Referral Links in your own hubs - yes or no?

1. 86

   embitcaposted 16 years ago

   Okay, I'm trying to figure this out. Is it advantageous to use a referral link in your own hubs when linking to other hubs of your own? I notice some people use them, but most don't. I mostly haven't, but I'm wondering if I should implement it since I'm planning on doing some more cross-linking between my hubs to move traffic internally.
   
   Thoughts?  Does it increase the revshare? Make any difference?

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2. 60

   LisaGposted 16 years ago

   I have only recently started to put referral links in my hubs.  What I found advantageous to it is that a another persons hub might be closely related to mine, so instead of repeating basically the same things, I just link it to add substance.  I'm not sure how much income it generates yet as I said before I only started using it.

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3. 68

   Angela Harrisposted 16 years ago

   I've also just started using the referral links. But I still don't quite 'get' them. I read Darkside's explanation. It was a lot of help.
   However, I don't understand 'estimated earnings' on the tracking stats. I have 1 signup, no hubs, no hub traffic, and X amount of 'estimated earnings'. What does this mean, exactly? Is this actual earnings, earnings potential, ??? And how is the estimated amount calculated, if it is just an estimate?
   (Sorry I wasn't any help answering the original question. I was just going to post this message anyway, and it was closely related. I figured others may be confused, too.)

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   1. 66

      darksideposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      I use trackers (referrals) when linking to my own. Whether it's outside of hubpages or inside of hubpages.
      
      There's two reasons to use it...
      
      1) to get a cut of the pageviews. Especially if you're linking to someone elses hub. Now I'm not sure if we get the extra 9 or 12% of pageviews if we link to our own.
      
      2) if someone signs up to hubpages and they arrived at the site or get diverted to the sign up stage via your tracker then you get a reward. 10% of the pageviews for the life of the Author.
      
      The sooner you get in there and "cookie" the visitor the better chance you have of having that opportunity open for 30 days.
      
      That's explained more at How HubPage Tracking Works.
      
      
      
      
      
      I don't understand it either.
      
      'estimated earnings' = a big fat guess.
      
      And I think the guess is way off the mark.

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      1. STAFF

         pauldeedsposted 16 years agoin reply to this

         Basically the estimated earnings is just 10% of our earnings estimate for each hub.  For instance, lets say you have 1500 views combined between 'hub traffic' and 'traffic hub views'  distributed as follows.
         
         200 views to Hub A - estimated CPM for Hub A is $8.00
         1000 views to Hub B - estimate CPM for Hub B is $3.50
         300 views to Hub C - estimated CPM for Hub C is $5.00
         
         Your estimated earnings would when be $0.66 the sum of:
         
         10% * (200/1000) * $8.00 = $0.16
         10% * (1000/1000) * $3.50 = $0.35
         10% * (300/1000) * $5.00 = $0.15
         
         The deviation for an individual case may be high, but on average the estimates are accurate almost by definition (if you sum them up for all hubs as above using the HubPages 40% share of impressions it comes out very close to our total earnings).
         
         The CPM estimate for individual hubs is based on our measurement of the CPM in different topic areas, assigned on to hubs based on how they are tagged.  Again, these can be off for individual hubs (but are accurate on average).  For instance as an extreme example if you tagged a recipe hub finance we would overestimate the CPM for that hub (but their would be a compensating under estimate for other hubs).
         
         There are a few users we know that have either no hubs, or negligible traffic to their hubs, whose earnings are therefore nearly wholly from the affiliate program.  I have compared the estimated earnings with their actual earnings, and it wasn't t off by more than about 20% in any of those cases.  That is a small sample of course and your mileage may vary, but in general I would say those estimates are fairly accurate (and the best we can do based on the data we have, in any case).
         
         Note: One caveat, the estimates assume you have had all the affiliate programs active over the entire period.

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         1. 66

            darksideposted 16 years agoin reply to this

            I'm so going to steal that!
            
            (if it's alright with you)

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            1. STAFF

               pauldeedsposted 16 years agoin reply to this

               Not a problem -- I'm not sure I explained it that well.
               
               Once you understand it, the affiliate program isn't really that complicated, but it is difficult to put into words.
               
               The bottom line is, whether you understand it or not, if you use the trackers in your links you won't make less more money, you will probably make more, and if you get lucky with a couple good signups you might make a lot more.

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               1. 66

                  darksideposted 16 years agoin reply to this

                  It took me a little while to get my head around it. And then a while longer to get it into words that I hoped would be able to get the point across.
                  
                  And it's an excellent system/incentive/scheme and the management of HubPages are to be commended for implementing it.

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4. 83

   jimmythejockposted 16 years ago

   I have recently started experimenting with trackers in one or two of my hubs, after my article i place a text box with a small add that reads
   
   Hubpages.com
   You too could be a Hubpages author, sign up today for free and start making money from ebay amazon and google click here and start earning.
   
   an example can be found at this hub
   http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Ladies-Bra-Song

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   1. 66

      darksideposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      I've been thinking of doing the same thing.
      
      Though I might place it under the Comments Capsule and make it the last thing in the hub.
      
      Edit: You should link it straight to the Sign Up page.
      
      And make a tracker that suits it. I claimed the tracker "join". So mine looks like this: http://hubpages.com/_join/user/new/

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5. 86

   embitcaposted 16 years ago

   Thanks guys for the explanations. So I think I will go ahead and start using the trackers.  Also, great tips on adding sign up links to your hubs as well. I already have a few sign-ups. So far my referrals have actually made more hubs than me, which is awesome!

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6. 74

   bloggerdollarposted 16 years ago

   I asked a question to hubpages team using contact button but since no response I guess it would be better to ask here.
   
   Does our referral earnings automatically add to our adsense earnings??
   What I try to ask is if one of our referral surfs the hubs and clicks one of the ads then our share will be added to our adsense account immedieatly right??

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   1. STAFF

      pauldeedsposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      That is correct.  It uses the same impression sharing system as on your own hubs.
      
      One small clarification, we share impressions not revenue.  So, 9%, 12%, or 30% (on non-authored pages such as, http://hubpages.com/hubs/hot/ ) of the time your ad will be in place (and you'll get 100% of the revenue).  The rest of the time it will be the author's or HubPages's ad.

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7. 68

   Angela Harrisposted 16 years ago

   Thanks, Paul, for the detailed explanation.
   Jimmy, I had planned on implementing a link similar to yours. Thanks for the example.
   I guess it's time to start updating.

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