Stumbleupon has stopped letting me add my Hubpages links

1. 81

   cindyvineposted 15 years ago

   I was getting quite a bit of traffic from Stumbleupon, but the last while I notice it hasn't been accepting my submissions from Hubpages.  They say that it's to prevent people from abusing the sytem and just promoting one site all the time.  Does anybody know of a way around this?

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      Edwin Clarkposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Probably no way around it, once stumbelupon system spots a hubpage url it'll get rejected.
      
      Try writing articles on ezine.com, they provide great search results because they have strict editorial guidelines. Than stumbleupon that article once it has been approved.
      
      But bear in mind social bookmark sites such as stumbleupon frown on accounts who soley bookmark their own content. So mix it up by bookmarking other sites that interest you and sprinkle in a few of your own.

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      relacheposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      If you'd bothered to read the StumbleUpon site TOS, you'd know that you aren't supposed to be submitting your own writing to that type of social bookmarking web site.

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         sunforgedposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         why should any of us read TOS when your always around to insert a link to the TOS for us
         
         If an entire domain like hubpages is banned as the result of a small portion of the members actions then the fault would lay on SU for having foolish terms, as obviously we cannot police each other.
         
         self stumble and digg and reddit all you want...just be sure to spread your stumbles and diggs around so that there isnt an unnatural frequency of stumbles/diggs to only a couple of domains.
         
         
         
         the following is common advice found on the web about SU promotion of blogs - just switch it around to promote a hub
         
         1) Do not stumble your own blog. (ok, i thnk this horse is beat to death).
         2) Create a hubpage or squidoo lens (see where I’m going with this)
         3) Create a link to your page through said hubpage or squidoo lens.
         4) Stumble the hubpage or squidoo lens!
         
         
         I suggest the same, but use a blogspot blog, quick summary of your hub - link to hub with anchored text, submit to topblog lists and hit all teh social bookmarking sites
         
         
         hell, ive done this for over a year, rarely if ever stumble or digg anything but my own pages (luckily i have so many it would be hard to tell that) and even made the cardinal mistake of naming my profile name teh same as many of my sites! Pretty obvious self promotion, no ban hammer yet

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      my-success-guruposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I don't know a way around this but I do know that some social networks try to limit people too much. Why not let people promote themselves more? I think some social networks are really missing the (BIG PICTURE.) I think the reason, they don't want too much traffic going away from their own site is because they fear it will take away from their business and maybe give their competition an edge. But if you really look at the BIG PICTURE the opposite is true. If they dared to let people promote themselves more people would be so thrilled they would tell everyone which would create a lot more traffic for them and for people like us. Then everyone would win!!!

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         Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         There was originally a big difference between the intent of social networking sites (which are primarily for people to share information about themselves) and social bookmarking sites.
         
         Social bookmarking sites were originally intended as a way of filtering out all the junk on the internet. Instead of browsing around Google and having to filter out the rubbish yourself, you could go to Digg or Stumbleupon and see only the really good stuff.
         
         What then happened was that would-be internet marketers started Digging or Stumbling their own stuff regardless of quality.  It's no wonder the sites reacted - if they became clogged with junk, their whole raison d'etre was at risk. 
         
         However, it seems to me that most sites have become resigned to the fact that they're not presenting the cream of the internet any more, and in fact most of them are not much better than a community of internet marketers engaging in mutual masturbation (you Digg my stuff, I'll Digg yours).  Which doesn't result in much paying traffic anyway.

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2. 81

   cindyvineposted 15 years ago

   Thanks Edwin, will try that!

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3. 62

   WeddingConsultantposted 15 years ago

   Cindy, I'd be quite upset if you got hubpages banned from stumbleupon due to self promotion.
   
   As Edwin said, self promotion is "frowned upon"...but more specifically it's directly against their terms of service.
   
   The best way to "get around it" is to not self-submit your hubs. Period. Get someone else to do it because your quality is good.
   
   Okay..I'm done ranting.

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      darksideposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      It's likely a user infringement, and only affecting her account.
      
      Others have mentioned it in the past that it's happened to them.
      
      If HubPages could get a complete ban from StumbleUpon it would have happened long before Cindy joined the site.

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4. 81

   LondonGirlposted 15 years ago

   I submit some of my hubs to stumbleupon, but I have submitted 700-odd pages, and only 11 of them are my hubs.
   
   It's really annoying for all the hubpages lot if someone is cack-handed with a social website, as it can get hubpages banned for all of us.

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5. 67

   aidenofthetowerposted 15 years ago

   Like some have said self-promotion isn't really what the social bookmarking sites had in mind. None of them want you to do it and if you do it too much you can get a site banned and even be kicked off yourself. It is best to learn to bookmark content from a variety of sites. Also, only pick your absolute best to bookmark and not just anything that you happen to have written. We all know that not everything we write is the best thing we have ever written...take that into account.
   
   It is a better idea to bookmark other people's writing. If you are bookmarking a site that you write for, getting traffic to that site is good for you as well!

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   SiddSinghposted 15 years ago

   Bookmarking a site on StumbleUpon/Reddit/Mixx/Digg etc is sort of a pat on the back. You would never pat your own back, would you?

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      Mark Knowlesposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      It depends on the site - Digg encourages you to submit your own stuff - SU discourages it. Either way you are wasting your time if what you are submitting does not appeal to their users and you are not active on the site.

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         Bard of Elyposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with what Mark has posted here!

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            imadorkposted 15 years agoin reply to this

            I agree with Bard of Ely when he agreed with Mark when he explained the Digg vs SU thing!

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   sabrebIadeposted 15 years ago

   Digg banned me back in 2007 for submitting one of my own sites.

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      accofrancoposted 15 years agoin reply to this

        I have not submitted any of my hubs on any bookmarking sites,please how is it done? Do you just log on unto the sites and then submit your hub url?Help me to know plz?

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      Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Digg banned all Helium.com users several times for self-promotion but I believe they may have changed their policies?

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8. 81

   LondonGirlposted 15 years ago

   You shouldn't just join a social site to promote your own works. You just annoy people on there and get banned if you do that, and there is a risk of the whole of hubpages getting banned too.
   
   If you want to, join one, get to learn how it works, make some contacts, then, cautiously, submit what you think is your best bit of writing.

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9. 79

   sabrebIadeposted 15 years ago

   One thing that might confuse a lot of newcomers is that on your " Hub Traffic Statistics" page, when you click " How do I get more traffic?" it says:
   
   "Here are a couple ways to get traffic moving to your Hubs. You can send links out to the Internet community through:
   
   Blogs or Website (yours and others you can access.)
   Friends via email.
   Favorite online discussions forums and chat rooms
   Social bookmarking sites, like Digg, reddit, and StumbleUpon."
   
   That last line may confuse a lot of people on just what is allowed and isn't.

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10. 66

    BristolBoyposted 15 years ago

    I have had the same problem as Cindy myself.  This happened when I was first using this system, and I believe I got banned for excessive stumbling of my works.  For a period I was unable to submit any new hubs that hadn't already been submitted.  However, I have recently noticed when trying to stumble someone elses hub that I can now do this once again.  I believe that this is probably due to the fact that I have stumbled a lot of other sites recently (eg BBC, CNN etc).  As such I think it is possible to be able to unlimit your account (is that the right word) so that you can submit works from hubpages.  However, it does take a lot of work.  However, I agree fully with the reasons for StumbleUpon doing it and from now on I am not submitting my own pages to any social bookmarking sites other than Tagfoot. 
    
    If the article is any good it will hopefully be submitted by other people to social bookmarking sites.  This was the case with my Top 10 most expensive cities  hub which was, and continues to be, submitted by other people to a large number of other sites such as Delicious etc.

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11. 67

    Silver Roseposted 15 years ago

    It doesn't matter anyway. Social traffic does not click any ads. It's the search engines that count.

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       sunforgedposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Yes but social bookmarking provides backlinks and traffic that can contribute to better search ranking, so yes...the direct traffic is pretty much worthless, but considering the ease of submission, its worth it.
       
       
       Multiple accounts will help you to shamelessly self promote without risk of a ban, they dont seem to block multiple users from the same IP, you can also write a blog about a hub, and then bookmark the blog entry instead of the hub, or in conjunction with the hub

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12. 81

    cindyvineposted 15 years ago

    Thanks for all the advice and tips. I'd only submitted about 5 articles and some other stuff, webpages I saw and liked as well.  I think it might have just been a glitch as now it works.  I seriously don't think Hubpages will be banned because I submitted 5 of my links to them.  Also, I like the social traffic and really don't care if people click on the ads or not as I'm not with adsense or any others of them.  I'm still not sure of how the search engines work, so that probably doesn't bother me too much either.  I've had some people join Hubpages because of the social traffic.  Another one contacted me this morning.  Now, isn't that a good thing?

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    Silver Roseposted 15 years ago

    Hi sunforged. Wouldn't it be easier to promote your hub by commenting on related blogs to build backlinks rather than go for the social bookmarking stuff?
    
    I admit it's a thrill to see a sudden surge of traffic from social bookmarking, but haven't noticed it getting me any more traffic from search engines. If you have limited time, then the commenting strategy may work better than using the time on bookmarking.
    
    I may be completely wrong of course and talking rubbish. Does anyone else have an opinion/evidence to prove or disprove either point?

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       sunforgedposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       well, call it a combination of quality and method...just contributing your article to any bookmarking site, will only lead to traffic at first when its on the first page for its topic, or recently submitted, for it to be sustainable people have to continue to thumbs up it, digg it etc.
       
       This can be done artificially with multiple accounts from varied IPs(if your into taht sort of thing) or it can happen the way its suppose to, by simply writing something that people would care to share and recommend.
       
       I have articles that as a result of other people voting/digging etc. have maintained good visibility in digg, when on searches for the right keywords ...the first page of google displays 1 direct link to the article, 1 topblog link to the article,and one digg page to the article, this has resulted in approx 300 visits a day for almost 6 months now. with only about 30-40 coming directly from digg, but the high ranking can be contributed to taht constant traffic, the steady stream of comments and that authority link

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14. 81

    cindyvineposted 15 years ago

    Ahhhh, so much information to get my head around.  I think I'm too old for this and must just accept that I'm technologically challenged

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       Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       It's not really your fault, Cindy.  Go anywhere on the net and you'll see people telling you to promote your work, then mentioning all these sites. They don't explain that most of these places prohibit self-promotion, so to get away with it, you have to hide your own posts amongst a lot of other stuff.
       
       When I was on Helium, it used to bug me that Helium were ruthless in applying their own rules (and banning members at the drop of a hat for breaking them), while blithely recommending people to break the rules on other sites.

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15. 81

    cindyvineposted 15 years ago

    True, I was only doing what it said on Hubpages how to get traffic.  But now I feel mad guilty as people are saying I could get Hubpages banned as a site!  Honest, only submitted 5 hubpages links.

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16. 81

    cindyvineposted 15 years ago

    So you're saying I shouldn't have submitted links to 5 of my articles, even though I have written a lot more than that and have also submitted recipes and other news items I found interesting on the net?

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    gamergirlposted 15 years ago

    from:  http://www.stumbleupon.com/terms/

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       sunforgedposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       and what is the relevance? The thread was claiming self promotion was against TOS on hubs, then you post a snippet of the TOS that doesnt cover that issue?
       
       But since it does point out that SU claims usage rights and the ability to profit off your submissions (which shouldnt be your content anyway-so why should they profit from others works that isnt submitted by the creator?)- why oh why do all you TOS junkies so gladly follow teh rules that are of no benefit to you, are so unbalanced when the penalty for breaking them is non existent

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18. 81

    cindyvineposted 15 years ago

    Well according to that, I did no wrong.  Anyway, it turns out it was a temporary glitch with the program anyway, so all those who feel I have done something bad and that I am single-handedly going to cause Hubpages to be banned from Stumbleupon, you are wrong.  Self-promoting articles about abuse and mammograms which I think as many people as possible need to be made aware of, I don't think is wrong.  I didn't self-promote to try and make more money.  I don't make any money at all from Hubpages, as I don't have adsense or that Kontera thingie.

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19. 81

    sunstreeksposted 15 years ago

    I can almost guarantee that Hubpages being banned anywhere is not the result of one Hubber posting a small handful of links.
    
    Getting banned is the result of many, many submissions that violate TOS. There are 200k+ members at hubpages.. Your 5 submissions Cindyvine, I am certain pale in comparison to the self submissions in total by other members.  No need to try and defend yourself. It's not solely your fault. I'll take blame for a handful of submissions of my own content as well.
    
    SU is hardly worth getting upset about. Junk traffic with little conversion. There are much better methods to promoting your hubpages.

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20. 81

    cindyvineposted 15 years ago

    Thanks Sunstreaks, because the earlier comments people made, really made me feel bad as if I had done something wrong.  For me Hubpages is supposed to be fun and I did start to feel as if I was being personally attacked and made to feel stupid as I hadn't read the sign -up agreement properly.  Oh well, think I'm just feeling ultra-sensitive today as that time of the month is looming.  Will take a break from Hubpages today.

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       Edwin Clarkposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I don't think you've done anything wrong. I don't think people are attacking you either, but I can understand how you can feel that way.
       
       Lots of people submit their own content to social bookmarkers and one of the hubbers brought up the fact that different social bookmarking sites have different TOS, so it's easy to get confused on what you can submit and can't.
       
       Personally I submit other people's content that I truly enjoy and I sprinkle in a few of my own once in awhile. Just don't go nuts.
       
       That's it. I don't really see any harm in that and so far social bookmarking sites haven't called the cops on me.

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    gamergirlposted 15 years ago

    sunforged - I'm going to ask you once, and only once, to stop attempting to find ways to rile people up with your every post.
    
    The section of SU's ToS which I quoted is in DIRECT relation and meaning to this thread.  THAT is the relevance.
    
    Good day.

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       sunstreeksposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       LMAO!
       
       In regard to this thread, Sunforged has been spot on in everything he has said.

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    sunforgedposted 15 years ago

    See i would contend that that pointing to some crap legalese is more likely to rile people up, than actually taking the time to show solutions and workarounds. ALso posting snippets of TOS that you either do not understand or didnt even bother to read, can be an annoying stutter in the flow of an otherwise helpful conversation.
    
    And no the snippets you chose to post are completely irrelevant, perhaps you selected it because it said "your content" and restrictions, you read it as "your content is restricted"?
    
    once again your snippet is irrelevant - how very helpful
    
    but truly my intention was not to rile you up, but rather to assist people in using social bookmarking to its full advantage, i found your statement to be unhelpful and wrong so I had to point that out as it could cause confusion in the minds of people who are in the process of learning new things and simply asking a question.

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    gamergirlposted 15 years ago

    I posted the snippet of SU's ToS because relache stated that SU's ToS forbids you to stumble your own content.  The snippet was a response directly to commentary in the thread.
    
    I selected it because it is the portion of the ToS which speaks directly about user submissions of their own content.  It IS relevant to the concerns that were presented, thank you.
    
    If you'll notice, nowhere in my posting in this thread have I stated that the snippet I posted proves you're not permitted to stumble your own works.  Stumbleupon's Terms of Service specifically leave a wide open field, and crap legalese or not, judging by the very snippet I posted, it appears that our opinion of social bookmarking tools may be similar.
    
    I'd appreciate if you'd tone back the knee-jerk reaction which causes you to come off flippant and rude, though.

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