Confused About Amazon

1. 59

   Titus2Homemakerposted 10 years ago

   I'm pretty confused about how Amazon links are viewed here, as opposed to at Squidoo.
   
   Squidoo has/had Amazon capsules that could each contain a handful of items.  These worked really well for illustrative purposes (when, say, one wanted to show five *different* options for accomplishing a given thing) or wanted to show varying sizes/styles of the same thing.
   
   When used in this way, a capsule was not really promoting tons of items.  No one would be expected to buy ALL options when ideas are being offered but, rather, to choose the best one.  Showing different sizes or shapes of something was a similar thing.  (For instance I have a kitchen organization lens/hub that has a group of Amazon items that are all varying sizes/shapes of the same set of Rubbermaid containers.)
   
   But as far as I can tell, Hubpages views every single Amazon item as a separate thing, and if you have "too many" individual items it is viewed as "overly promotional" - as though an author were spamming a reader by saying, "You can get these in four different sizes: see?" instead of just saying, "You can get these in four different sizes; good luck finding them all on your own even though I know exactly where they are and COULD save you time by just giving you the links."
   
   Am I missing something?

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   1. 98

      Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Nope you're not missing anything. That is Hubpages approach and it seems to have helped keep the site in Google's good books (for now at least).
      
      I know it's frustrating when you have pages that convert really well, in part because they have lots of product options, but you'll have to learn to like the less is more approach here

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   2. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      No. You make a valid point.  However, I'm afraid HubPages is unlikely to listen, for reasons you may  not like but which make sense.
      
      HubPages used to have the same type of Amazon capsule.  When Panda hit HubPages in 2011, they made a LOT of changes in an attempt to recover traffic, including restrictions on the number of Amazon products in a Hub.  Many Hubbers were up in arms about the change, for the reasons you detail. Since then, further tweaks have been made in a continuing attempt to improve traffic. 
      
      As a result of all those changes, HubPages has several rules and restrictions which Squidoo didn't.   Squidoo went bust, HubPages is still in business.  HubPages would say those two statements are related, and they're not going to risk unravelling any of their rules and restrictions to make this site more like the one that failed.

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      1. 59

         Titus2Homemakerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Fair enough.

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2. 59

   LotusLandryposted 10 years ago

   I have reorganized  my Amazon links according to Hub instructions by inserting text  and photos and callouts from other parts of the presentation.  It does chop up the sense of the presentation sometimes to not have the products together, but I have done as instructed.  We already had restrictions under the Squid as to excessive links.
   Perhaps people viewing these on mobile phones do not wish to see products placed after one another....

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3. 59

   Titus2Homemakerposted 10 years ago

   I'd think that on a mobile phone I would be MORE likely to want them grouped together logically, not LESS.
   
   These pages were performing well as lenses; clearly people didn't find them spammy.
   
   Having to rearrange a page and add extraneous content to meet some arbitrary standard - now that is spammy. 
   
   HubPages has pretty successfully sucked all the fun out of this whole process and made everything a pain in the butt in the same space of time it took to migrate everything over.
   
   Given that HubPages knew full well that hundreds or thousands of pages of content were being moved over from another platform, some sort of straightforward help regarding how to acclimate to a completely different layout/format and whole new - insanely rigid - set of guidelines would have been nice. 
   
   I rather feel like I've been dumped in a foreign country with nothing more than a phrasebook that translates "where's the toilet?" and expected to function as a fully contributing member of the culture with no time or means to learn the language.

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   1. 68

      relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Starting on August 15, 2014, when this acquisition was first announced, there have been people discussing this situation in the forums on both sites.  All members of Squidoo were mass emailed a few days later to inform them directly and to direct them to the FAQs and resources that had been set up on both sites to help transition members.
      
      All of the social networking groups I ever participated on at Squidoo switched over to sharing info and tips about the move, and have been doing that for the last three weeks. 
      
      Have you availed yourself of any of those resources?

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4. 59

   Titus2Homemakerposted 10 years ago

   Well, I'm in the forum at this very moment.
   
   FAQ's with vague information like "no excessive use of links" is not really the same thing as, "In a few months when we move your pages over, every one of your Amazon capsules will be shot to heck and you will need to completely rewrite every post so Amazon products show up one at a time, between descriptive text.  You might want to get a head-start on rewriting everything so as not to be stuck doing it all at once when we happen to move it over while there are other major tasks on your plate."
   
   With no way of knowing what capsules were or were not available, what did or did not match up, which guidelines were new/different, etc. there really was no way to know WHAT we needed to ask or change ahead of time.  Pretty much we just knew: a) it will be different b) it will be stricter c) we can't do anything about it; we either move or quit and that's that.
   
   The devil's in the details.

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5. 68

   relacheposted 10 years ago

   I see that you have only been on HubPages for 10 hours.  Have you truly managed to find and review all of the help or educational sections?
   
   lens importing and what happens/happened - http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/124323
   
   detailed guide to HubPages - http://learningcenter.hubpages.com/
   
   Quickie guide to HubPages - http://hubpages.com/faq/
   
   As you only appear to have five Hubs to fix, your updating should go quickly.

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   1. 59

      Titus2Homemakerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      You're missing my point.  I feel it would have been fairer to us to make more of that information clearer BEFORE the move.  Yes, I only have 5 hubs to fix.  But I got moved over at a VERY busy time for me.  It's not a good time for me to have to spend hours figuring out what there is or isn't information here about and where to find it - especially if ASKING A QUESTION here in the former-Squid forums is considered an unacceptable method for doing so.
      
      "Yes, you're missing something; here are the links..." would have been far more helpful.

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      1. 75

         jimmythejockposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         You were given a good warning period about the move from Squidoo, maybe you could have used some of it to read about Hubpages, Just a thought!....jimmy

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         1. 59

            Titus2Homemakerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            So I should have just ASSUMED that when Squidoo said they were transferring our content over, that really meant that all of the rules were going to be completely different and hubs would all have to be rewritten?  See, that's exactly what I mean about warning.  We were given plenty of warning that our content would be MOVED.  We were given NO warning that it would likely need to be reworked.  HAD I been aware of that, I WOULD have come and read HubPages, before I was in the middle of a huge promo that dominates my available work time.

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6. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 10 years ago

   We definitely prefer fewer products in Hubs.  Affiliate links are highly correlated with Spam.  Google isn't always right, but we have seen several cases of where what looks like hand picked products by an author have been deemed spam by google.  Our recommendations is to use few products with pinpoint accuracy. 
   
   We are continuing to remove spam from the site and are working really hard to make sure readers are satisfied with Hubs.

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