Concern about placement of related articles

1. 85

   TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years ago

   It really irks me to work my butt off to create a hub, and then find that related articles from another writer here appear right at the top beside my hub instead of  my own showing first.  I do not think this is right.  I don't mind sharing, but at least show me the courtesy of listing a few of MY articles first and showing those of my competition in the second group.  The argument will, of course be, that the same is true for them, ie, that mine show up first, but I feel the same way about their situation.  Why should my work be fodder for advertising someone elses before advertising my own!

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   1. 91

      Jesse Drzalposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      It comes off as selfish, at best. You think the others didn't work their buts off as well?

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      1. 83

         Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         No, it's not selfish, I can see her point.  If her work is what has attracted the attention of the search engines, then she deserves to be rewarded for that. 
         
         I think HubPages has always been ambivalent when it comes to authors.  On the one hand, they acknowledge that author expertise and authority is important.  On the other hand, they seem to be worried about authors getting too big-headed and creating too much of a brand on HP - they want the site to shine, not the individual authors. 
         
         I've seen the balance ebb and flow over the years.  When I joined, we had a huge author photo and bio at the top of every Hub, and readers could sign up to follow our individual feed of articles.  Then the RSS feed was removed, and our photo was made so tiny you could barely see who wrote the article.  We've gone back to a more prominent author box now but it still seems a bit unbalanced.

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      2. 85

         TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

         You totally missed my point.  I don't think my work should serve to advertise the work of other people FIRST.  I don't mind if they are placed next.  I think that's fair.  I wouldn't expect my work to be advertised first on someone else's hubs either.   You've always been quick to criticize, but before you do, you should make sure you completely understand what is being said here.  Read Marissa's post here, and you'll see what I mean.

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2. 97

   Glenn Stokposted 7 years ago

   TT2, As you mentioned, the same is true for them. That means that you are getting traffic from visitors who see your hub listed in other people's hubs.
   
   Take a look at your traffic sources and see how much traffic you're getting from HubPages. That's where that traffic is coming from.
   
   Besides, your own hubs are listed at the top of your hubs under the "more" link.

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3. 88

   lobobrandonposted 7 years ago

   If people like what you've written at most they are going to open the related articles in new tabs. I totally get your point, but what I do is interlink within the text of my hub if I think an article would be helpful. I get a lot of traffic flowing across like this.
   
   If HP gives authors the option to pick hubs that go in the related section you'd put only related hubs, but what about the others? Most would just put in their hubs whether relevant or not.
   
   Personally, to better the user experience I think HP should give us an option to enter keywords. Upto 3 and not more. And they should use those keywords to match hubs (content of hubs and not the keywords someone entered) else you could game the system again to just show your own hubs.
   
   The reason I say this is because very often on my Range Hood hubs I see articles on Car hoods, etc. If I had the option to pick: Range, hood, stove for instance, it would surely match stuff up better. I bet the car hood article has no mention of range or stove.

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