Just read a hub with author listing prices for consultation, etc.

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   Shades-of-truthposted 8 years ago

   I just finished reading a hub that has been here for years. At the end of it, the author lists their email, phone number, and price quotes for help with consultations, products, and so forth. There are also a lot of grammatical errors in the hub, and several broken links.
   
   It is a featured hub. Once again, I am confused. There simply do not seem to be consistent rules, when it comes to what is permitted to be published and what is not.
   
   At the risk of beating a dead horse, I would like other's opinions on this.
   
   So many people have expressed dismay over their hubs being unfeatured; hubs that appear to be excellent ones, too. Then, we have other hubs that are blatantly breaking HP rules. How can it be that difficult to hold everyone to the same standards?

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      calculus-geometryposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      How can it be that difficult to hold everyone to the same standards?
      
      Excellent question.

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         Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you, calculus-geometry.

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      peachpurpleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      they shouldn't be selling or advertising their own contacts to the public, yeah you should report

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         Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I did.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Most older Hubs have NEVER gone through QAP, therefore the only checking they've ever had is via the automated filters.   QAP is quite a recent innovation, so there were many thousands of Hubs published before it was introduced.  We were told they'd be working through the backlog of older Hubs as time allowed, but I doubt they get much time to do so.
      
      That, by the way, is why the unFeaturing system was introduced.   HubPages recognised it couldn't possibly catch up on all the old Hubs that didn't meet their new standards, so they decided on a "nuclear option":  if Google wasn't sending traffic to a Hub, it was very likely because Google didn't like it for some reason - so "hiding" all low-traffic Hubs would remove all the Hubs Google didn't like, and that would raise HubPages' standing with Google.
      
      Of course, there are other reasons why a Hub gets low traffic - it could be a perfectly good, inoffensive Hub but just have a poor choice of keywords, or be on some obscure subject.  HubPages recognised that such Hubs would be "collateral damage", but couldn't think of any other way to remove large numbers of poor Hubs from the site quickly.
      
      One of the interesting things that come out of this is that HubPages sets rules about what it thinks pleases Google, yet old Hubs which break those rules are still Featured - meaning that Google doesn't disapprove of them!

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         Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I have noticed that, Marisa - what you mentioned in your last paragraph, I mean. I have read more Hubs than I can count, that had excellent content on them, lots of products, and some typos - that come up on the first page of Google. So much for what Google likes!

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            Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            You should see my two blogs.  I have pages with 20 to 30 eBay products on them.  I am still making money from those blogs.  It's one reason I get so angry with people who try to make out that Amazon or eBay ads are innately evil - it's nonsense.

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               Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               I agree, completely. I have found that helping people find what they want, by referring them to products that I have used and recommend, is often rewarded by them purchasing those products.
               
               On my own websites, I do have sales from Amazon ads.
               
               The ads certainly are not innately evil in my opinion.

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   Stacie Lposted 8 years ago

   Maybe you should report them and let the team decide. Just yesterday I came across a profile listing business information like you mentioned. I wasn't sure if that was breaking the rules for self promotion
   so I let it go.

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      Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      This one had a lot of text devoted to promotion of the Hubber's business. I did report it, but was still surprised to see it, given all of the anxiety lately about quality Hubs.

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         Barbara Kayposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I think some of the older hubs haven't been gone through yet. Keep reporting them when you find them. At one time this was allowed, but Google changed all that and Hubpages had to change the rules to suit them.

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            Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            I see. That would explain it.

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   relacheposted 8 years ago

   There are thousands of hubs on this site that have never had a human look at them.  Many past HubPages users made it a policy to never-ever-no-matter-what flag a Hub.  Some felt it was a betrayal  (being a snitch) and some felt that work should be done by paid employees.
   
   Posting threads asking how specific content is still published has never demonstrated any practical effect on the issue since the dawn of the forums, but has been a popular action during that exact same time period nonetheless.

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      Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Ah, relache! I did not know that there were thousands of Hubs that had never been viewed by human eyes. I naively thought that all Hubs were subject to some sort of human review.
      
      Still learning...

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         Millionaire Tipsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Even the ones that go through the QAP and therefore are seen by human eyes may not be reported, since the people on QAP are trained to rate a hub based on the particular characteristics, and may not know the rules about what is acceptable and not acceptable.

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            Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Hm...Millionaire Tips, that seems odd to me, that the people on QAP may not know what the rules are. Is that true, or are you teasing me?

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               Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               The QAP team assess Hubs according to very specific criteria and strange though it may sound, it does not include checking for all HubPages' rules.

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                  Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks, Marisa. I did not know that, either.

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      brakel2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I have always flagged hubs, as we do not need below standard hubs on this site. i can't imagine not flagging them. Once I flagged a hub by an admitted retarded person that had no sentence structure and errors galore. The only way it went away was by finally asking others to look at it. It was on the site for a long time.

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         It would be very effective if the team would dedicate one member to deal only with checking and then appropriately removing articles that we flag.  It would be a slow process, but bit by bit things would improve.  Relache is right, complaining on the forums is a waste of time...and sometimes even complaining to the team is, too...but we have to keep flagging if we ever want to see progress!

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            Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Amen and amen.

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            brakel2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

            If you ask one more person to look at it, it gets removed., HP must not have the time to look into all the flagged ones. When I flagged it, I kept checking to see if it was removed, as it was a disgrace , and finally asked for help.

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4. 75

   clivewilliamsposted 8 years ago

   Does anyone know if flagging other persons work affect hub-page rankings in Google. Because at the end of the day that is what it all boils down to. I have seen and still continue to see sites ranked on Google with CRAP on its pages, but that page make a tonne from ads.Is it actually wrong if a person created a hub to advertise themselves,i am unaware and i would appreciate an answer. sound like a great idea to me to create a hub highlighting your skills. As long a the hub is not just based on just a phone number and address. My opinion is that i don't think hubpages needs hub policing.

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      Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Clive, my "take" on seeing so many violations, has to do with how many excellent Hubs lose their EC designation, how many Hubbers agonize over their Hubs being suddenly unpublished, and how many articles are simply either trashy - in my opinion - or riddled with grammatical errors, or simply "fluff".
      
      Apologies for the run-on sentence.
      
      If Google wants unique, quality content - then HP HQ wants unique, quality content. If those of us who write here can help, we should.
      
      If our internal policing can help get rid of some of the drivel, and readers can be assured of a positive, informative experience when they land on any Hub page, it will benefit the entire HP community. Lord knows, we need it.

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         clivewilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         The Internet is a game, trafficking is a game, a well written excellent hub sitting on hubpages domain for years gets a finger full of traffic while a video with a man shaving a squirrel goes viral, millions of views...what we at hub pages are desperate for. Let hubpage do their work just like how google does theirs. And since we are sub domained each hub should be marked uniquely by Google, thus reporting hubs is a waste of time.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            It's not true that each sub-domain is marked separately - or I should say, it's not completely true. The qulaity of HubPages as a whole does have an impact on our Panda score and therefore our traffic.
            
            Google has changed its attitude to sub-domains several times over the years.   Since the last Panda update it appears that sub-domains are no longer entirely quarantined from the rest of the site, so the quality of other Hubs does impact on your sub-domain.

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         Paul Maplesdenposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         This is the first '+1' type post that I have made - This is *such* a good point, especially:
         
         If our internal policing can help get rid of some of the drivel, and readers can be assured of a positive, informative experience when they land on any Hub page, it will benefit the entire HP community. Lord knows, we need it.

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            Shades-of-truthposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you, Paul.

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   Mickjiposted 8 years ago

   I think this is because some things where added only after. For example, now you cannot activate the adsense instantly but you have to write some good hubs before. I'm an older member, I've not published my first 5 Hubs yet but I have adsense activated.This means that the Hub you mentioned is way really old.... You can try to Report that Hub, it is on the top right corner of the page (I've never tried it but if you can click it more than once, sooner or later Hubpages team will see it)

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   Easy Exerciseposted 8 years ago

   I believe it is simply an oversight. The HubPages team cannot be everywhere. I just had a hand slap on a well established hub - the team unpublished and it needed the requested revisions but the hub was literally 7800 views later.
   
   If I might suggest sending a friendly note with the url to the team at HubPages. They are here to help and if you can help them with your insights to highlight what may need review - I am sure the team and all your fellow hubbers will be thankful.

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