Unique views or all views? Which are counted?

1. 94

   Blond Logicposted 9 years ago

   I recently visited a hub which left me perplexed. The hubber made a table of contents which were all links back to the same page.
   So in essence, the page was just reloading itself.
   
   Normally when I see a hyperlink it takes me to another page or opens another page in a new window. This is usually a separate  page which gives further information on that particular point.
   
   My question is, are we paid for only unique views or for all views?
   
   I left the hub I refer to and felt a bit manipulated as though this method was not to assist me, the reader,  but as a way of getting more page views.
   
   Any thoughts on this?

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      Sed-meposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      haha, that's... huh. Kinda squirrely.

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      1. 94

         Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         It left me thinking, I had been scammed somehow. It made me angry and I left the hub without reading the rest of the content.
         
         Surely that isn't a desired result for any writer.

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   2. 84

      Au faitposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Several of us put a table of contents in our exceptionally long hubs.  That way people don't have to wade through the whole thing to find what they're looking for.  Some people appreciate that.

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      1. 94

         Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I understand the theory behind that and I think it is a good idea, but this particular hub didn't take me to the correct module for the topic, only to the start again.

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         1. 84

            Au faitposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Sounds like the hubber didn't set it up right and didn't test it to make sure it was set up right.  It should take you to the heading of the capsule that has the info described.  A new window opens and you are able to scroll because the entire hub is there, it just shows you that particular information at the top/beginning.
            
            I don't recommend them for all hubs.  I have several hubs with 2500 to over 6,000 words and those are the ones I put a TOC in (haven't gotten to all of them yet to put it in).  I would say not to include a TOC if the article is under 1500 words.  Really, only the super long ones should have a TOC I think, but to each their own.
            
            I don't believe credit is given for views when the TOC is used.  I only have TOCs on maybe 3-4 of my hubs at this point and nothing suggests extra impressions are being counted if people use the TOC.  It seems like a lot of people don't know what the TOC is either, even though it is labeled, so maybe they're not being used.
            
            However, every view is counted so far as I know, even if they are the same person again and again.  Of course the same person showing up that way would probably raise a red flag and cause closer scrutiny if that were to happen overly much.  I can see once in a while something happens and somebody accesses a particular hub again and again several times in a row, say maybe 3-5 times, but beyond that I should think eyebrows would be raised, and even that many times would be strange if it were frequent or regular wouldn't you think?  But for whatever reason, someone might access a particular hub more than once and each time is counted.
            
            Seems to me that accounts are reviewed on a regular basis even if there are no red flags just to see what is going on, and that may be how CPM is determined.  If no one looked at the kind of traffic that was coming in it could be automated or even just the hubber themselves giving themselves view.  Truth is stranger than fiction . . .

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            1. 94

               Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               I am one of those people who don't know where the table of contents option is. I have a couple hubs in which it could be useful.
               
               
               Can you enlighten me where to find it?

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               1. 84

                  Au faitposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  It isn't an option.  You have to build it yourself.  Several people have good instructions for doing it.  I studied both Darkside and SidKemp hubs on the subject to do mine.  Considered writing an easier one myself, but so far haven't persuaded myself to do it.  I recommend SidKemp but take a look at both and read through them to see what you think.

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                  1. 72

                     brakel2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     I think Writer Fox has a description of a table of contents. I l know he uses them quite often in long hubs. I wish we knew who set it up wrong, as the hubber would want to start over and do his correctly.

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                        LuisEGonzalezposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        Writer Fox puts out some "wickedly" good hubs and appears to be very knowledgeable about SEO etc...Read his hubs for more info.

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                  2. 94

                     Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Excellent, I will check both of them out,
                     Thanks.

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   3. 72

      relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Neither.  As Janderson has said, it's based on impressions.  How impressions are counted is that we get 60% of the impression time.  Notice I said time.  We don't get 60% of the impressions, although that statement appears in the FAQ.  The FAQ entry actually contradicts itself, and what I'm saying is what admin clarified. What HubPages reports to you aggregated on your earnings page is the total impressions they say occurred during your timeshare. 
      
      http://hubpages.com/faq/#impressions
      
      What's not talked about in that FAQ entry however are things like ad blockers.  Since they stop ads from being displayed, visitors who are running those on their browsers or apps result in zero impressions no matter how many times they visit our Hubs.

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      1. 94

         Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         How interesting.
         I would suspect those who are 'clued up' with regards to internet security would of course have those blockers in place.
         
         It makes me wonder then if writing articles directed at them is pointless because you would never generate money from them unless they purchased a product.
         
         Thanks for explaining that.

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   4. 97

      Glenn Stokposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      As others have mentioned in response to your question, there are ways to create a Table of Contents and several great Hubbers have written hubs on the method. But there is no HP feature that does it. At least not at this time. One has to have a little understanding of HTML to find and create the correct links.
      
      The problem that you ran into is not that those authors are trying to get extra views. On the contrary, they legitimately created a working Table of Contents to help their readers quickly jump to appropriate sections. But I have discovered a few times that the links break due to changes to internal formatting. When I use Table of Contents I have to keep an eye on them and fix them when they break. Lately I had removed all of them from my hubs because of this problem.
      
      Someday, if HP should include a feature to make a Table of Contents automatically, then it will be supported and I am sure we won't have these problems anymore. But for now, since this is not a supported feature, Hubbers need to check them from time to time and fix them when they break. When they do break, each link simply goes to the top of the hub rather than to the text capsule originally set up in the Table of Contents.

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      1. 84

         Au faitposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Glenn Stok, just checked one of my TOCs and it's doing what you said, going to the top of the page instead of the right capsule.  The links are fine, they test fine, but they aren't working.  How do you fix them when they appear to have no issues?

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         1. 72

            relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            If you start to click on a link before the page finishes completely loading, instead of taking you down to the right section, you bounce back to the top.  You might want to make sure this isn't the case.

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            1. 84

               Au faitposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Relache, it was fully open and I tried 2 different links.  Just now 'hid' the link capsule and put the original one back in place until I can figure out how to fix it.  Appreciate the tip and will remember it.  I have to test a couple other hubs and hope they don't have the same problem and I'll make sure they're completely displayed/open before I try to click on the links.

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         2. 97

            Glenn Stokposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I'm not sure what you mean when you say the links test fine, but at the same time you say they go to the top. The fact is that when links go to nonexistent locations in the same page, the result is that they go to the top. Since the numeric addresses of capsules change sometimes, the links become broken.
            
            When this happened to me I had to reconfirm the correct URL for each capsule that I wanted the TOC to point to.  So do what you did when you first created the TOC. In other words, start over and redo it.
            
            The problem actually happened so often that I stopped using TOC. For some reason they never were reported in the broken links warnings. Probably because the link still pointed to the hub itself.

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            1. 84

               Au faitposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               There is a place to test the links in the links capsule as I'm sure you know, and when I tested the link with that 'button,' it said the link was fine, but it wasn't.
               
               Very much appreciate your explanation.  I understand, and I probably won't bother with TOCs anymore either because there already isn't enough time in the day without having to mess with redoing a TOC every other day or so.  Glad I only did a couple of them since they're not going to work out.  Thank you for first of all alerting me to this problem so that I could address it, and secondly, for clarifying the cause of the problem.

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               1. 97

                  Glenn Stokposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  That only tests to be sure the URL does not go to a 404 error (non-existing page). But the way the TOC links function is with an anchor that points to a location on the page. If the anchor is not correct, the URL still points your browser to the top of the page. That's not a 404 error.

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2. 54

   janderson99posted 9 years ago

   The way 'Impressions' are counted has not been explained very well. The move to display the ad at the top of the page would appear to be aimed at getting extra revenue from extra impressions generated within the site, Plus some extra clicks.

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   1. 94

      Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That is how I saw it.
      However as Relache said, if I read it correctly, it is down to clicks during our time share which is 60% . I suppose if most of those clicks happened outside our 60% allotment, it is bad luck for us.

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3. 0

   LisaKeatingposted 9 years ago

   I think somewhere I read that each impression is a unique IP address. Therefore, if someone clicks multiple times on the same hub, it only counts as one impression. Is that right?

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   1. 94

      Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That is what I am hoping to find out. That was what I thought though.

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4. 61

   The Examiner-1posted 9 years ago

   What Hub is it? It sounds like that Table of Contents was not set up, or working, correctly.

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   1. 94

      Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      You know I would rather not say because if the person was trying to accrue more views, I don't want to make it public.
      
      I don't feel it is my place to name and shame if they were bending the rules slightly.
      
      The person in question is a very popular and well respected hubber.

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      1. 84

         Au faitposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Tested mine and they all work like they should, so if it's one of mine, please let me know so I can fix it.

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      2. 61

         The Examiner-1posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Suppose the person does not know that it does not work correctly, they may want to fix it.

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         1. 94

            Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            You are right, I will see if I can email the hubber.

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      Au faitposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Agree, The Examiner-1

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5. 85

   lovebuglenaposted 9 years ago

   I would assume we are paid for unique views... That's how I get paid on another site. The links in the TOC of the hub that link back to the same hub is done when the content is long. In this case each link should take you to a certain section of the content if done correctly.

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6. 72

   relacheposted 9 years ago

   I'm not sure how many of you use mobile devices, but recently HubPages blogged about how this site is moving to be predominantly mobile traffic.  And they want us to redo the layout of our Hubs for that too.
   
   Mobile site layouts only have minimal advertising if any, since most of that is geared for phone screens and space is a premium.  Same on tablets.

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   1. 94

      Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I saw that. I thought it was odd, because their new improved templates suggested having capsules floated to the right, to add emphasis. 
      
      Now they want them full screen.

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7. 54

   janderson99posted 9 years ago

   Mobile layouts need to be simplified with condensed information - definitely not 'Stellar' with fewer capsule types, less images. Load time is also critical. This requires a major change of direction and philosophy for HP.

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   1. 94

      Blond Logicposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      If load time is a concern, do we know what the recommend photo size should be? Often these appear to be the slowest to load.

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   2. 72

      relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      This is what... their third change of direction and philosophy in the last 18 months?  It'll be interesting,...n'est-ce pas?

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8. 72

   relacheposted 9 years ago

   Glen, have you figured out what makes a capsule address number change?  That doesn't seem right.

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   1. 97

      Glenn Stokposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      No Relache, I have not figured it out. I just ended up finding my TOC's broken from time to time and I had to redo the  anchor with the new capsule address. 
      
      I assume the capsule address numbers may change when I edit hubs and add or remove (or move) capsules. But I never did any further testing to find out if this is what was happening. Easy to do if someone wants to take the time doing test edits.   
      
      Another thought is that the capsule address numbers may change when HP makes formatting changes, which is not very common. Maybe one of the staff can chime in here and comment on that.

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9. 72

   relacheposted 9 years ago

   Glenn, I would think that given the need for unique identifiers that stuff shouldn't be changing.  Damn.  Guess I got some TOCs to inspect....

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   1. 97

      Glenn Stokposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I agree with you, but it happens.

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      1. 72

         relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I also get to update my HubPages vs Squidoo hub, as it's clear which site has multiple, built-in TOC options that auto-update when an author makes content changes, and which allows you to DIY and then breaks it for you later.

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10. 53

    products4102posted 9 years ago

    nice

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