Making a Top 10 type list. Will I have too many links?

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   Act 3posted 11 years ago

   The new "rules" and Google issues raise a question. If I want to review a Top 10 or similar list of records, movies or essential kitchen items, when does it become overly promotional? I would have a paragraph about each item with overall intro and closing paragraphs. It would be logical to have an Amazon (or similar) link for each paragraph. I would not have a list of links (can't do it anyway), but several individual links. I don't find that overly promotional and expect it if I'm reading reviews, but what will Google and HP think?

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      Christy Kirwanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Act 3,
      
      We recommend only reviewing products which you have personally used/read/watched so that you will have plenty of your own original experience and opinions to bring to the table for readers.
      
      You can certainly place an Amazon capsule next to each product you mention. But as a general rule, we do recommend avoiding products that aren't actually mentioned in your Hub's text.

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         Act 3posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Christy! If I ever finish this hub, it will be based on my own experience  and the only links will be to those items.

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            Christy Kirwanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Sounds great. Good luck with your Hub.

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   adecourvposted 11 years ago

   That's a good question. I've wondered the same thing whenever I do a top 10 list. To play it safe, I always just use the eBay links on the essential and keep it down. I'm curious to see what others have to say because I'd like to know how many we can use.

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   EricDockettposted 11 years ago

   If you're worried about getting slammed by search engines, remember the issue is not so much how many Amazon products you have (within reason), but what your overall Hub looks like.
   
   Search engines (and therefore HP) want you to create content that's valuable to your reader.  Surely you can see how a Hub with 10 Amazon products and only, say, 700 words would seem spammy, and not super helpful to anyone who found it in search results.  On the other hand, if your review is in-depth and thorough and you've really created a powerful resource on your topic, I don't think 10 products is excessive.
   
   The rule of thumb is 50 words per product.  But is there really any way to write a decent review in 50 words?  Honestly, I think 200-300 words per product is much better.  So, if I were going to write a review Hub with 10 different Amazon products, I'd probably be shooting for 3000 words or more, along with a bunch of useful outbound links and any appropriate images and video I could find. 
   
   That's a long, involved Hubbing experience right there, and reason in itself to keep reviews under 5 products.
   
   However, there are other reasons you may with to aim for fewer than 10 products per Hub if you want to make Amazon sales.  When you start throwing too much info at a reader who is trying to make a choice you could end up with an overwhelmed visitor who clicks nothing.  Sometimes 3-5 products is a better idea. And then you don't have to write 3000-word Hubs.

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      Act 3posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the in depth answer! I haven't finished writing, but it will probably be somewhere in between. A 3000 word hub is more than I want to get into, but I will write more than 50 words per item. I may or may not get up to a list of 10!

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         EricDockettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         You're welcome and good luck!

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