The Value of HP Views

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   jansharesposted 10 years ago

   It is said that organic traffic (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc) should be our goal for increasing and maintaining real traffic. I've read in the forums that we shouldn't become dependent upon getting a lot of HP traffic, nor discouraged if our hubs are not being read by the HP community. However, I've been questioning the logic of this when you factor in the number of followers a hubber has, the power of social media (FB, Twitter, and Pinterest) and sharing.
   
   My question is: Isn't it just as important to get HP views from hubbers who:
   a) have a lot of HP followers because their activity is automatically shared with their followers (hub feed), therefore increasing your potential for more views, and
   b) are active on social media which increases the probability that they will share your hubs outside of HP?
   
   The more sharing inside AND outside of HP by hubbers who have a lot of followers will eventually increase traffic to those hubs, creating a domino effect. I suppose it will never reach the level or consistency of organic traffic but I wondered if we were minimizing the connections between:
   -internal and external sharing
   -the number of followers a hubber has, and
   -the power of social media
   
   Thoughts?
   (Maybe the veteran hubbers already know all of this and I'm behind. But I still see the occasional advice to not worry about HP traffic.)

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      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      The domino effect exists, so you will get traffic from other Hubbers and their connections.  The question is, is the effort worthwhile?
      
      I'd say, on balance, it's not.  Say I follow you, and I comment on your Hub so all my followers see my activity - but my number of followers is highly  misleading.  Many of them are no longer active, and even those that are, may not even look at their activity stream.    I'd say that applies to a lot of people's followers, not just me. 
      
      Since there are only so many  hours in a day, you have to decide which effort is going to give you the most return.

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         jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, I thought about that, Marisa, after posting and you are right. Probably the higher the follower number, the lower the percentage of those followers who are really active.

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   paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago

   Good points, janshares.
   
   And my thought...
   
   Advertisers are perfectly happy to pay B for internal views. Thus, it is perfectly logical to conclude that advertisers are equally happy to pay HP for internal views. So, visiting each others hubs is a good thing.

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      jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I see. B does seem to have its advantages. More views do translate into earnings.

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   psycheskinnerposted 10 years ago

   I see no special value to the traffic that happens to be from hubbers, any more than the traffic that happens to be from Uruguayans or guinea pig owners.
   
   We want traffic, and should focus on whatever subtypes of traffic are of special value to us. Those being the people who will in fact share and amplify the message and can in fact click the ads (which hubbers cannot). In my case I do not write hubs about hubpages, so hubbers are not one of my target groups.

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      jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I see the earnings angle with you as well, psycheskinner as far as who to target. But my point is about the Breck Shampoo commercial phenomenon (if you're my age ): If you tell two friends, and so on, and so on, won't the potential for clicks and earnings increase?

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         psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I think that argument applies best to people who are interested in the topic I write about, rather than random people who happen to be hubbers.Every time hubbers deliberately try to do that things happen like getting us all banned from Pinterest, twice -- because it is not authentic fan traffic.
         
         I see nothing in the advantages of hubber traffic as discussed here  that are not simply advantages of traffic, hubber or not. It seems to suggest only hubbers share hubs when actually it seem to me that it is mostly non-hubbers that are steadily pinning and sharing my hubs.

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            Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            That's a good point.  If people are particularly passionate about a topic, they will share the hub with others who are also particularly passionate about the topic, and that is how it will spread quickly.
            A Hubber sharing a hub with other Hubbers or random friends won't do so well because we all have different interests.

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            jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Got it. I see your point now, psycheskinner.

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      brakel2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      @Jan I remember one hubber saying more of her traffic is from social sites. People who have a niche and a special facebook business page seem to get a lot or traffic from social sites. We could get more traffic from Pinterest if we would concentrate on ways to get attention with our photos with a catchy phrase that would draw people.  WryLilt is good at that.

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         jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, and ChristinS, too.

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            sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Jan Shares
            
            I good deal of my traffic comes from outside HubPages but nevertheless I value every visit from my loyal followers.  Often it is these very people who recommend friends or family to my writing.  I definitely think there is value in traffic which comes from HubPages.
            
            I love Pinterest.  It has also been invaluable to me and many of the visitors to my come straight from there to HubPages.
            
            Sally

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               jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               My point exactly, sallybea.

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                  sallybeaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  Oh I do wish I could alter a typo in a comment after the event , sorry Jan.
                  
                  Please Hubpages are you listening - it would be so lovely to have an edit option for comments.  My keypad keeps on jumping back the line instead of forwards and sometimes I don't notice it.

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                     jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     No worries

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                     brakel2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     We need more places for edits, as I made a big mistake on a question comment. I believe we should always have the opportunity to edit. I agree with you Sallybea. I also like your reasoning Millionaire Tips about the traffic.

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4. 61

   KnowWhatImeanposted 10 years ago

   I would think that views from anywhere are important.  The thing about organic search - it means that you are writing quality stuff - which means that people want to read it.  So I think the two go hand in hand..

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      jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I agree. All views are important, ultimately. Whether they increase your readership, your brand and cyber presence, your authority, or your earnings. Of course, they ALL go hand-in-hand.

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         Faith Reaperposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Jan,
         
         I think all views are important. I believe the views from HubPages are great, especially if the follower shares to other sites, as I do all of the time.  If I read an article and really like it, I will always vote up and more and share everywhere to help a fellow hubber out any way I am able to do so. I don't think we should be stingy in sharing and voting up.

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            jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Well said, Faith Reaper. You are a generous soul who has blessed so many hubbers.

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      Kain 360posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      It also means you are ranking well. Sometimes a person can write a great hub that has good spelling, grammar, is engaging, contains factual information (and/or opinions too), but if it is not ranked well it will not gather views.

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         jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I need to pay more attention to ranks, very important.

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5. 87

   Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years ago

   I agree with you Jan.  Hubbers do matter.  If a popular person shares your hub on their feed or with their social circles on another networking site like Pinterest, Reddit, Facebook, etc, then many people will be able to see it and get to judge for themselves.  Their friends can, in turn, share it and make the hub go viral, or at least more popular.  And when it does that, hopefully Google can see that this is a worthy article to put high on their search engines.
   
   The trouble comes when you focus on the Hubbers or internal views in general.  The goal is to make your hub so good that it can be shared and become popular. Make sure that you put words in the hub that will help the search engines find it. (I realized that when I wrote a book review without ever using the words book or review!)
   
   If you focus specifically on Hubbers and your friends, you may wind up becoming a spammer, and Google will notice that there seems to be the same people who are visiting your hubs and that you are visiting them reciprocally.
   
   Also, there aren't as many Hubbers as there are people at large. You can get a lot more traffic if you focus on the general reader, and therefore the search engines.

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   1. 93

      jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you very much, Millionaire Tips, for breaking this down even further. Your insights really helped, especially the ones about spamming and focusing on the general reader.

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         janshares:
         
         I have heard hubbers say that we do not get paid for views by hubbers, so this may be where you got the idea that those views are not valued.
         
         However, I am pretty sure we get paid for ALL views, no matter who gives them.
         
         I have always felt that hubbers who like my work will share it and that this helps my views grow exponentially.
         
         A good article is a good article, no matter who reads it...and views are views, no matter where they originate.

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            rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I like to share good, interesting hubs.  It doesn't matter to me if I follow the person or if they follow me.  If something is worth sharing, it makes sense to share.  I always appreciate anyone who comments on and/or shares one of my hubs.  I'm not so sure if the amount of followers makes a difference, possibly more so, how and where the hubs are shared.  Social media works for many hubbers.  I've read that it's good to have numerous avenues of attaining readership, not depending on search engine traffic only.

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               Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               That's what I do too - I share hubs that I think are interesting and think that others will find interesting as well.
               
               I don't share hubs just because someone shared one of mine, or because I happen to like the author.

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                  Solarasposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  I like to share hubs of general interest as well, and am happy to use the referral link code to do it!

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                     TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     referral link code?  What is that?

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               jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Good and generous points, rebekahElle.

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            Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I think we do get paid for all views, but Hubbers are less likely to click on the ads, so that will reduce earnings somewhat.

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               TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Hubbers are not allowed to click on the ads in the articles they read.  It is against the TOS!

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            jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I agree, TIMETRAVELER2. A view is a view is a view.

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               DrMark1961posted 10 years agoin reply to this

               I am not sure your last statement is correct. Unfortunately, I still do not know enough about this subject to say for sure, but...
               If you have a view from a site like reddit, the viewer looks at your page for a few minutes, bounces away, and Google decides that your hub did not provide any value to that reader. If this happens over and over, the search engine is going to decide that you are not providing value and they are going to downgrade your hub. If your hub ends up on page 3, or even deeper, you are unlikely to see any page views.
               So, do you want any views? I dont think so. Do you want viewers from HP? I think so, because they are going to stay and read your hub, not just skim (hopefully).

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                  jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  Interesting and good point, DrMark. But unfortunately, we have no control over who reads our hubs once we share it or someone else shares it. But yes, we can be more certain that a view from a hubber is a good view, although hubbers can bounce away, too. I guess sharing needs to be diversified in order to capture more heterogeneous views. Hmmm . . . sounds like organic traffic!

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               2. 76

                  Chinaimportposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  I would not worry too much just looking at the bounce rate because it does not tell the entire story.  For example, if a webpage delivers information (weather, stock, forex, training modules, how to tips) it is normal to have a high bounce rate.  Google looks at bounce rate along with data on returning visitors.  If website’s returning visitors are rising and it has high bounce rate it is not penalized.
                  
                  Most content websites including HP have a bounce rate of 40% to 60%, whereas blogs have even higher bounce rate.  If a sub-domain (like yours) has specialized content, I would investigate exit pages in GA as these are the pages where the visitor is leaving your sub-domain.

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                     jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     Thanks for that angle, Chinaimport. I have looked at that in my GA but have not paid close attention per page. The average is high, usually in high 80s.

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      2. 79

         Treasuresofheavenposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I agree, Millionaire Tips really delivered the "knock out" punch to this discussion.  I understand and appreciate the advice, especially, about focusing on the general audience.  Thanks so much!

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            Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Aw thanks!

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6. 93

   Rochelle Frankposted 10 years ago

   I agree with you,Janshares. I recently wrote a hub about HP accolades,and thought to myself, "This is not going to get much traffic ...it is really only for Hubbers."
   I found that it did get mostly internal traffic,but also some new fans and some reads of other hubs that got pins, shares, tweets, etc.

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   1. 93

      jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Exactly, Rochelle. When hubbers read your accolade hub, others read it as well which made them want to read more of your hubs. So you saw an increase in views that led to sharing outside of HP. Good for you.

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      1. 93

         Rochelle Frankposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, exactly!
         I wasn't expecting much in traffic, but it was something that I thought some other hubbers might enjoy, so it was mostly for fun and fellowship.
         Sometimes it's good to share a little just for the sake of sharing. If it results in an unexpected benefit, that's the frosting on the cupcake.

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7. 91

   Sue Adamsposted 10 years ago

   There seems to be a misunderstanding here:
   
   We don't get paid for views, we get paid for clicks on ads.
   
   We are not allowed to click on our own ads but are we allowed to click on co-hubbers ads? That is the question. If we are allowed, and other hubbers do click on our ads, then traffic from hubbers is good. If they are Not allowed or reluctant to click on our ads because they're not sure if they are allowed, then traffic from hubbers is pretty useless financially, apart from the possible domino effect from sharing as mentioned.

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      psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      No, we are not meant to click on ads on hubs at all.  Which is why hubber traffic is less valuable than outside traffic because your can't make money from it.  The best it can do is maybe help you get some outside traffic.
      
      http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/67737#post1483104

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      Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      This is (mostly) true if you are using adsense only (you do get very small amounts for views).
      
      For those that are using HP ads, then the income is mainly from views, with click values added in.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Sue Adams:
      
      We get paid for views if we are using HP and we get paid for clicks if we are using Adsense...OR, we get paid for a combination of the two if we are using both.
      
      At least that is how I understand things to be.

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         This explains the whole issue of how we get paid hereL
         
         http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/maki … y-HubPages

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         psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I suspect that you will find the logged in hubbers views are not counted towards earnings. Although I do not know this for certain.

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            TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

            psycheskinner:
            
            Read the link.  The answers are all there.

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               Lisa HWposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               I don't know the answer (about "logged in versus not-logged-in" Hubbers) either, and out of curiosity I went to that link to double check.  Maybe it's me (because it's hot where I am right now, and I'm tired in general), but I couldn't find the answer to that specific question on that page, or by clicking a few things that I thought may lead to the answer.
               
               Again, maybe it's me - but, boy, if people don't know the answer to that particular question I'm not surprised.

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                  psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  I didn't see it either.

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            rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I've never heard this to be true.  I don't know if it's ever been stated that HP views count towards earnings.  The only distinction that I know of regarding signed in users is that our user name is hyperlinked on hubs that we've commented on.  When we're not logged on, it's not.

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               TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Here is the info you guys are looking for.  I found the specific answer in the questions section of HP and according to that, this info is per HP.
               
               As it relates to online advertising revenue (and the Ad Program), an impression typically means an "ad impression", and occurs whenever an ad appears on a Hub and is presumably seen by a visitor.
               
               With regards to your Ad Program reports, you are paid based on "page impressions," which are Hub views. Each page impression can include up to 4 individual ad impressions, depending on: the ad level setting of the Hub, the length of the Hub, and whether a given location has "time" to show an ad in case the viewer navigates away from the Hub. The CPM for an individual is determined based on the value of individual impressions based on traffic characteristics".

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         Millionaire Tipsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         That's my understanding as well.  Earlier, I went to look for support from the Learning Center, but it really isn't clear there.

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            jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I looked at the link as well and also searched through FAQ and TOU and found nothing that specifially addresses or clarifies clicks by hubbers, clicks on ADs, or violations thereof. Weird.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Not true. We are paid for views.    If a Hubber isn't enrolled in the HP Earnings Program, they will get very little for views because Adsense pays mainly for clicks.  However if you are enrolled for the HP Ads program, that pays on views.

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         Chinaimportposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         There seems to be a minor difference here.  The HP earning program report says we are paid for the number of impressions which is not necessarily equal to page views.
         
         My understanding is a page view refers to the number of times a page has been viewed whereas impression refers to the number of times an ad module appears on a hub.  If someone has a better understanding on this, please share your views.

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            rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I think you have stated it clearly.  There is a difference.

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               TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Yes, there is a difference, but if you read what I wrote yesterday, that difference is explained.
               
               Actually, you are paid for both!

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Marisa Wright:
         
         You are spot on with this comment.  This should clear the issue up for everybody.  Thanks.

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   ChristinSposted 10 years ago

   Views are views.  I believe any publicity is good publicity right? well - lol, maybe not.  I enjoy it when other hubbers read my work and I do share exceptional hubs from others on social media, but only a select few.  I believe it was psyche who mentioned that previous HubPages ban on Pinterest. That happens when too many hubbers over promote hubs (in general, not just their own).
   
   Definitely, we should promote other hubbers in moderation.  Many people don't understand "moderation" when it comes to social media. 
   
   I do very well on Pinterest, but I also spend quite a bit of time there creating awesome boards that people want to follow.  Maybe 5% of what I pin comes from HP.
   
   The vast majority of pins/shares to my hubs come from people who are not hubbers, don't follow me on social media and have no idea who the heck I am. They just liked my hub and shared it. 
   
   As for the pretty graphics - that's nice, but it only gets you so far.  You have to have shareable content to back that up.  My most pinned hubs solve problems or teach people how to do something.  The graphics catch the eye, but after that shares are all up to the content.
   
   So, to get back to the original topic, of course hubber traffic has value   The people who are here to make money though are not typically targeting hubber traffic and followers; they are focusing most of their energy on outside traffic, whether it's from Google or social media or whatever.
   
   That being said; I appreciate any views I get.

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      jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, ChristinS, for making the distinction between hubbers' goals determining where they focus their energies regarding views. That makes sense to me. The value of any view is up to each hubber.

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         This comes directly from an email I sent to Matt Meyer from the HP team.
         
         >>I always thought we got paid based on the number of pages viewed and how much advertisers paid per thousands AND whatever we make from our own Amazon and Ebay ads.
         >>Am I wrong?
         
         That is essentially accurate.

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            jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks!

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         Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         That's essentially what I was trying to say, and I explore a similar idea in my Hub on Hubber Etiquette.   
         
         For social Hubbers, Hubber traffic is rewarding in ways that go beyond the financial.   For Hubbers whose focus is income, reaching out directly to an audience outside HubPages has to take priority.   It would be nice to do both, but there are only so many hours in a day!

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   Sue Adamsposted 10 years ago

   Thank you for clarifying.

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