Time to change the online game?

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   DasEngelposted 8 years ago

   It's getting more and more difficult everyday to earn money online. The days are long gone when hubbers used to earn the glorious sums such as 2500, or even 1800 dollars per month. Google is getting more and more stringent on quality and etc, and they're seemingly looking for Nobel laureates to author the content for Google that Google may then advertise on. Even Bubblews, our rising star of the online marketing community, has finally shut down its game.
   
   Where are we?

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      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Bubblews stopped being a rising star and started plummeting well over a year ago!   And anyone who understood the internet knew that it was a shooting star, not a rising one, and therefore had a limited lifespan right from the start.
      
      The glory days of Hubbers earning $1800 to $2000 a month stopped in 2011, when Google introduced the first Panda. At the time, Matt Cutts of Google said that Google was declaring war on "content farms". 
      
      At first, we thought he meant the many sites that existed then, full of garbage articles designed purely to fool the search engines.  But when someone pointed out that the "war" had affected genuine article sites like HubPages, his response was that was "about right".  So clearly, though WE felt we were creating something worthwhile, Google had declared the war on ALL article-writing sites.
      
      Since then we have watched all the article-writing sites struggling to survive.  HubPages is one of the few sites from that time still standing.   Many of them have closed down or merged with other sites - but before they did, all of them tried various strategies to avoid Google's wrath.  They made changes to their rules, some multiple times.  Some of them made changes to their revenue model.   Some tried making big changes to their structure - HubPages tried it in 2011 and is doing it again, Suite101 did it, Helium.com did it. 
      
      Google has made it pretty clear it wants sites that specialise, unless they are News sites.  That's the reasoning behind HubPages' current move to specialist "silos".  It will be interesting to see whether that saves us from going the same way as all the rest.

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         makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         That's not specialist enough for Google.
         
         IMO, that's just moving the deckchairs on the Titanic.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            I am doubtful myself, but time will tell I guess.

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      Ahmedammaroooposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Oh we feel sorry for this .. But this is the truth

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   FatFreddysCatposted 8 years ago

   If I was doing HubPages to get rich, I would've quit a long time ago. I just like writin' goofy stuff. If the Internet likes it and I make some beer money out of it, fine. If it doesn't, I say "OK, fine, you didn't like that one, how about this one?" and try again.

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      DasEngelposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      That's a lot of time, isn't it?

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         FatFreddysCatposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         It's a hobby. (shrugs)

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            DasEngelposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Hehe!

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   DrMark1961posted 8 years ago

   I think there is a master plan involved here. After all, would it really be a good thing if we had an extra $2000 a month to spend on beer?

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      NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I agree. And I would just spend it on fast food and snacks.

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         DrMark1961posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Remember all the threads about "how much weight have you gained since starting on HP?" We should all thank HP for our slim figures!

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            NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Lol

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   FatFreddysCatposted 8 years ago

   ...which is why I'm making sure I am all caught up with making backup copies of my Hubs. If this place suddenly turns the lights off without warning ala Bubblews, I don't wanna lose all my stuff.

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      DasEngelposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      +?

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5. 79

   LeanManposted 8 years ago

   Hubpages still has a place online and still manages to attract a huge number of views. As a whole it is still one of the top sites online despite being a "content farm".
   Yes there are many "authors" who used to earn a few thousand with hubs that today would be considered spam by not just HP but most importantly Google.. Did they all relocate those hubs off of HP onto their own sites and then start earning the thousands again without making any changes? I don't think that they did or they would all be on here shouting about it.. Yes there are many that have done better by using their own sites but I doubt that they have reached the dizzy heights that they were enjoying just a few years back.
   I work mainly on my own sites and they do earn me the money that I want - but for me this is a full time job to support my family. I still have content here and I still make money here across accounts. But my main income is generated elsewhere. I don't fight to create spammy backlinks, I don't create pages that are filled with products. But I earn a good living now.......
   As to Bubblews; well anyone that thought it would survive is deluded...
   
   Please Google don't change anything else lol.....

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6. 60

   DasEngelposted 8 years ago

   

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