From A Moderator’s Mouth: Overly Promotional Hubs

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By Maddie Ruud


Whether you've had a hub flagged for overly promotional content, whether you're looking to avoid being flagged, or whether you're wondering what Hubs merit flagging, it's helpful to know exactly what to look for, so I've put together this Hub to tell you what we at HubPages look for. I hope it serves to clarify our rules and the moderation process, for hub-writers and hub-viewers alike!

Feel free to leave additional questions in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer them.

What is Overly Promotional Content?

When you sign up for HubPages, you agree to our Terms of Use, which prohibit publishing Hubs that are "overly promotional, including excessive linking to any one site or domain," "link to pages or sites that are unrelated to the topic and content of your Hub," or "attempt to automatically redirect Website users to other domains, mislead users of the origins of the content contained in your Hubs, or use your Hubs as storage for remote loading or to a website outside of the website."

The FAQs are a little more explicit about a specific definition of the term itself, but there remains much to be said about the particulars we look for when removing a Hub from circulation and asking an author to revise it. If your hub has been flagged as overly promotional, check against the following common problems to see whether your Hub falls into any of the following categories.

Common Problems

2 links to a single domain

There is sometimes confusion over this, the simplest of the "overly promotional" guidelines. Web newbies may think that, in linking to different pages on the same site, they are not in violation of this rule. We do not look at individual pages, but rather at the domain name (everything before the .com or .net). Affiliate links like Clickbank sites and cloakers** like TinyURL, though they may navigate to different domains, all count as a single domain for the purposes of the 2-link rule. In general, news sites and wikis are exempt from this rule. **Note: cloakers provide their own specific problems, which are addressed in the section of that name, below.

Excessive use of cloakers

Some Hubbers think they can get around the 2-link rule with the use of cloakers or redirections. In fact, the use of cloakers backfires; they are considered "wild cards" and add to the total number of links to whatever other domains you've linked to directly. For example, if you have two affiliate links in a Hub, and one cloaked link, that puts you over the limit. In the same way, one affiliate link and two cloakers would also push your Hub into the category of overly promotional.

Outbound links on duplicate content

The exception to the 2-link rule is when the Hub in question is unoriginal, or duplicated in whole or large part from other sources on the web. Whether or not you own the rights to content, or wrote it yourself, is not relevant for this meaning of the word "original"-it refers to whether or not the content is unique to HubPages. If it is not, you are not permitted to use it to promote your products, affiliate offers, or website.

Short hubs with links

A Hub of only a paragraph, with little substance, or with a teaser and a link to "read more" is also considered overly promotional, since it does not provide our visitors with any real content, and simply bounces traffic to another site.

Promotional RSS feeds

Obviously, the use of RSS feeds often (if not always) means more than two links to a single domain. They do generally provide an exception to the 2-link rule, except in two cases. The first is affiliate feeds. We provide Amazon and EBay capsules to allow users to generate revenue from the display of relevant products on their Hubs, so affiliate links to these sites are redundant, and affiliate feeds to other websites break our 2-link promotion rule. The other is when a user has linked to the same site both in the body of the text and in an RSS feed capsule, especially when these make up the bulk of the outbound links on the Hub.

Unrelated links

Placing links to sites with content unrelated to the subject matter of your Hub is not permitted. This includes attaching a section to the bottom of every Hub advertising your blog, site, or affiliate opportunity, unless the Hub itself is about the same topic. Of course, the 2-link rule still applies in these cases, and "hiding" the link or links at the very bottom of the hub below a comment or RSS capsule won't make a difference in your link count.


A Few Final Words

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of criteria. If your Hub has been flagged, but does not easily identify with any of these situations, that does not mean it is not overly promotional or was wrongly flagged. I am merely offering up some problems I often run into in the hopes that it helps answer some questions Hubbers commonly raise when their Hubs are moderated. If, after reading these common problems, you are still unclear as to why your Hub has been flagged, send an email to team@hubpages.com, rather than simply resubmitting it without making changes, as this may result in the banning of your account.

Comments

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Maddie Ruud profile image

Maddie Ruud  says:
5 weeks ago

If you have specific questions about your hub, please email the team email box at the address above. You're welcome to leave more general questions about policy here.

Ralph Deeds profile image

Ralph Deeds  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks. That's helpful.

TotalHealth profile image

TotalHealth  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks for the guidelines, definitely helpful.

joblot profile image

joblot  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks for the clarification - useful info.

Gadzooks profile image

Gadzooks  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks, I just deleted my rss feed after reading this as that pointed to same domain...

quotations profile image

quotations  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks for the clarification.

I have a question about when a hub is considered commercial or not. I have read the FAQ but I am still unclear about what linking "to other commercial sites" means. Obviously if I linked to a site that sells something that would be commercial. But what if all they are an information site and only "sell" advertising. Is that commercial?

Someone on the forums posted a comment saying that if you link to any site that has advertising then your hub is considered commercial (even if you have nothing to do with the site you link to and receive no benefit from that site.) Is that true? If it is then basically any hub with an outbound link would be commercial because it would be difficult to find a site to link to (except of course Wikipedia) that did not have some form of advertising such as adsense. I realize this question is not entirely on topic, but I would greatly appreciate it if you could clear this up for me.

Thanks in advance.

Rob Jundt profile image

Rob Jundt  says:
5 weeks ago

Great advice clearly explained.

Whitney05 profile image

Whitney05  says:
5 weeks ago

Looks great Maddie. Tons of helpful information. A great guide to go to if you get a little confused.

In The Doghouse profile image

In The Doghouse  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks Maddie, this will help a lot.

sharikraemer73  says:
5 weeks ago

Thank you this is very helpful! All of my confusion is gone.

Tessali profile image

Tessali  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks, Maddie. This does clarrify a lot. I at least understand a lot more than I did before. I still do not know what an RSS feed is. Yes, I know, I am a little slow in this Internet World of technology. I don't use it because I have no clue what it is. Silly me!

SirDent profile image

SirDent  says:
5 weeks ago

Very good info. Thanks for sharing.

commentonthis7 profile image

commentonthis7  says:
5 weeks ago

good info thanks

Maddie Ruud profile image

Maddie Ruud  says:
5 weeks ago

quotations:

The issue of commercial hubs is very different from overly promotional ones. Commercial hubs are simply any that have links to outside websites other than reputable news sites or non-profits. If you have affiliate links, links to your own website, or links to a website that sells or promotes any products on your hub, it needs to have an ad setting of high. A reputable news site like CNN.com may have advertising on its articles, but linking to an article as reference would not mandate a "commercial" setting on your hub. In contrast to the standards for "overly promotional" hubs, however, if you're linking to your own blog or to Clickbank, it doesn't matter how many times you do so, that hub automatically qualifies as commercial.

Hope that clarifies.

Andy Xie profile image

Andy Xie  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks for posting this great info! I especially agree with the unrelated links.

Mary K Weinhagen profile image

Mary K Weinhagen  says:
5 weeks ago

I am so delighted to find hubs that clarify how to best use and create hubpages.

Thanks so much for this hub, Maddie.

(Now I've just gotta figure out how to get a picture up by the text like your can of spam! ;-))

~~Mary K

Shirley Anderson profile image

Shirley Anderson  says:
5 weeks ago

Yikes! I put links to kijiji sites in different countries.....should I pull them out of my hub to avoid being flagged?

Thx, Maddie! You are doing a great job!

esocial profile image

esocial  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks for the info!

traffickahuna profile image

traffickahuna  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks for the great info. :D

Soya profile image

Soya  says:
5 weeks ago

very useful info

William F. Torpey profile image

William F. Torpey  says:
5 weeks ago

I don't think I promote anything on my hubs, but this is good information to know. Thanks, Maddie.

Dorsi profile image

Dorsi  says:
5 weeks ago

Thanks Maddie. I have an interesting hub that has been a real challenge for me that I'm working at in draft form right now. It's an interesting subject from a writers standpoint, but because of the content I have to be careful not to be overly promotional.

Ponderize profile image

Ponderize  says:
4 weeks ago

I just had these exact questions, so glad I found this article. Thanks.

b opinionated profile image

b opinionated  says:
2 weeks ago

Increrdibbley useful information for a new hubber like myself. Thanks for all the information!

outlawbybirth profile image

outlawbybirth  says:
32 hours ago

Opps

colin mcdermott profile image

colin mcdermott  says:
29 hours ago

Glad I stumbled accross this!

Two of my hubs were marked as sub par- but I had put a lot of effort into them so I was confused. This clears it up - it was probably more than one link to the same website.

Will tidy up and resubmit :)

Tah!

Filiz profile image

Filiz  says:
24 hours ago

Many thanks for this!

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