.e. traffic, and presumably bounce rate)
                  - The length of the Hub
                  - The number of comments the Hub receives
                  - A Hubber's overall Hubber Score
                  
                  So, even if a Hub gets a poor QAP rating, it can get a better HubScore if it's long with lots of comments, and was written by a Hubber with a good HubberScore.  Therefore there can't be a direction correlation between QAP score and Hubscore or Hubberscore.
                  
                  If you look at that list of elements, you can see that although HubPages may say HubScore is a measure of quality, several of the things used to create it are not about quality at all.

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                  1. 84

                     tsmogposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     Thanks for explaining . . . have a great day . . .

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            3. 86

               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               "HubScore must mean something".   Yes, that's a common belief!
               
               A couple of years ago we had two wonderful (and highly knowledgeable) moderators, Derek and Simone. We had a terrific forum discussion about HubScores and HubberScores.   Derek and Simone admitted the algorithms were flawed and gave misleading results, and that the issue was often raised at team meetings.  However, the team were reluctant to get rid of them until they could design a replacement, and there were too many other priorities.  They advised that the best approach was to ignore them.
               
               Then the owner of HubPages dropped into the discussion to say that he loves HubScores and HubberScore. 
               
               We have never heard a moderator utter a word of criticism since.
               
               I leave you to draw your own conclusions why they still exist.
               
               (and by the way the "magic score" simply refers to the fact that below a certain score, any links in your Hubs are "no follow" - which is of no concern, unless you're trying to promote an external website).

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         2. 92

            Sherry Hewinsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I agree that the score is pretty much meaningless. However, it does no good to say that to someone who cares about it. There are things you can do to change it.

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            1. 86

               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               If someone cares about HubScore, then I think it's important for more experienced Hubbers to at least TRY to explain why they're wasting a lot of energy on something that's not important and won't earn them an extra cent.
               It's not fair to leave people in the dark!

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               1. 60

                  TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  My hubscare changes all the time. Currently, in this incarnation, it's being between 91 and 94 all the time. In my last incarnation, it was between 94 and 99 all the time.
                  
                  Why does it vary from hour to hour?

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                  1. 86

                     Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     As far as I recall from Derek's explanation a couple of years ago, it changes because HubScores are not fixed. They are based on the relative ranking of all Hubs compared to each other (there's a word for that kind of scoring,I forget what it is!).  So, as Hubs are added to or removed from HubPages, the relative rankings will change.
                     
                     Then your HubberScore is partially based on the average score of all your Hubs, so if your HubScores are changing then your HubberScore will change.

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                     1. 90

                        UnnamedHaraldposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        Would that word be "curve" as in "graded on the curve"?

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                     2. 60

                        TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        Oh. Thanks. My average hub score is between 82 and 86. So there must be other factors that push one's hubberscore higher than one's hubscore.

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                        1. 86

                           Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                           Oh yes, several. The average of your HubScores is only part of the equation.  Other activity on the site is an important factor.

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                  2. 92

                     Sherry Hewinsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     I didn't even sign in for six months, and when I came back my hubber score was 100. What the heck does that mean? Once I started being mildly active on the site again, it went back to the low to mid 90s.

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                     1. 60

                        TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        I have no idea. I've also noticed something like that. I suppose the reason one is not told the exact formula is because people would then game the system.

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   5. 60

      TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      None of your hub titles contain keywords that are searched for. Well, either that, or they are searched for, but there are a gazillion articles ahead of yours.
      
      In general, if there are religious searches on google, they will be going to the mainline religious sites. They will not be coming to your blog.
      
      You need to find topics that few write about but where there are many searches. That requires quite a bit of research.
      
      I'm confused, though. You say you are getting paid, so you are getting traffic from somewhere. I'm not sure whether that's from the large Christian community on hubpages or from Google search engines. Do you know?

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      1. 60

         Janellegemsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         TessSchelesinger, I don't only write only on religious topics, there are other topics I do write about like movies, music, gift ideas, relationship advice. I have made a goal to write on other topics that do require research.  Most of my traffic comes from Bing, Yahoo, Pinterest, Google and google from other countries.

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2. 90

   mactaversposted 7 years ago

   I read two of your Hubs and they are inspirational and well written.  I would suggest that you might try a broader base of topics.  I've been on HubPages for four years and at first I wrote about my favorite topic which is anything and everything about Arizona history.  Then I branched out to include a few general book reviews and travel information about Sedona Arizona that I hoped would be useful to visitors to our area. Since my hobby is collecting vintage items, I  wrote a few Hubs about collecting.  Last year, I wrote three Flash Fiction Hubs which were so much fun and challenged me to write a story using a minimum of words.  They are my lowest scoring Hubs, so I didn't write any others, but I'm glad I tried to expand my writing skills.  So, my best advice to raise your score is to move away from quoting the writing of others, and challenge yourself.

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   1. 60

      Janellegemsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      That's some very wise advice. My hubs consist of movies, quotes, gifts, religion, few health articles, and music to help in hard times.  Although I am getting more views on movies and music, still the individual hubscore is somewhat good.   I will follow your suggestion and pursue other topics to write on.  Thanks.  This helps.

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3. 61

   Araazposted 7 years ago

   You are doing good work..

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   1. 60

      Janellegemsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Araaz.  I appreciate that.

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4. 83

   ILoveLegosTooposted 7 years ago

   I tried doing my own calculations last year to see if I could determine if there was some type of correlation between Hub and Hubber scores.  I love numbers and so it was intriguing to try and figure out.  The closest I came was there seemed to be a correlation between the hub scores of Featured hubs and a hubber score.
   
   The one reason I don't get too hung up on the scores is that the connection between Hub Scores and Hubber Scores appears to deflate or inflate both.  I should have Hub scores that range from 95 to 15, but instead, my highest Hub score is capped in the 70's and has been for a while.  The same hubs use to have scores in the high 80's to low 90's.  But as my hubber score fell, so did the score of my highest hub.   And as the scores of my hubs fell, so did my hubber score.  And so the cycle began and eventually leveled out to where it is now.
   
   I don't mind that they use hub scores to create a hubber score.  However, I feel they incorrectly use the hubber score as an input into the hub score which makes it difficult for both scores to go up and down.
   
   This leads me not to be very active on Hub Pages, since I don't have an example of my own writing that appears high in the hub score algorithms.  Visits and payouts remain steady, so I plug along whenever I get the chance.

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      That's interesting.   If you look at the HubPages official explanation of scores, you'll see that HubberScore affects HubScore, and HubScore affects HubberScore (although it's the average of all Hubs).
      
      If you tried to write a formula like that in science or maths, you'd get a big blinking warning that said "Circular Reference!", so it has always bugged me.
      
      

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   2. 60

      Janellegemsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      ILoveLegostoo, I do agree with you and see your point.  Scores go up and down daily.  My hubscore a year and half ago was 80-90s.  My individual hubscore on each hub now range from 48- 70's and an average of 53.  Hubpages has really changed.    I do my best to be active when I can.

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