It's probably a familiar scene...You check out your hub account and go to your profile and see...DUN DUN DUN...your score has gone down! AAHHH!! WHY?!?

Maybe it's changed as little as a point or two or as much as ten or more. No matter the amount, our scores have all fluctuated. Often several times in a single day. Why is this occurring and what have I done wrong, you may ask. Well, maybe this hub will help to answer that. And, hopefully, it will raise my score a little in the process...

HubPages help section has this to say about hubscores and how/why they change:

14.What's a HubScore?

"We use this to determine the quality of individual Hubs, much like Google ranks popular pages. Many factors contribute to our rating scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being our top score. A HubScore is used to determine your Status. "

15.How is HubScore computed?

"HubScore takes into account a number of factors, and will vary quite a bit from the time a Hub is published as data about its performance continues to stream in. The most important HubScore components that you should be concerned with include:

•Amount of traffic, including percentage from sources other than HubPages

•The length of the Hub (the more unique writing, generally, the better)

•The uniqueness of content (copying content already available on the Web will be penalized)

•The number of thumbs-up votes from unique users

•The overall quality of the Hubber (author HubScore and Status)

We reserve the right to change the factors used to assess a Hub’s HubScore as we continue to determine those that measure a great Hub.

The bottom line is if you write original, useful content, your HubScores will reflect the quality and work you've put into them."

*To find out more--click the help tab in the upper right hand corner and click the link on the right hand side for hubscores*

With all the forums devoted to hubscores, I had to take the opportunity to put in my two cents. You may think, hey--she's a newbie, what does she know?? Well, as that is true, I haven't been here long, it is also true that I've seen a few drastic hubscore changes in very little time.

When I first started on HP, on April 20th, I put up a Hub immediately. Not my best work, but I wanted to have something on there. It got me a fan and a couple views. I think my beginning score was in the 60's. 65ish or so. I put up another hub later that day and it was pretty much the same story.

The next day was when I really kicked some hub butt... I published four hubs on April 21st, one of which has received my third highest number of views. My score jumped to the 70's. Since then, I have continued to add hubs, on average about two a day.

Just by writing hubs and that alone, my score made it to 71. I slowly ventured into other areas of hubpages as I started figuring things out. Basically, I started exploring.

Through looking around the HP community, I discovered various forums I found interesting and posted on them. A total of 9 posts in about two days. I'm not quite sure how or even if forum posting changes anything, as the scores don't sem to change immediately after anything. Forum posting can be fun and a little addicting though, so I do encourage everyone to check them out!

I also found a Question/ request I thought interesting and answered it. These are great ways to not only get yourself noticed and draw traffic to your site, but a great way to add to your number of published hubs. (HP also has asection of ideas for hubs that you can write about if you need inspiration.)

Commenting/fan clubbing/fan mailing are also great ways to get out there, too. More often than not, if you become a fan or leave some nice fan mail, the same will be given back to you. Hubbers are incredible supporters of each other! So get out there and view some hubs!!

The rating system at the bottom of each hubs may be a good place to raise your score, too. By rating a hub you like or dislike, you are participating and HP will thank you. Whether it raises the score or not, hard to say, but it is still a good way to get active in the community. And nice for the hubs you rate up!

I can't remember where I read that scores are calculated every so often, so after you write a hub or whatever, it may take a little while for your score to reflect that. So don't get discouraged if you've posted and published your little heart out and still nothing has changed. I say give it about a day to reflect activity in the HP community.

So you've published, published, published but still no views, eh? How do you get traffic to your site?

Well...first of all, write a few hubs that might interest a majority. I'm not saying ALL your hubs should be written for an audience. In fact I'm a big believer that you should write for YOU--but, if your goal is traffic and all your hubs fall in a very specific genre, you may want to think about branching out a little. Couldn't hurt and it will draw in a few more faces that might be interested in your other hubs as well.

A catchy title is good too. A catchy title makes people want to read which equals views and higher scores :)

Be seen! I've checked out several hubber's hubs because I saw them in a forum and they looked interesting. I know my own traffic increased after I posted on forums.

Advertise!! Well, sort of. You're not allowed to link to a hub in a comment or promote your own hubs on HP, but you can link and promote all you want from outside sources. Have a Facebook, MySpace or Twitter? Use them to draw people to your hub. HP even has banners and badges you can place on your FB and MySpace pages for others to click on. There's a step by step guide for increasing traffic in the my account section.

Click Traffic Sources on the right hand side --> How Do I get more traffic button --> follow the guide.

You can blog about your hub, comment on FB or Myspace or Twitter about your hub and email friends to check it out. Your traffic isn't limited to just other hubbers.

So, in conclusion (wow that feels like a high school term paper) here's how I think you might be able to raise your score...

1. PUBLISH LOTS OF ORIGINAL CONTENT!! Or just a decent amount, but the more the better.

2. Visit the forums, answer requests and comment on other hubs. In general, be active in the community.

3. Show support for fellow hubbers. Become a fan, rate up a good hub, leave fan mail. More often than not it is reciprocated. Hubbers are lovers :)

4. Draw traffic to your hub from sources outside HubPages.

This is what I've done for myself. Not intentionally to raise my score, it's just how it happened. In eight days (and I'm seriously not tooting my own horn, here) my score went from 65 to 91 (highest yet!!). So, as you can see, it's not all that hard to figure out what probably did it. That's why my newbieness had an advantage. :)

So...hopefully this hub will be a helpful tool for all of us and we'll all have scores of 100 in no time. Then they'll probably raise the top score to 500 or something...

P.S. As I've been writing this, my score has continued to fluctuate between 90 and 91...who knows...maybe they are just messing with us :) LOL