Is 2500 Words Too Long for a Hub?

1. 74

   electronicianposted 10 years ago

   I'm working on a hub providing a beginners guide to programming languages and its getting quite long - I'm definitely going to hit 2000 words with it and will probably go up to 2500 unless I really make an effort to keep the length down.
   
   Is that too long? It seems quite a lot for a single page to me but I'm not sure what works here on Hubpages and what doesn't.

   replyreport
   1. 44

      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I have one that's more than 9,000 words and Google loves it.

      replyreport
      1. 74

         electronicianposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Wow! 9000 words is massive - what's it about?

         replyreport
         1. 44

            Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            'War Poetry' – Actually, it's 10,409 words, with 55 photos and 14 videos.  It also contains nine of my previously published poems. QAP hates it but it gets thousands of visits a month from Google and ranks for many search queries.

            replyreport
      2. 59

         The Examiner-1posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         They are not 9000 words but I have some Hubs longer than 2500. HP wants as many as possible.

         replyreport
         1. 74

            electronicianposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            That's great, thanks. I was worried it might put people off and stop them reading down to the bottom, or might slow down the page load. So I'm happy to know its not a bad thing to write a long hub.

            replyreport
            1. 59

               The Examiner-1posted 10 years agoin reply to this

               It is also a good idea to break the text apart into several capsules so that the reading is not too long. Plus a lot of text w/o photos looks boring - make sure that you add those. After all you heard how many Writer Fox had.

               replyreport
   2. 94

      Phyllis Doyleposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I recently published a hub on HP that is over 3500 words and it is doing well. I was concerned about the length is kept reaching, yet, I knew if I cut it down or made a part 1 and 2 with it, that the impact and tenseness of the piece would be lost. So, with that in mind, each hub is unique -- if it can easily be split into two or more hubs without losing the impact and flow, then go ahead and do that. If the impact and flow would be lost with more than one hub, then keep going with the one hub, regardless of the word count. Both Google and HP seem to like long articles.
      
      PS: I wrote for a site that required articles to be 400 to 1000 words and that was excruciating to try and keep the article short yet give enough information to make it interesting.

      replyreport
   3. 0

      techhubmasterposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think that a hub can be too long. As long as all the information is relevant, you should be fine. However, I don't think that people who quickly visit your hub to look for an answer will read it all if it is too long. Just try it out.
      
      PS:Search Engine love content rich hubs.

      replyreport
2. 91

   Suzanne Dayposted 10 years ago

   If you've got a long hub about something specific it can be a gold mine as long as it gets traffic. The most important part besides choosing the right topic is to make sure it is easy to read, otherwise you'll lose your audience.

   replyreport
3. 74

   electronicianposted 10 years ago

   Thanks for your advice guys, I just published the hub and it came in at just under 2200 after I deleted some excess waffle during my proofreading.

   replyreport
   1. 87

      rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      HP obviously likes it as I notice its status.  It looks very useful. I just browsed your latest hub about home sensors, very well done and easy to read.   I'll be coming back to it for a more thorough read.
      
      I think longer, useful, informative content is refreshing after finding sites with little to no valuable content with less words.  I guess some sites see this as a trend, but I don't see it as content of value.

      replyreport
4. 70

   symphonyx7posted 10 years ago

   Don't worry about the word count. Just make sure your content is good and helpful. My Hubs on average have between 5,000 and 6,000 words. It's a bit long, but I make sure the read is worthwhile, and I believe that's what counts.

   replyreport
5. 81

   lovebuglenaposted 10 years ago

   I don't think that is long. But if you do have such lengthy hubs make sure to separate it into sections and have page dividers....so it's easier to read and follow.

   replyreport
6. 83

   GoForTheJugglerposted 10 years ago

   What lovebuglena said - it's all about how those thousands of words are presented. Some of my Hubs are over 2,000 words, but they are all broken up into sections and separated by photos and videos.

   replyreport
7. 90

   Theophanesposted 10 years ago

   As long as you know what you're talking about the longer articles are usually favored by search engines and Hub Pages alike. Obviously you have to present it in a way that's not daunting and has sufficient distractions (breaks, photos, videos, links.) Other than that go for it! My longer articles seem to get more traffic than my short ones. I think that's just the way it is... if you really want to learn something then you're not going to complain it has too much information!

   replyreport
8. 63

   SagaSphereposted 10 years ago

   As long as you create good navigation, the more the better.
   Great job!

   replyreport
9. 94

   JessBrazposted 10 years ago

   Thanks for posting this question! I was just pondering this myself.
   I just posted a hub that has just over 4,400 words and I wasn't sure if that was pushing it too long or not. The more I kept writing, the more ideas I had- which required more research, and the more I researched the more I wanted to add! lol
   
   I figured as long as everything was spelled perfectly, researched properly and formatted in a way that doesn't make it *look* like it's too long, then it would be okay. I'm glad to hear from the comments on here that my intuition was right.
   
   Cheers!

   replyreport
   1. 59

      The Examiner-1posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      It sounds like you have done a very goo job!

      replyreport
   2. 91

      Suzanne Dayposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      You can see a definite improvement in traffic and earnings over time with hubs over 1500 words as opposed to just 500-700 words.

      replyreport
10. 83

    Rik Ravadoposted 10 years ago

    I found a Hub recently that was over 20,000 words long.  Mind you, it was a difficult read; a long, illogical rant about why marriage was wrong. 
    
    My opinion is long (ie over a 1000 words) is fine.  However, if you get to 20,000 then consider publishing it as a book!
    
    I have come up with a theory (I have no evidence for this) that if it is really long (>50,000) words then the Google algorithm will 'break' and you will move to the top of the SERPS.  This is featured in my bestselling ebook, 'how to guarantee to make number 1 in Google SERPS for any keyword'!

    replyreport
    1. 38

       ChristinSposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       So THAT'S  what I've been doing wrong.... time to figure out what I can blather on about for >50,000 words lol I've tried everything else to get to the top of the SERPS and it hasn't worked hehe.

       replyreport
    2. 91

       Suzanne Dayposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Or you might just bore some people to death, including the writer!

       replyreport
11. 72

    word55posted 10 years ago

    It depends on whether it takes all those words to express your point. It also depends on how interesting the topic is. It shouldn't take that many words for any topic.

    replyreport
12. 74

    electronicianposted 10 years ago

    Thanks for your input guys, just to let you know - so far my longer hubs (I have three or four over 2000 words now) seem to be getting higher hub score and more traffic than my shorter hubs (even the ones over the 1250 which is given as a goal by Hubpages.
    
    Its still early days as I've only been here just over two weeks and I'm still only getting a couple of search engine visits per day, but I'm thinking that longer is better - as long as its all relevant and interesting/useful and not just waffle to fill space.

    replyreport
13. 59

    healthiackposted 10 years ago

    You got people who loves brief articles, and then there's others who love long texts.
    
    But, If you want to cover a topic in detail, you (usually) can't do that in 10 sentences. It doesn't look "credible". So go for 3000+ words.

    replyreport