I am a serial offender in the unprofessional use of HP forums so you can trust me on this issue.
This is mainly to apologize to staff for my own contribution to the recent announcement of niche sites.
The failure of the switch to categories from sub-domains has taken its toll and that led me to be less enthusiastic than I should have been,
I think if the original post form HP had said something like:
'We are going to trial some new niche sites over the coming weeks. If they are successful we will report back.'
Then I would have said great idea, never give up!
The rather nebulous nature of the information actually given and the uncertainty concerning which pages would move, where and when left me feeling ill-used.
But that is not a real excuse. So apologies...
I agree with your wording of the announcement of new niche sites. But, I do not see any problem regarding switch off to categories from sub-domains. Can you elaborate the allegations regarding this, so that I can also come to know of the problems and failures?
I think long enough has passed to say that the switch to categories from subs did not help traffic. In fact, there has been a downturn.
Nothing wrong with trying something new but you need a little success to keep your spirits up.
May be or may not be. But, I don't blame Hubpages for any downturn to be the result of switching to categories. May be other factors are there. It is a normal case of ups and downs in traffic as far as I see it.
That post was meant to 100 per cent sincere, but I could see when I reread it that I hadn't got around to forgiving them for the bio thing.
Who takes bios from an unknown site seriously?
Some guy could be a convicted murderer and honestly tell you that he has 'extensive experience with the justice system'.
As for someone who takes his cat to the vets to be neutered and describes the ordeal and what he learnt from it, what should he say?
This perhaps:
"I have a cat and brain enough to record events".
I was thinking that your "apology" was very English. You gave with one hand and took away with another!
To be honest, I haven't been doing too badly recently (I have eleven accounts and it's a mixed bag, but I'm talking overall) - so I am currently wary of changes. Change can sometimes result in drops as well as success.
The effects of uncertainty also make me reluctant to do too much editing or creation of new hubs until I can see what the new lay of the land is going to look like.
Moving material to other sites will also give HP the opportunity to "leave behind" some of the hubs they consider inferior. So I hope my best stuff gets picked, because it may well open up a dumping ground and I'd hate to be stuck in there!
I've always had a general faith in HP's competence, vision, and professionalism and intend to keep that. But I must confess that I'm a little anxious as to whether and how I will fit in with the new order of things.
Maybe I am devious in my thinking, but it also occurred to me that it would be a good time for HP to move poor quality hubs away and put them out to pasture somewhere where they couldn't do any harm! Maybe that's why they're being a little quiet/vague?
I know HP staff are invested in the site. But some of us hubbers have given a lot of time and effort too over the years. Some of the hubs that are bearing fruit now are ones that I wrote 9 months ago or more. You always have to think long term, there's no quick bucks in this game!
I know the internet is constantly changing, but I like an idea of what's happening so's I can plan.
"Moving material to other sites will also give HP the opportunity to "leave behind" some of the hubs they consider inferior. "...I think this may be one of the underlying reasons for making this change. It has been an overwhelming task for them to find and dump bad articles, and yet they persist.
As Paul said, the new sites will start "clean", which means they will be able to control what goes into it (assuming they vet every single article before moving anything).
Once the task is completed, I'm guessing the people with garbage will lose ranking and leave. When the ashes settle, good hubs that did not make it to the new sites will have less competition and may have fewer garbage hubs to harm them.
If this does not happen, then the original HP site likely will fail.
On the other hand, those garbage hubs will be much easier for the team to find and dump.
I'm hoping for the best, and by the way, I don't think an apology was necessary. Many of us are nervous about this change and right now are sitting in limbo due to a lack of information about exactly how niche site hubs will be chosen and which categories will be used.
As a professional unprofessional, it has been my experience the unprofessional gets the most ad revenue generating traffic. My posts alone paid for the Jacuzzi installed at HQ last month.
I can't wait until my Jacuzzi comes in the mail from writing at Hubpages. GOALS.
Be sure to order that from Amazon.com so you can get the commission.
Well, anything to clean those butts off our hubs. When is this supposed to happen?
by Christy Kirwan 8 years ago
Many people have asked how the new sites are performing so far. The latest Newsletter provides a general overview, but I'd also like to invite Hubbers who have had Hubs moved to discuss your experiences here. Overall, the change has been very positive, but there's also variation from author to...
by Samantha Cubbison 6 years ago
Because of the way we have rolled out Article Q&A on a site-by-site basis, there are some network sites that have substantially more questions with their own URLs than others. Rest assured, we haven’t seen any direct correlation between changes in traffic and the ratio of questions on a site....
by Juliette Kando F I Chor 8 years ago
Four months ago some of us noticed that certain topics were ill-distributed on the new vertical sites. Now that the sites are up and running more or less successfully, is it now time to rekindle the discussion / negotiations on creating a couple of additional sites to better host certain...
by Kate Swanson 8 years ago
I just saw an announcement from Christy Kirwan to say they're not going to be launching any more new sites. http://hubpages.com/community/forum/137 … ost2832990So that means if you've got Hubs that don't fit in one of the existing niche sites, they're not going anywhere.Sad for me as...
by Ohma 15 years ago
This is a problem since the forums get to heated up or are very in apropriate. I wrote a hub about my grandparents and their wonderful relationship in response to a hubmob challenge so it was automatically catagorized. and when this feature was pointed out to me I checked and there is a link to a...
by Michael Willis 12 years ago
I think I can see why I am not getting traffic. I did a site:"domainname:.com and the two pics below is all I can see! Is hubpages being blocked by Google?1. 2. Here is the message underneath description:A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn...
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