Share your Insights on Quality Assessment Process, Getting Featured

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  1. janderson99 profile image54
    janderson99posted 11 years ago

    The purpose of this post is NOT to moan and groan, but rather to better understand it, by sharing your insight and experiences. Obviously we now have to work using its parameters.
    Stayin' Alive Ha Ha Ha

  2. paradigmsearch profile image60
    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    I am cautiously optimistic.

  3. janderson99 profile image54
    janderson99posted 11 years ago

    The Terminology has changed as well as the Symbols on the My Account Page

    => 'ZZZ' has gone and its now called 'normal' and appears as a 'blank' on the summary page under "Featured" - If you click on the heading "Featured" the listing will be sorted and show 'H' - featured. 'Swirly arrows' - pending and 'blank' - normal = Idle.

    Featured and 'Unfeatured' (Idle)
    The process of going from 'Featured' to 'Normal' (blank)
    From the Q&A page

    "Hubs which may be initially Featured, may return to a normal state if lower( sic - I think this should be higher) quality ratings come in or if the Hub experiences low levels of reader engagement over time."  i.e there are 'quality' thresholds and 'traffic' thresholds and hubs may be 'unfeatured' if either their quality or 'engagement (traffic +)' falls below the target thresholds (which can change in time).

    You an get more insight at http://hubpages.com/faq/#featured-request

    additional extract

    How can I tell if my Hub is not Featured for Quality or for Engagement reasons?

    If you publish a new Hub or edit an existing Hub that is not immediately Featured, you can be confident that it is not Featured for quality reasons.

    If a Hub that used to be Featured lapses back to a normal state on its own, it is most likely that the Hub is not Featured for engagement reasons.

    1. paradigmsearch profile image60
      paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Now this particular quote kind of scares me... "Because we want to highlight long-form, media-rich content on HubPages, some Hubs that are just average may not be Featured."

      If a simple text hub with a few pics is getting steady traffic (and thus generating income), it really should be left strictly alone. I mean really. Google likes it. The visitors like it. It's making money. The thing is contributing to society in every respect. And did I mention it was making money? Throwing those kinds of articles out...

      1. janderson99 profile image54
        janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

        My guess is that if an old simple hub is reviewed its traffic will be considered in the decision whether it stays featured (bit like hubscore).
        For a new hub I think the logic is 'long-form, media-rich content' is more likely to get traffic and so it gets Featured. If the traffic does not occur in the future it my be 'unfeatured'.
        Staff may provide better answers!

        1. paradigmsearch profile image60
          paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I don't have the resources to do "media-rich content". But I do have the "resources" to write text hubs with .gov pics that sometimes can and do: 1. Entice Google. 2. Serve the reader well. 3. Get traffic and make money. I hope HP doesn't take that away from me.

          1. Barbara Kay profile image73
            Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I don't have a lot of photos to access for some hubs either.

          2. Healthy Pursuits profile image81
            Healthy Pursuitsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I never pay for a picture or video, and they are all legal. I use some gov sites, Wikimedia commons, Flickr Commons, some university sites that allow copying, etc. There have been a few times that I've emailed people and have received permission to use the picture. It seems to work for me. If I can't find anything else, I use Amazon and ebay capsules as my intro photo, with relevant items to sell.

    2. IzzyM profile image86
      IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      So those of us who are not getting hubs featured immediately upon publication, can assume it is because the hub is not of quality?

      Well that's me told!

      1. janderson99 profile image54
        janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

        If you go to https://www.mturk.com/mturk/searchbar?s … 2ES1DAIYZZ

        and click "view a HIT in this group" it gives examples of rating score 1, 3, 5, 7, 9  - which may provide some insight - no idea of what the cutoff is at the moment !!!!!   My guess is that its pretty low for now (5?).   PS the '5' one is indexed BUT no longer published.  7 and 9 are live on HP.

        If you go to http://www.hubpages.com/hubs/latest you can see what is getting Featured.

  4. janderson99 profile image54
    janderson99posted 11 years ago

    If you edit a Featured Page it does not go 'Pending' BUT it does get reassessed through QPA
    If you edit a 'normal' or blank hub,  it goes 'Pending' and has a chance of being Featured. It may not pass and so goes back to being blank.
    If its Featured but gets low engagement, it may revert to 'normal' again.
    If you have a page that has low traffic there may be advantages in waiting until it slips back to normal, as a hub that passes QPA appears to get a reprieve in terms of traffic considerations - it may stay featured for longer. The criteria are not stated and so its unclear which hubs are about to be 'blanked'
    There are advantages in dealing with slips back to normal, as soon as possible after you notice them, so that the G bot won't see the 'NOINDEX' Tag.

    1. aa lite profile image85
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      What I found most interesting about that faq was how people use language to manipulate how others feel.  Not so long ago "normal" was to publish a hub on HP, get it indexed in search engines asap, and hope it would rank well.  Now "normal" is a hub that has a meta tag to prevent Google indexing, and if it is extra lovely with bells and whistles (ok not really) it will get the great honour of allowing the bots to index it.

      I am all for getting rid of the spam and low quality content that Google complains about and penalises the site for, but  once that is gone  don't really see the advantage of no-indexing good hubs that have 'low reader engagement'.

    2. aa lite profile image85
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Actually I was thinking, but was obviously wrong, that the idling of existing hubs could be a way of doing quality control on existing hubs, which are not usually seen by hub hopper.  A hub that didn't get much traffic would be idled, you would edit it a bit so it would go back into pending, pass through the quality assessment and be indexed again.  Presumably most of the spammers, never come to the site to revive their idled hubs. 

      This would be a way for HubPages to get rid of the low quality stuff that exists on the site and prevent new site from being added.

      Obviously I was wrong because according to my system once an idled hub was revived and went through the quality control it would not go idle again because it was quality assessed, but obviously no, they really want to no index low traffic hubs.  Why?

  5. psycheskinner profile image83
    psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

    Well, that's one way to spin the hell out of it.

    From "sometimes we hide your hubs from Google" into "most of the time we 'feature' your hubs".

  6. profile image0
    Nell Hoxsieposted 11 years ago

    I think that many of these standards that HP is attempting to articulate are based on the characteristics of the Hubs that are performing well. So I'm trying to stay calm and listen. This is easy for me to do because I'm starting over here and don't have a lot of content.

    From what I'm gathering long and detailed is the way to go. It also seems that it's good to pick a topic on which I can be considered an expert. It appears Google now assess my credentials in some way. Visitors stay on a page that has lots of things to look at and interact with. Media is therefore important, so bounce rates are low. Of course I still have to pick keywords and topics that people search on. I've also been working on developing a unique point of view on the niche I intend to cover - and to cover it in a way that hasn't been done before.

    Many of Paul Edmondson's comments have lead me in the above direction. But it wouldn't surprise me if these guidelines change with the changing world of Search Engine placement. Understanding this process is challenging. It's very different from the world of affiliate marketing that I am used to. But I have to admit that I'm enjoying it. So my frustration level is probably lower than someone looking at 150 Hubs that aren't doing so well.

    I also have to admit that PE's comments agree with a lot of things that I'm seeing when I look at my own online portfolio. Although on the flip side, I still have datafeed product sites going gangbusters. I just live with the notion that these could disappear in the SERPs over night.

    So in my gut, I do think that HP is going in the right direction. But I'm sure there will be many bumps along the way.

  7. profile image0
    Nell Hoxsieposted 11 years ago

    But the thing is we don't know what the cut off point is or if there is one. Perhaps its a signal for another layer of review and that's that.

    As for hubs not being featured upon publication. I'm not sure if that means they are subjected to the waiting period - or if they are idled immediately. It seems that some hubbers, that HP has collected certain info on, are exempt. That doesn't mean you're a bad writer if that hasn't happened yet. If my hubs were getting idled right after submission, I would do my best to find out under what criteria. Then I would decided how to adapt.

    1. aa lite profile image85
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The whole "idling while pending" of new hubs is a little bit different from the idling  of existing hubs.  I think most people on forums have no problems with getting their hubs published (or featured or whatever) after the pending period, all my hubs pass the "quality assessment" easily (which is not to say that they are that great, but that the process isn\t that picky),  but the no-index tag put on them when they are put into pending (or going through the quality assessment) does strange things to the Google bots, new hubs are now taking weeks to be indexed. 

      I am lucky, so far submitting to WMT got them indexed quickly but for some people even that doesn't work.  That is annoying.

      As to getting idled (or not featured according to the new nomenclature) of hubs that have passed the quality assessment, I don't really see the point of that.  The main problem though is that it is all not working! The idling of hubs was introduced at end of August, if you look at the quant cast graph for HP, its not exactly brilliant. 

      On the other hand Squidoo, were a lot of very successful lenses don't have that much original content really, mostly consisting of Amazon capsules, Zazzle line etc. is doing really, really well.

      1. Dame Scribe profile image57
        Dame Scribeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        I don't think Squidoo applies 'no-index' robot text on lenses either hmm once HP idles a hub, it's updated, passes QAP, it can still fall back into idle.

        1. janderson99 profile image54
          janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Squidoo does apply a NOINDEX tag to WIP lenses, but only after they have been on the site for some time with low scores. The tag is not applied immediately as they are for all hubs on HP during 'Pending'. I have a Squidoo account with old WIPs.

          1. aa lite profile image85
            aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            The one thing that Squidoo does is that it gives each lens lensrank so you can see how its doing (admittedly only relatively to all the other lenses), you know that when your lensrank falls below 400k it will be put in WIP, so if you want to avoid WIP lenses you can take evasive action.

            The main thing that squidoo is doing right, is that they just get better traffic, and avoid being slapped with Google algo upgrades, so far (this can always change).  It is also a lot easier to get readers and reader interactions when the platform you are writing on isn't carrying a Google penalty.

            The thing that I don't like about Squidoo is that everything there is relative to other lenses.  As the number of lenses increases it becomes more competitive and harder to get into the top tiers.

  8. Dame Scribe profile image57
    Dame Scribeposted 11 years ago

    As I've said before. I think all we have to do to discern our featured vs idled hubs and look at them. Then see the type of 'audience' they are attracting. It gives a good indication of the type of information that's getting searched and says a lot about the 'audience' we got to cater to tongue anything of high ed hubs seem to get buried.

  9. rebekahELLE profile image85
    rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago

    I haven't published anything new for a while, but keep tabs on my hubs and update them as needed.  All of my hubs are featured.  Now I'm hesitant to update.  I was surprised to see the official forum thread disappear from the top only after a couple of days and closed to reply.  I think it deserves to be an open discussion between hubbers and staff.  I don't feel like my subdomain is really mine anymore if every time I update or publish, someone making pennies will review my hub for quality.  I don't understand the new contest, when a year ago product hubs were discouraged.  I know times change, but I do have questions and concerns.

  10. aware profile image68
    awareposted 11 years ago

    im not growing content for hub pages  these days..

  11. Dame Scribe profile image57
    Dame Scribeposted 11 years ago

    Well, either way, over all, it's bad for the writer. Some of us are going to have to just move to independent or friendlier sites. I actually managed to raise my blogger blog up a page rank lol and probably will do better once on a hosted domain. Here, it's just getting too .... hmm  but I get the hint and am deleting hubs tongue

  12. janderson99 profile image54
    janderson99posted 11 years ago

    Theory - Hubscore is the Defacto Hub Rating used for 'Blanking'
    HP have admitted that the Quality rating is fed into the hubscore:
    "we are factoring scores received through the QAP into the HubScore"
    Here are my observations:
    => If you click on the "Featured" heading in the table on "my account" TWICE the ones listed first and the 'Blanks' and 'Pending'.  The featured hubs are listed with lowest hubscore at the top.
    => If you edit a 'blank' (Idle) hub - when it is made featured again the hubscore gets a boost from say 65 to 75. I think this is due to a combination of the quality rating + a reset of the traffic score. What happens is that the say: "Ok you've edited the page and so we will give the page a chance to see if it can attract traffic so the traffic part of hubscore is set to a maximum". If the hub gets little traffic over the next weeks or months the traffic part of the score declines and the hubscore falls.
    => If you edit a 'featured' hub for some reason, the hubscore changes after about 24 hours for the same reason: QAP changes + the boost to the traffic part of the hubscore.
    => I think the low traffic trigger for downgrading a 'Featured' hub to 'blank' works independently of hubscore. All hubs with a wide range of scores can get 'blanked' if their traffic falls below some threshold irrespective of their hubscore - usually for hubs more than 6 months old.
    => I think the new cut-off for being featured may be a hubscore over 50 - If you look at www.hubpages.com/hubs/latest and look at ones approved more than 24 hours ago (ie been through pending) there are none with hubscores below 50!
    I would be interested in other people's observations on this.
    The bottom line is that hubs with a low hubscore (less than 65???) are endangered and are likely to get 'blanked' when the Grim Reaper Visits. Double clicking on 'Featured' shows them. Any comments?

    1. aa lite profile image85
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      On another thread (I think it was Marissa's saying hubs with a score of less than 30 should be automatically idled), an HP staffer actually said that hubscores were not being used you can read his answer here http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/105772

      My top blank (I really proffered the star and Zzz markings) hub has a score of 77. 

      I agree with you that "younger" hubs get a less harsh treatment in terms of being idled, I've noticed that too, I guess new hubs are given a chance to rank before they are idled, but then Izzy said that she had a five week old hub published (that took about 3 weeks to be indexed).

      From my very limited observations, some topics might be more prone to idling then others, so possibly hubs about SEO and getting traffic or about losing weight have a higher threshold of traffic which they have to get before they are idled.  I could be wrong about that, it's just the impression I got from my account, which doesn't have a lot of hubs.  Possibly these topics are saturated on HP so a cull of hubs was thought to be advantageous.

      1. janderson99 profile image54
        janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Here's part of the quote:
        "HubScore is too heavily dependent on traffic, which is really a trailing indicator of quality. With our whole quality initiative we're working on a Quality Assessment Process, which includes human ratings from the Hopper, that we hope will provide a more accurate and trustworthy assessment of quality. But until we get to the point that we are confident this new calculation is better, we'll leave the current HubScore implementation as is."

        "I dug into this a bit more and it appears that with HubScore there are cases where Hubs with a low HubScore are still featured. It's a very small percentage of Hubs with those low HubScores. This is likely due to the fact that these Hubs still garner significant traffic, so we're reluctant to no longer Feature these Hubs without a real human being assessing it in the Hopper to confirm that it is indeed low quality."

        and from Simone:

        "we are factoring scores received through the QAP into the HubScore, but the score is very nuanced and complicated, so at this point it would be difficult to assign concrete numbers to specific elements of a Hub's success without re-building HubScore from the ground up. We do agree, however, that it will be helpful to give people feedback on what they can do to increase their Hubs' odds of being Featured, and I can promise you that we are in the midst of working on a feature that will do this very well."

        My guess is that they will never publish the Quality Scores - that is why I referred to hubscore being a 'defacto' rating.  There's nothing else to go on!

        1. aa lite profile image85
          aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks, I didn't see the reply from Simone, wonder what the feature is?  What would be really great, is if they came up with some really good keyword tool, something better than the suggestions in exclusives which are downright bizarre to be honest.  Something that you feed the title into, maybe highlight the main keyword phrase you are hoping to rank for, and it gives you a rating on how well it thinks you can do, assuming you can write a good hub on the subject, based on search volume, competition etc.

          I suspect that will not do that, the keyword tools that are out there all cost money.  Really I think help with keyword research would be make a huge difference to people's success.  But the suggestions that are coming out now are really weird, either no search volume, or the title is a question that only requires a short answer, really not enough to write a whole hub about it, and a lot of topics aren't covered by it.

          1. janderson99 profile image54
            janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I totally agree. The QAP guidelines is based on the notion that the cream will rise to the top - it won't. If the keywords and title are not competitive the hub is unlikely to succeed. Only about 1:10 of the exclusives are competitive.

    2. John Holden profile image61
      John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Three blank hubs with scores of 80, 82 and 89. The youngest is three months old and gets traffic!

      1. janderson99 profile image54
        janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

        I had a couple of those. In my case the only thing I could guess was the cause was that the articles linked to sites that were not as well-known as nytimes. I think I was being accused of building link pages or being overly promotional - which I was not. There are a number of mysterious things going on. I just edited them and they got featured!!! It would be interesting to see how yours went with the new QAP rating. Worth a try!

        1. John Holden profile image61
          John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I'm not up to speed on what's happening!  QAP, is that the latest "Featured" column, with either an H or a blank?
          I have series of three hubs, one is featured with a score of 79, the other two in that series are not featured and have scores of 80 and 82 but far more views than the featured hub!

          None of them could be considered promotional, unless I'm trying to promote a 200 year old newspaper!

          I did edit them when the new rating system first came in and they were resurrected, for a short while, they don't really lend themselves to constant editing.
          I suppose I'll just have to find a new home for them, they'll never be very popular but they do serve a function.

          1. janderson99 profile image54
            janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            QAP  = Quality Assessment Process
            Sorry, there's no info on why hubs slip out of being "Featured".
            Try changing the title to something more competitive.
            But - What you do is up to you.

        2. Marisa Wright profile image87
          Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Janderson,if HubPages was going to accuse you of building link pages or being overly promotional, they wouldn't Idle your Hub - they'd either unpublish it, or you'd see a warning at the top of the Hub.  The rules for those things haven't changed.

          I don't think there's anything mysterious going on.  I think we have to make a distinction between the Idled Hubs system and the QAP system, because I'm guessing the Idled Hubs system was part of the testing phase.   If that's the case, then using examples and drawing conclusions from things that happened then, isn't helpful.   I suspect a lot of existing Hubs were test-rated by the MT guys during that period.

          HubPages are being very clear now.  Under the new QAP system, you'll know:

          - if a new Hub isn't featured, it wasn't good enough; 
          - if an existing Hub falls out of Featured, it may be good enough but it's not getting "reader engagement" (traffic/reader activity).   
          - if you edit a Hub, it is sent through the QAP system, exactly like a new Hub, and it's assessed exactly like a new Hub - there's no provision to do otherwise.

          1. janderson99 profile image54
            janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            The proof is in the pudding - I don't think the new system is any different - its been running for a while. We'll see. If you have a good quality hub that was published in July, that was getting traffic, but was idled, the reason is something else. I asked, but just got the info pages. There are other reasons which may be related to topics, links etc. etc. HP staff rate pages and they may assess other factors + the algo looks at stuff. Its all a mystery, its more than 'quality' and 'low traffic' - time will tell.

  13. tussin profile image58
    tussinposted 11 years ago

    I think having a metric ass-ton of followers who give you "nice hub!" comments on all your newly published hubs is an important factor in Hubpages new quality protocol.

    Paul E says they only have enough "data" on a small group of hubbers, but clearly this data isn't anything such as length of time an account has been active or how many hubs a person has, or else hubbers with profiles similar to janderson99's would all bypass the pending mode.  It has to more of the social stuff.

    The solution in that case is to make an arrangement with fellow non-pet hubbers and comment, FB-like, tweet, and pin the sh!t out of each others' articles.

  14. Learning in Life profile image87
    Learning in Lifeposted 11 years ago

    My first Hub became "featured" what does that mean? Is this an acomplishment?

    1. Marisa Wright profile image87
      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Read the whole thread and then check out the Learning Centre.   Being Featured isn't an achievement:  if your Hub isn't Featured, then it has failed basic quality tests.  Hubs which aren't Featured are made invisible to search engines.

  15. Marisa Wright profile image87
    Marisa Wrightposted 11 years ago

    I guess what I'm saying is that the system may have been running for a while, but HubPages are famous for launching something without beta testing, so while they were calling it "Idle", there may well have been variables in place which are not there now.   

    Anyway, while we're sharing insights, I think this post by Derek G is illuminating:

    http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/105917? … ost2254265

    Basically he seems to be saying there probably is bias in the MTurk ratings, but it doesn't matter so long as it achieves its goal of removing the really awful stuff.

    I replied "...but the result of that is that there will be collateral damage, i.e. good articles which will be penalized wrongly.  In the example given, the neurosurgeon's exceptional article will not be featured, for instance.

    That won't hurt HubPages but it's bad news for the author concerned."

    No one replied and the thread is now closed.  Hmm.

    1. janderson99 profile image54
      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The point is they don't tell you what the criteria are for traffic or quality, neither do you know what the score for your article is. They don't tell you why your hub got blanked.  I asked whether there was an appeal process and was told 'edit and resubmit'. So all you can do is guess, and fiddle around in the dark with your eyes closed hoping you fix it. I would like to do better than that. Its all a game - we need the rules!

      1. Marisa Wright profile image87
        Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        We know the criteria for quality.  It's whatever the MTurk raters decide it is.  I don't think it will ever be possible to second-guess what they liked or didn't like about your Hub, whether we're told the rating numbers or not.   You can join MTurk and see the criteria they use, but you can't know how well they're applying them.  The only way you could know, is to be able to talk to the MTurker who rated your Hub - and that's not going to happen.

        And we may not know the criteria for traffic (or "reader engagement"), but if your Hub drops out of Featured for that reason, you still know what you have to do - find a way to increase traffic.  You may not know what threshold you have to reach, but does that really matter?  You just keep promoting until you get there.

        1. Barbara Kay profile image73
          Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Marisa, Where are you promoting your work? I have several unusual places, but if you could share some maybe it will help us. Now that Google is watching for link spamming, I'm being more careful. Where is it safe?

        2. janderson99 profile image54
          janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Hubs are scored from 1-10 - but its sooooo subjective.
          What's the pass-mark?
          If you click on this https://www.mturk.com/mturk/searchbar?s … 2ES1DAIYZZ
          and click 'View a Hit of this Group'

          you get this
          "Here are examples of articles that have already been rated for your reference: this article received an average rating of 1, this article was rated a 3, this one was a 5, this one was a 7, and this one was a 9. Good luck!"
          This provides examples of how articles are rated  - but what's the pass mark?  Its pretty basic stuff. 3, 7 and 9 have images - 5 doesn't! (its very brief and its no longer published,  7 and 9 are featured ).
          Usually rules are hidden to avoid them being challenged!

          1. Marisa Wright profile image87
            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            That's what I'm saying. Rating is subjective.  So it doesn't really matter what the "pass mark" is because every rater will rate differently, and few of these non-professional raters will be able to rate dispassionately.

            So whether you know the criteria or the pass mark or the rules or whatever, it's not going to help you - if a rater rates your Hub down, you still won't know why unless you can talk to that rater, and it's unlikely you're going to find a pattern in Hubs that aren't featured, because different raters have rated them.

            1. janderson99 profile image54
              janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

              But the raters are all standardized and calibrated
              "We've heard concerns that folks are worried about the quality of the ratings via MTurk.  It's a very robust system that continually assesses the quality of the ratings against a known set of ratings to compute accuracy and weight we can give each rating.  Bonuses are paid for accuracy."
              How can you meet a minimum standard that is not defined?

              1. Marisa Wright profile image87
                Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                All they do is compare the ratings of the MTurk raters against a Gold Panel.  I don't believe that would be particularly accurate.

          2. profile image0
            EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            That mturk link was very informative!

            Here's my rundown:

            1 - Really short (one paragraph), purely personal, appalling grammar/syntax. No image.
            3 - Similarly short and badly-written, but with an image this time.
            5 - Well-written, but on the short side and with no image.
            7 - Well-written, with a number of images
            9 - Well-written, with even more images (presumably ones created by the author)... and it's a recipe!

            So the implicit lesson is: if you want your hubs to be rated highly, your best chances are if:

            Your hub is a recipe
            You take lots of pictures/videos to go with it.

  16. SmartAndFun profile image95
    SmartAndFunposted 11 years ago

    Closing threads? Reminds me of eHow/Demand Studios. Ugh.

    So it's "normal" for hubs to be idled now? Normal. That is odd terminology. Lipstick for pigs, I guess. I can't keep up with the changes around here anymore. It's too time consuming. When I don't check in every single day to see what new hoops I must jump through, the new rules pile up and just become too much to muddle through.

    1. aa lite profile image85
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think this is a bit of psychological manipulation the staff are using after the uproar of idle hubs.  When you first publish a hub, you are told that if it is 'exceptional' it will be featured.  So if I look at my profile, and about 15% of my hubs are idled, I can now think, wow I am doing so well, 85% of my stuff is 'exceptional' and featured!

      Well I personally don't feel that way, but then I've always been full of negativity and spite.  But  I think that's what HP hopes will happen.

      Incidentally I really don't care if some of hubs are idled, or "normal", or "not exceptional" or whatever, if only the traffic to the site improved, now I have idled hubs that get no traffic, and "exceptional" hubs that get very little traffic.....I am trying to sell stuff on Squidoo.  I also heard that Seekyt was quite good.

    2. Marisa Wright profile image87
      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's what I think too.   "Normal" suggests everything is OK, when in fact a "normal" Hub badly needs attention.

      1. aa lite profile image85
        aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        It's ridiculous to suggest that it is 'normal' for Google to be blocked from indexing pages on a web 2.0 site that makes money from getting search engine traffic!

        1. IzzyM profile image86
          IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Absolutely!

  17. WriteAngled profile image74
    WriteAngledposted 11 years ago

    The rating examples did not include a single hub about a complex topic,

    and the score of 9 was given to a recipe...

    Although I have a couple of recipes among my hubs, I am getting sick to death of the huge emphasis being placed on them here. The odd time I've searched for recipes, I have never, ever had anybody's hub turn up in the first few pages of search results.

    1. wilderness profile image95
      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Really?  Do a search for "rotten egg pie".  It's been in the same place since the week it was written.  Possibly, it is true, because no one else in the world would ever use that keyword... big_smile

      1. janderson99 profile image54
        janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Its sad. Recipes are so competitive that many are destined to be 'blanked' despite the huge effort that people put into them with all their own photos, videos, etc. Its tough.

        1. wilderness profile image95
          wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Yeah.  I think recipes are pretty hard to rank for.  If you search for the true name of the pie it's nowhere to be found, and yet it's a fairly unusual keyword.  Not as rare as "rotten egg pie", but not like more common dishes, either.

          Recipes are fairly easy to write and I would disagree with the huge effort (if you're cooking anyway and don't try to make a video of it) but the competition is huge.

  18. WriteAngled profile image74
    WriteAngledposted 11 years ago

    I also suspect that at 5 cents a throw, raters will not spend more than a few seconds per hub. That means more or less a purely visual-based rating:

    lots of images, videos, polls and other "stuff" plus no obvious spelling or grammatical errors in the first couple of lines = high rating

    text reasonably broken up, no obvious errors in the first couple of lines, but only a bit of extra stuff = medium rating

    text in a big block and/or no images and stuff and/or several errors in first couple of lines = low grade

    Before I gave up totally on Helium, I used to fulfill my rating requirement by taking 10-15 seconds per article and rating on the basis of similar criteria to the above. I never actually read any of the stuff I was rating. At that time it was a matter of looking at whether there were short paragraphs, headings and absence of errors, since images did not feature then.

    Helium has an algorithm to score raters, supposedly in order to ensure careful and consistent rating. I achieved a high 90-95% rating score most of the time!

    1. Marisa Wright profile image87
      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I have a similarly impressive rating score on Helium, taking exactly the same approach.   And like HubPages, they claim to have checks and balances and quality controls in place - plus, they've been refining them for several years.  Yet we're both able to fool the system.

      That's exactly why I am so doubtful about the new QAP and I'm so certain the results can't be accurately "standardised or calibrated"

  19. janderson99 profile image54
    janderson99posted 11 years ago

    Hubscore theory is holding - threshold for new hubs to be 'Featured' is 50.
    All hubs in 'latest' published more than 24 hours ago are >50. My new ones are around 75 (after pending => featured).

    1. John Holden profile image61
      John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Why then are most of my unfeatured hubs showing a score in the 70s with only one or two showing as low as sixty?
      Why do some of my unfeatured hubs have more views than featured hubs?

      1. wilderness profile image95
        wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Are unfeatured hubs showing more views in the past 30 days than featured ones?  By a significant amount?  Or just more total views?

        I know that all of mine that have gone idle are getting very little traffic.  There may be others that are still featured and that show even less traffic, but it's a matter of just 2 or 3 more views in the last 30 days - a small enough difference that other factors in the algorithm may override the views.

        1. John Holden profile image61
          John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I have one featured hub that has had one, yes one, view in the last thirty days and yet I have unfeatured hubs with many more.

          1. wilderness profile image95
            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I see that too, although the unfeatured hubs don't have many more - just 2 or 3 for the month.

            Interesting, and would seem to indicate that the algorithm is looking at far more than just traffic.  Not suprising - HP has said that seasonal hubs will operate differently and I have some that have 0 views but are still featured.  New hubs, same thing although none of those have 0 for the month.  Low, but not 0.

            1. John Holden profile image61
              John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

              I'm lost!

              1. wilderness profile image95
                wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                You have lots of company, then. smile

                I see HP's actions as similar to not publishing detailed information on lots of things.  If they gave exact rules on this there would be thousands of hubs published that met absolutely minimum requirements but nothing more.  Gamers, taking advantage as they always do.

                1. John Holden profile image61
                  John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  It has, for me, taken out all the spontaneity and fun out of writing.
                  I had a stroke at the end of 2010 and wrote nothing much  at all during 2011, start of 2012 I started writing again until this came in and I lost all enjoyment.
                  No longer could I write, I had to think all the time about what was needed to turn google on, not my readers but google!

                2. janderson99 profile image54
                  janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  @ wilderness
                  I don't understand the logic of not disclosing the exact formulae because it would allow people to game the system.
                  => Lets say HP set a 40% pass mark for QAP and told everyone what the score was for each of their hubs. If someone had a hub with a score of 35% that was idled, they could edit it to improve the quality so that it passed - that is hardly gaming the system. HP wants better quality hubs
                  => Lets say HP stated that the criteria for idling hubs was an average of 15 hits per month over the last 3 months. So how can this be gamed? How will knowing the criteria change things? People can illegally try to get false traffic but that is against the TOS.
                  =>You seem to imply that it is somehow better for HP not to define the threshold because it will force people to make things better than they otherwise would. I can't see the logic for this especially when no feed back is provided on the score or how it could be improved. There is a threshold for QAP to be featured and its not 100%. Authors should not be expected to get 100% with all their hubs.

            2. Marisa Wright profile image87
              Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

              I don't think so, because I've seen several places where HubPages say it's specifically about traffic (or "reader engagement").  What I missed before is that existing Hubs may be submitted to the QAP by random selection.

              So if you have a Hub that's been getting reasonable traffic and gets idled for no apparent reason, it's probably been through the QAP.

              Also bear in mind that every time you edit an existing Hub, it goes back through the QAP.

              1. wilderness profile image95
                wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                I've been thinking that traffic refers to the number of readers while "reader engagement" refers to time on page.  Have I misunderstood?

                1. Marisa Wright profile image87
                  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  It's not explained, and since they refer to traffic in some places and engagement in others, I was assuming they were the same thing.  But "reader engagement" could well involve time on page too, good point.

                  The main point I was making is that people keep talking about an algorithm idling existing Hubs, as if that's the only way it can happen.  Whereas it is possible for your existing Hub to get rated by the QAP panel by random selection.

                  1. wilderness profile image95
                    wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                    While I knew the hub would be rated by QAP, I hadn't seen anything that it could be idled that way.  If nothing else, I understood that occasionally a hub would be picked on by being rated by HP staff and then given to MTurk to verify their accuracy.

      2. Marisa Wright profile image87
        Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Because Hubs become Featured (or unfeatured) based on how the QAP rates them.  Your unfeatured ones simply didn't pass their "scrutiny".

        Hubs can also drop out of Featured due to low traffic, but that's a separate thing.

        1. John Holden profile image61
          John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          One of my unfeatured hubs became featured and has stayed featured now for ages after simply adding a link to it!
          Others of my unfeatured hubs will never be high in the popularity stakes  but will be essential for the few finding them.
          I'm getting very close to moving all my hubs, featured and unfeatured to another venue.

          1. Hollie Thomas profile image61
            Hollie Thomasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Where are you considering moving them to, John? If you don't mind me asking?

            1. John Holden profile image61
              John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

              Probably just stick them on Blogger or similar, making money off them is not my number one priority.

              1. Hollie Thomas profile image61
                Hollie Thomasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                I'm glad you're doing something with them, they are valuable. I'm also particularly fond of your interest in a certain geographical area. smile You should think about guest blogging, John. There are a number of blogs which explore the social history of Manchester- and they are established- this would draw attention to your work. Something to think about for the New Year, perhaps?

                1. John Holden profile image61
                  John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  But not valuable to HubPages it seems!

                  I'm certainly going to give it all a good coat of looking at before I do anything.

                  Ah decisions decisions!

  20. glassvisage profile image84
    glassvisageposted 11 years ago

    Thanks for this thread. I will post with hopes that HubPages will re-assess the QAP and at least let these Hubs be included in searches through search engines. I feel that I've made quite a bit less this month than usual and that QAP may have something to do with it. I can understand how the QAP guidelines can help my Hubs in the long run, but for now this process is hurting my earnings!

  21. janderson99 profile image54
    janderson99posted 11 years ago

    A new twist to the Saga
    One of my hubs was idled due to low traffic.
    It had an Exclusive title
    I asked whether I could change the title to make it more competitive.
    My request was refused.
    So the hub is destined for the trash can.
    Tell me why this makes any sense. HP can have the original failed title back.

    1. John Holden profile image61
      John Holdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Why not unpublish it and republish with the new title?

      1. janderson99 profile image54
        janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Of course, waste more time on it getting it removed from the index, wait weeks, change all the interlinks links etc, etc,
        The title has not worked, why can't HP remove it from the Exclusives, so I can simply change the title to get more traffic. This is HP acting to stop me making the hub successful. What's the point?

        1. wilderness profile image95
          wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I really don't think the exclusive thing is working very well. 

          It was a nice idea to make available titles that were researched for "searchability" but the concept just isn't working as it is.  We need to be able to modify these titles - if that puts the title back into the queu for someone else, fine.

          I've got several that just aren't doing anything at all and suspect I'll end up deleting most of them.

          1. janderson99 profile image54
            janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            The simple solution is to remove the 'failed title' from the Exclusives list. This would allow me to edit the title to get more traffic. If I delete the hub and republish it with a similar title it will compete with the original one. I don't believe that someone else who picked up the title would be likely to get enough traffic to keep it featured. Time for some common sense here. If I can change the title and get traffic its a win for me and for HP. If it remains idle no one wins. I understand that HP is reviewing this issue, but now that some of the Exclusives have started being idled it is time to act.

            1. wilderness profile image95
              wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

              Maybe, but how do you remove the title from the list without direct, human intervention by staff?

              Easier, I would think, to just let you modify any title, but if you do the original title goes back to the list and your "new" one is not exclusive.

              Either way, though, we need to be able to modify those titles.

              1. janderson99 profile image54
                janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                If the hub title failed due to low traffic - it failed. There does not seem to be any point putting it back into the bin for someone else to fail with it. I'm sure the smart techos could devise some software which said: "IF Exclusive is idled due to low traffic, remove it from the list of exclusives'" Job done - the author can decide whether they want to change the title, let it sleep or change other stuff. If the hub is deleted there is no point reinstating a failed Exclusives title.

 
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