I'd like feedback on my Hub: Whitstable Campaign: Town Centre Supermarket

1. 54

   Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years ago

   Hi,
   
   Hi,
   
   I keep getting the message that my hubs could be featured, but no matter how often I change them, they never are. I keep getting told that they may contain "spammy elements" but I'm not sure what these might be. Many of my hubs were previously published in my local newspaper, the Whitstable Gazette, where I write a column. I think it is only polite to acknowledge this by putting a link to the paper in. Is this a "spammy element"? Also, I've written reviews of shops in my town, and put an address and a link for the shop, which is what I think you would expect. Is this a "spammy element"? This is very difficult to understand. If a review for a restaurant or a shop appears in a newspaper, you would expect a link to that restaurant or shop, wouldn't you? I'm trying to make my hubs the go-to place for information about my town, so naturally I want to put the information in.
   
   Here is one of the hubs about which I received "A Friendly Heads Up" and which I have re-jigged and re-written a number of times in order to get it featured:
   
   Whitstable Campaign: Town Centre Supermarket.
   
   Thanks!

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      theraggededgeposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Remove the links and then see if it gets featured.
      
      If you took the photos then mention it in the image capsules.
      
      Also, this looks a bit 'newsy'. HP is looking for 'evergreen' topics.

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         Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         So what's "newsy" and what's "evergreen"? Isn't this just a matter of interpretation? The shop has been there for the last ten years and is likely to still be there in an other ten. I'm trying to create the go-to site for information about Whitstable, but if I can't include the actual information - like links, names, addresses etc - then what's the point?

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            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            As I said on another thread, if you are trying to create a "go-to site" then you're in the wrong place.  On HubPages you are not creating a site. It is impossible for readers to subscribe to follow your posts. You can't build a loyal readership because you can never know who your readers are.  And most of your readers will never notice that there's a place (your profile) where they can see all your articles listed together.
            
            On HubPages, what you do is write standalone articles which make money by attracting readers from the search engines.  The navigation of the site is then geared to drive readers around the site by topic, not by author.  It's also (probably) a dying site - HubPages is now creating niche sites (specialist sites by topic) and moving all the best Hubs to those sites, leaving only the leftovers behind.  I don't think they have a niche site where your topic would fit, and personally I wouldn't be investing a lot of effort into writing articles for the rump.
            
            I know some people will get upset when I say that - but let's face it, if HubPages was successful in its current form, they wouldn't be investing such a lot of people and money in creating the niches.  The niche sites are looking very promising and it's only good business sense if they start focussing on those and stop maintaining the old site.  I may be wrong, but I'm certainly going to wait and see.
            
            As for news vs evergreen - the question to ask is, will this article still be of interest to readers in a year's time?  If not, its not evergreen.

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            1. 54

               Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               But once it stops being news it becomes social history doesn't it? My view is that everything I write is evergreen, because that's the way I write. HubPages is very short-sighted if it can't see this. Maybe I will just have to move on. I feel reluctant because I've spent such a lot of time and energy here and for all the jumping through hoops they make you do, the page always looks good in the end: much better than a blog. Oh well. As you say, if a story is unfeatured it's invisible, which means it might as well not exist. This is censorship isn't it, the very opposite of what the web was set up to achieve.

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  It may be social history but how many people are still going to be curious about what happened in a year's time?  Social historians doing research perhaps, no one else IMO. That's why it's not evergreen.
                  
                  Evergreen is a Hub that's as useful and relevant today as it was three years ago.  Not just a historical curiosity.
                  
                  Articles can look just as good on a blog as they do on HubPages, it's just a question of having the right kind of layout and navigation for the blog.  If you're not worried about making money from your blog, then look at Wordpress.com - there is a free version and it can look every bit as good as HP.   You also get to be part of a community - if you follow people's blogs they will follow yours back.

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      Au faitposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      One thing I noticed is that your word count is about 479.  HP prefers at least 600 words, and ideally 1150 words.  In fact they state 1150 words as the bare minimum in their instructions for a stellar hub.  It's also OK to have more than 1150 words.  Some of my 'hubs' are 5,000 words or more.  Exceptions are made for poetry, but otherwise the longer articles are preferred.
      
      After 7 years I would expect you to have visited the Learning Center many times, but just in case you have trouble finding it -- and we all do, I've included a link here.  For some reason it's not easy to find and you would think it would be the easiest page on here, but . . .   https://hubpageshelp.com
      
      Give special attention to the article on how to create a stellar hub.
      
      I would write a longer piece and include information that would interest a tourist. I think that might address the "evergreen" issue sufficiently, and it would add words.   Include local lore as well as current information.  You can put the political info you have in a special section of the article for locals.  I say political because it seems to be about taking out the old quaint/unique businesses in favor of modern new chains, and that's a local political issue that may or may not interest tourists.  By putting it in a special section (maybe a sidebar) it is easier for locals to find.  Lots of photographs or videos if you have some of the business or the section of  town you're showcasing would make it much more interesting also.
      
      HP wants to attract regular readers and it seems to me your best bet to do that is to appeal to tourists who will in turn bring business to your town.  Many people love the out of the way places that aren't so commercialized.  In fact I think there is a hunger for the less commercialized shops and restaurants that have become so common, but pretty run-of-the-mill, and lacking in unique and interesting character.
      
      Even your unindexed articles can be viewed on your profile page. If you develop a following as an author, your fans can access your profile page and view all your articles there whether Google has indexed them or not.
      
      To make sure all of your articles are visible on your profile page and available to people who visit your profile page, use the following instructions: 
      Go to your profile page.  Click on "Edit Profile."  Scroll down almost to the bottom of that page where it says "Show only Featured Hubs on my profile:"  Click on the 'NO' box and then all of your hubs will be visible again on your profile page.
      
      By clicking 'no' you are saying you want all of your hubs to be showing, not just the 'featured' ones.
      
      By writing information that would appeal to tourists you get the element of people searching though Google that HP likes.  You also provide a reference for locals about the lore and history of your town and you could advertise your URL through your chamber of commerce and elsewhere.  I would also include stories about special events (festivals, contests, etc.)  in your town that may be yearly events.  Also tributes to people who are historically important to your town or who have made important contributions to your town.  Everything you ever wanted to know about Whitestable and more. 

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         Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Au fait, thanks for your detailed answer. My profile is already edited as you suggest. http://hubpages.com/@whitstableviews.
         
         Writing for tourists: yes, this is exactly what I've been trying to do. There are tourists hubs on there, and out-of-the-way shops, and pubs and historically important people and all sorts of things. The trouble is, if HubPages doesn't feature them, they don't appear on search engines, so they might as well not exist.
         
         The reason HubPages started unfeaturing hubs was that there was a lot of below par material on on the site at one time, but I don't think any of my stuff is below par. The reason the piece is so short is that it's from a column I write for the local paper. All of the pieces are 350 words long (give or take), which is what the word count for the column is. I was trying to gather them all in one place, and, in fact, the bulk of my 350 word columns are featured. It's just that I keep trying to get the 5 or 6 unfeatured ones featured and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It's not the length, or how come all the other pieces are allowed?
         
         A 350 word column is a very specific discipline in the writing trade: much harder to do than you might imagine. I also write longer pieces, and, in fact, books. Here's my other profile page where I feature my longer articles: http://hubpages.com/@cjstone. I'm considering moving on from HubPages as no matter how many times I rewrite my articles, there are always some that are unfeatured: this is despite the fact that I'm a professional writer whose work is good enough to appear in many national papers. Thanks for your interest. Good luck with your writing.

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            Au faitposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            If you are talking about your hubs being unfeatured from time to time for no apparent reason, that is something we all deal with.  Go in and add or subtract a comma or some other minor change and it will again be featured for a time.  Most of the time when this happens it is because the hub doesn't get enough traffic.  Has nothing to do with quality, etc. Just go in and make a minor quick change and joila!  Featured again. There are a million small things one can do to an article so that it shows it has been updated recently.  Google doesn't like articles that are allowed to stagnate and never get reviewed/updated. 
            
            You may have the same problem at any other site you write on because it is Google that objects to information that is allowed (or appears to be allowed) to just sit the same way for a year or more.  By making a minor change it shows you are maintaining your articles.  Google likes that and readers also prefer up-to-date material. 
            
            I know and you know that some material doesn't change much if at all over time, but a lot of people like to think they're reading material written 10 minutes ago.  When the most recent update is posted over 6 months ago, it's time to make a change however minor to please those people who think something written this morning is better than something written last year. The psychological effect of a recent update cannot be overestimated.
            
            I was under the impression that you were unable to get any of your hubs published.  This is an entirely different thing and every one of us on HP deals with it regularly.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               It's not quite true that Google objects to material that's not updated. If that were the case, then Huffington Post or the New York Times would be heavily penalised, because they have thousands of articles on their site that haven't been touched for months and years!
               
               Google looks at the overall site when it comes to freshness.   If a blog is regularly adding new posts, it doesn't matter that the older posts aren't updated.  The fact that new posts are being added demonstrates that the blog is being kept current.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            It has finally dawned on me that we're all talking at cross purposes.
            
            Usually, people who request feedback are doing so because their Hub failed QAP.  Your Hubs didn't fail QAP, did they?   They were just unFeatured for traffic.
            
            You can tell by looking at the circle next to them on your account page.  If it's a white circle, there's something wrong with the Hub. If it's a half moon circle, there's NOTHING wrong with the Hub, it's just not getting enough traffic.
            
            The thing is, a Hub doesn't have to get a lot of traffic to stay alive.  So if it's getting so few visits that it's gone unFeatured, no one's reading it anyway.  So it's probably not worth losing sleep about.
            
            It's another reason why a blog would make more sense.   On a blog about a single topic, even if one post isn't getting much traffic, it's still forming part of an overall body of work on that topic.  Google likes to see a blog or website that offers a substantial amount of information on one subject, so even unpopular posts help bolster your reputation as a go-to person - so gradually, their traffic should improve. 
            
            Your low-traffic articles on HubPages don't have that effect, because Google doesn't see your HubPages account as a discrete entity - your Hubs are all mixed up with the other miscellaneous content here. 
            
            By the way I see you already have a blog.  How attached are you to it, in its current form?  I'd have thought your best bet would be to delete everything that's not Whitstable-related on that blog, and turn it into your go-to site.  It's got the benefit of age.

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               Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               I think you're right Marisa: time to move my stuff over to a blog. I hadn't realised about how google views HubPages. You're right, it is more suited to one-off articles. Mind you this Hub got a white circle, meaning it's considered substandard: http://hubpages.com/art/Whitstable-People-Rupert-Hayes That's finally helped me to make the decision that I have to leave HubPages as they are obviously philistines. Oh well.

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  There was a period, when the sub-domains were introduced, that Google did regard each of our accounts individually. However last year some time, Google decided to change the way it views sub-domains and authorship, and we are now all lumped in together again.  That's one reason why the niche sites have become necessary.
                  
                  I wish HubPages would stop using words like substandard so carelessly.
                  
                  Your Hub is not "substandard" in terms of its writing - it's just that it's breaking a rule of some kind.  I'm guessing the link to the Horsebridge Centre is the problem, since it links to their front page not a page about his exhibition.
                  
                  That's a perfect example of what HubPages considers an irrelevant link.  You've linked to the Centre in case people would like to check out its other exhibitions, but your Hub's topic is not art exhibitions:  it's one artist. Therefore you can only have links to sites about that artist..

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                     Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     Marisa, thanks for your response. You really are a most diligent and helpful person, going to all this trouble to find out what may be wrong with my Hubs. But that's the problem isn't it? All of these nit-picking rules you highlight: it makes being involved with HubPages a chore not a pleasure.
                     
                     On the Rupert Hayes piece: I wrote to them to find out what might be wrong. They say the link to a Facebook page is a definite no no, and refer to the length, but, as I've said before, all of these pieces are short. They are 350 word columns, but most of the rest of them are featured despite that. They also add, and I quote: "the other Hub on Rupert Hayes is not featured for quality issues rather than spammy elements".
                     
                     In other words, someone somewhere has taken a value judgement on the Rupert Hayes piece and decided that is falls below par. This is censorship, no less, and it makes it impossible to work for them any longer. What's the point? This is certainly the only piece up on the web about this obscure but interesting artist. If people can't put "Rupert Hayes" into their search engines and come up with my little piece then it's a total waste of time.
                     
                     I was trying to use HubPages to set up a useful site about my home town, and what this has shown is that it is not possible. I still have my other less focussed page, which will remain as an archive of my longer pieces, but I will be closing down Whitstable Views and setting up a blog, as many of you have suggested.
                     
                     Thanks for taking so much time over this Marisa. I hope you continue to get some pleasure out of HubPages. I must say that it is totally gone for me.

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                        Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        It's not censorship, it's just a moderator applying the rules. 350 words is too short to meet the new rules.
                        
                        Hubs are not retrospectively checked for all of the new rules.  That means if you wrote a 350 word Hub some years ago, and haven't touched it since, it's safe.  But as soon as you make even a small change to it, that sends it through the system and it's checked against the new standards.
                        
                        Frankly I'm a bit surprised that a journalist wouldn't have been more aware of how revenue-sharing sites worked, and that your account could never be regarded as a true stand-alone resource.  I'm glad you're now aware of it and I'm sure you'll find that a blog will work better.  I commend you to Wordpress.com as a good place to put it.  One advantage over Blogger is that there is a community - if you search for similar blogs you can build up a network of contacts and friends.

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                           Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                           Marisa, no, I've altered nearly all of my 350 word pieces recently, and most of them remain featured. If the Rupert Hayes piece is being unfeatured for "quality issues" that means someone has decided to flag it for some other reason. I wasn't aware how HubPages as a revenue sharing site worked, so thanks for enlightening me on that. I'm already on Wordpress so will try to work up a focussed blog on Whitstable. Thanks again for your help. At least I know what I'm doing now.

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2. 69

   Shyron E Shenkoposted 7 years ago

   Whitestable views, I think one thing may be considered spammy is the link to your newspaper, if it is published on-line then your article is already on the internet and that is a no, no.

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      Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      No, it's not published on-line. The link is to the news site, but my column doesn't appear there.

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      Shyron E Shenkoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Whitstable, Views, HubPages do prefer "evergreen" hubs, but Hubbers are people who read everything and if you are looking to make lots of money, forget HP, if you are looking to become a part of a writing community then HP is for you.  If you read and leave a comment on someone's Story, Poem, Flash Fiction, DIY information. Then do it.  Read other Hubber's work so you can see how it is done.
      Welcome to HubPages and the best of luck to you.

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         theraggededgeposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         He's been at HP for 7 years

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            Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Even longer: I have another HubPages site here: http://hubpages.com/@cjstone

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            Shyron E Shenkoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Good for him, 7 years, should be long enough to know what he needs to know.

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               Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               I joined eight years ago, with this site, http://hubpages.com/@cjstone. HubPages was a very different place then. There were no unfeatured hubs, none of this censorship, and you could write what you liked. But then came the battle with Google, and everything changed. I haven't used the site for a long while but I just thought I'd give it a go again. I've been trying really hard to comply with the new rules, but, I think you are right, this just isn't the place any more for the things I want to do. It's such a pity though. I've spent so much time and so much energy trying to get this right, and the thought of having to move everything over to another site is so tiresome. I just don't know if I have the energy.

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   erorantesposted 7 years ago

   You can write a little extra information on your hub and a few pictures. You can read the hub pages learning center. Good luck with your hub. I am looking foward reading your writing.

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4. 95

   Glenis Rixposted 7 years ago

   I think that hub pages is the wrong platform for this type of hub, as the wider world is not interested in the information that you have provided. It's better suited to a community blog/ newsletter. I too have written about my home town - but it's a travel hub aimed at visitors - and it's featured. Perhaps you could transfer you hubs to a personal website and arrange to have it promoted in the local newspaper?

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      Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I think you're right Glenis. It may be the wrong platform. I've written travel hubs for tourists too, but I was hoping to be the go-to site for all things Whitstable. Maybe a blog is a better idea. Thanks for your interest.

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         Shyron E Shenkoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         NO! Don't let anyone discourage you from writing on here or anywhere else. Go to other people's hubs and read look for hubs that have similar interest and see their layout.  (don't forget to comment on their hub)
         You have 44 hubs that are featured, how can you let someone tell you this is the wrong platform for you. 
         Please don't allow someone to talk you out of writing here.
         HP is a community of writers who care about each other.

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            Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I'm still on HubPages Shyron: look up CJ Stone and you'll find me. But I'm taking down my Whitstable hubs and turning them into a blog. I think that's the way to go, and I don't have to worry about HubPages staff censoring me, which is what I understand unfeaturing people's writing to be.

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               theraggededgeposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               HubPages is a business. It is developing a certain style, as evidenced by its requirements for articles that follow their preferred standards. They don't want personal pieces or short hubs. They are phasing out creative writing because it doesn't attract traffic. HP has to make money and, unfortunately, because the search engines dictate what appears in search results, they drive the traffic.
               
               I do understand that it's frustrating because your hubs don't fit the new HP style, but that's how it is. Your choice is to expand your hubs or to take them elsewhere. However, it's not censorship of your writing, merely a commercial decision.

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                  Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Rendering material invisible for any reason whatsoever is censorship. You might say it is justified for commercial reasons, but it is still censorship.

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                     Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     So if you submitted an article to the Whitstable Gazette and they said no thanks, would you say it was censorship - or would you simply acknowledge that as a publisher, they have the right to decline to publish?
                     
                     HubPages is an online publisher.    Why is it different?

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                        Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        OK, I take your point. I guess the problem for me is stuff that they have published, and then subsequently unpublish. Not that any of this matters any more as I'm moving all my stuff to a new site.

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                           LongTimeMotherposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                           Good luck with your new venture. I'm a little puzzled though. Why didn't you just put a link to your HP profile page on the bottom of your weekly newspaper column? That would have driven traffic to your hubs.

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                              Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                              I have done that in the past, and I even had some flyers printed so I could hand them out or deliver them, but if some of my pieces are invisible on the web because HubPages views them as substandard (which they are not) then that would negate any work I might do to drive traffic to my hubs wouldn't it?Here's me doing work and spending money to promote my Hubs, and there is HubPages, making them invisible on the web. Kind of makes you want to give up doesn't it?

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                                 LongTimeMotherposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                 Well, since you asked, no it wouldn't make me want to give up. It would make me want to adapt my writing to the guidelines set by the publisher.
                                 
                                 I suspect you'd be surprised just how many professional writers are also hubbers. And while I appreciate your frustration, it seems a little odd that you keep insisting your newspaper pieces should be considered appropriate for HP. That wouldn't work if you were trying to have the same piece published as a feature article in a magazine, would it?
                                 
                                 Seems to me, it wouldn't take much effort for you to expand your existing work to meet the guidelines displayed in the top right hand corner of each 'edit' page. If you look at the number of 'ticks' you get in that box, you should be able to see which of your hubs are considered 'sub-standard'. Using that box as your indicator.
                                 
                                 However, if you're not prepared to do that, I think you've made the right decision. And again, I wish you luck with your new venture.

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                                    Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                    It's a question of time isn't it? I was looking for a place to store and archive my newspaper pieces on-line, as well as to serve as a sort of portal into my home town. HubPages don't pay do they, they revenue share, so it's not exactly good money for the effort. I'm sure there are other working writers on HubPages; I suspect they are as frustrated as me. If I'm going to spend time and effort bringing my stories up to HubPages standards, then I'd rather I was being properly paid for it.

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                                       Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                       There used to be many professional writers on HP before the Big Panda Disaster of 2011.  There are hardly any left now.   Most of those that remain are bloggers and HubPages is part of a larger strategy to create an online presence.  I also know quite a few like me, who write mainly on their own blogs or freelance, but come to HubPages when they've written a piece they can't find a home for anywhere else.  I take the view that it might as well earn a few cents here than moulder on my laptop - plus HubPages gave me my start and it's a great place to avoid doing any real work...
                                       
                                       You can still use HubPages as an archive - just unpublish your Hubs but don't delete them. 
                                       
                                       As for Wordpress, I'd urge you to learn about themes for the new blog.  You'd be well advised to choose a magazine-style theme for your Whitstable blog - then your front page will show teasers for several posts and will be much more attractive.  Also learn about menus.  For a blog to work, you need to assign your posts to Categories and then have a menu listing those categories.

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                                 theraggededgeposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                 Unfeatured doesn't mean invisible. They are only invisible to search engines. I think someone else already explained how to make all your hubs visible on your profile. Thus handing out the links and sharing them on social media can garner plenty of traffic and you don't have to move them unless you really want to. Depends how much you need Google.

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                        Kylyssaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        I think people assume that since HubPages doesn't pay for the material HubPages sells their ads on, it ought not to be so fussy about the material writers provide them free of charge. But even if you volunteer for a charity, you have to meet its standards, and HubPages is a for-profit business even though the product they sell ads on is donated for their use.
                        
                        It's not like you can go volunteer in a soup kitchen and get away with making meals a third the size they're supposed to be and with food the homeless people you serve find barely edible just because you are giving your labor away. So it should really be no surprise that HubPages has standards since almost every organization does, and for very good reasons. Every job, paid or unpaid, should be about rendering a result that is useful to someone and short blurbs aren't really all that useful for a site like HubPages.

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                           Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                           Kylyssa, well you are right, there have to be standards of course, but my quibble is that all of these pieces have previously appeared in a newspaper, for which I am paid, which means that, in terms of writing standards, they have already passed the test. The problem is, by what standards are they being measured? Clearly HubPages must have different standards than the newspapers I write for, and I'm certainly not serving up barely edible fare here, and, while they are short, they all add up to something in the end. The problem is, I think, that they have an algorithm for deciding what is featured and what is unfeatured, so some of everyone's material gets unfeatured by them, without any human intervention, no matter how good it might be. I would describe this as standardisation rather than standards.

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                              Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                              This is what I mean by the misuse of the word "substandard".   It's usually no reflection on the quality of the wrting, because most of HubPages' rules have nothing to do with the quality of the writing.  The rules are designed to ensure that all Hubs are search engine friendly.  That's their most important criteria because HubPages relies for 90% of its traffic on the search engines.    A Hub can be an absolutely spectacular piece of writing, but if there's a risk it might upset Google, they don't want it.
                              
                              Length is one of those things that can upset Google. It's true that if all your short Hubs were on a blog, they would add up to something - but as I've explained, on HubPages they don't add up to anything because they are just 44 random articles scattered amongst the hundreds of other Hubs on HP.

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                                 Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                 Thanks again for your input Marisa. Yes I understand that, which is why I'm moving everything over to wordpress. I don't want to have to start adding to those small pieces as I've got other things to be getting on with. I take your point from the other post that I need to investigate themes. I will certainly look into that.
                                 
                                 The reference to Google reminds me of why I still think this all amounts to a form of censorship. I had one Hub back in the day that quite unexpectedly and spectacularly became a hit. It went to number two on Google after the wikipedia entry, and I was getting dozens of hits every day. Then Google complained about it. It got taken down. I had to struggle to get it put back up again, and, guess what? It's lost its position. HubPages relies on Google, and it's Google who are calling the shots and making sure that it is mainly their product on their search engine results. Perhaps "censorship" is the wrong word. Maybe rigging the results would be a better description.

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                                    Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                    Fair enough, I thought you were referring to HubPages doing the censorship.   You are right, Google does call all the shots.   However I doubt very much the complaint was related to "rigging the results".  The only time HubPages would get a formal complaint from Google would be if you had published a piece that another website felt it had the rights to.  Google never complains about anything else - if it wants to "rig the results" as you say, all it does is drop the offending piece from its search engine results.  People don't decide the ranking on Google's results page - Google does.

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                           2. 90

                              Kylyssaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                              I've been print published for pay, too, in newspapers, magazines, anthologies, and textbooks. I've also been published in online magazines that pay scale and on the websites of dozens of charities and businesses. I earn my living as a writer, too. It doesn't mean I'd get upset if an elementary level textbook publisher wouldn't consider an adult-themed short story or an article on a topic they don't publish. HubPages has rules, too, and they aren't the same as for any other platform or publisher, but they are more similar to magazines, not small-town newspapers. Most magazines aren't really into publishing blurbs.
                              
                              Newspaper articles are supposed to be short except for the special feature articles because they are limited by the costs of paper, ink, printing machine upkeep, insurance, and trained labor to operate the presses. Electronic media doesn't have those issues so there's no reason to be a slave to them anymore.
                              
                              If you are a professional writer, following a publisher's guidelines should come naturally by this point in your life. I'm forty-six and came to the world of online publishing about ten years ago looking for submission guidelines because my experiences in print publishing had so trained me.
                              
                              Think about all of the submissions you sent to book publishers, magazines, and so on using paper and snail mail back in the bad old days of incredibly long response times and lost mail. Would you have sent one out for which you hadn't read the submission guidelines? You know you wouldn't; it's a waste of paper, postage, and time. So why not put the same level of care into your online writing endeavors and do your research before publishing?
                              
                              Or why not take advantage of your strengths by looking for publishers who accept blurb-length writing? There are many that pay scale and sometimes much more. Without knowing what you write other than small town community material, it's hard to recommend anything specific.

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                                 Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                 I'm not arguing with you Kylyssa. I've agreed that I've probably picked the wrong platform for these pieces and am already in the process of moving them somewhere else.
                                 
                                 Actually, of the 47 pieces that are up here, mostly of the 350 word - what you call "blurb" - length, only six are unfeatured, but the frustration was in trying to work out exactly why they had been penalised, which is why I started this thread. It can be a little obscure, and you've all been very helpful in suggesting ways I might have gone wrong.
                                 
                                 I'm not committed to that length. It happens to be the length of my column that's all. I've done 600 word columns, 1,000 columns, 5,000 word features, and seven books approaching 100,000 words apiece, so length isn't the issue for me, it's the constant jumping through hoops you have to do to keep your pieces featured.
                                 
                                 I've been on HubPages for eight years, and have another page where my longer and more general articles appear - http://hubpages.com/@cjstone - which I use as an archive for older material. In fact some of my 350 word pieces have appeared on there as well, but I put them together to make longer articles.
                                 
                                 I was just trying to make a go of a community based page and chose (wrongly it seems) HubPages as the platform. It was a mistake, and I'm moving on.
                                 
                                 Thanks for your input. It's all been very interesting.

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                                 1. 90

                                    Kylyssaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                    Keeping up to date with your publishers' writing guidelines is part of earning a living as a writer and it has been for a very long time.
                                    
                                    I can see how the changes the Internet has wrought on the field of writing can be upsetting to someone who has made a career writing for print, but adherence to changing guidelines and editing old pieces to match them are nothing new.
                                    
                                    Believe me, I get it. I used to sell articles to magazines for fifty cents a word that I couldn't get ten bucks for these days.  The world is changing. We were fortunate to live during a time that valued writing so much more in a monetary sense, but that time has not survived along with us.

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                                       Whitstable Viewsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                       But here's the problem with HubPages specifically: the writing guidelines are really not all that clear. I get the issue of length, as I've said several times, but most of the 350 word pieces went sailing through, while one or two just wouldn't, no matter how many times I clipped them and cut out links and played about with them. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason for it. That's why I was puzzled.
                                       
                                       What finally made me decide to move on was this one: http://hubpages.com/art/Whitstable-People-Rupert-Hayes
                                       
                                       It's a lovely little piece about a local artist in Whitstable who had a stroke and is now confined to a wheelchair. The point for me is that if anyone did a search for Rupert Hayes, this is very nearly the only piece they would find. But they can't find it as it's been unfeatured, ie rendered invisible to search engines. That seems like a betrayal of the business of writing to me, publishers guidelines or no, and it's made it clear to me that I've been wasting my time trying to set up this community based site on HubPages. Time to take it to another place.
                                       
                                       I'm not really all that worried about the way the Internet has changed the writing trade.  It's one of those things and you have to roll with the changes, like everything else in life. It's opened up some opportunities while closing others down and it's all a learning process isn't it? I'm 63 and will be retired in 2 years. Some of the stuff I write doesn't fit into any category, and that's the way I want it to stay. Meanwhile, I'll have my community based site up and running in a week or two and I won't let this little set back get me down.
                                       
                                       Thanks again for your contribution to this thread. It's all helped me to make up my mind and I feel so much easier now that the decision is made.

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5. 90

   Will Apseposted 7 years ago

   What this thread needs is a good murder and a psychic to bring Agatha Christie back from the land of the remaindered.

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   1. 69

      Shyron E Shenkoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Will, try "The Coors Accident or Murder …Flash Fiction Mystery Challenge"

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6. 60

   Let-freedom-rigngposted 7 years ago

   I am not really sure, but most publishing places want original material. Meaning, (even if it is your material), it had already been previously published elsewhere.

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7. 90

   Will Apseposted 7 years ago

   Given the space that this site gives to vile conspiracy theories, bad poetry, barely intelligible ESL pieces, impenetrable political rants and religious stuff that makes you fear for the sanity of nations, it is a shame that there is no room for Whitstable and its woes.
   
   Our worlds continue to turn because some people really do care about the minutiae of their local communities.
   
   The content in question is not going to hurt a site and it is a shame it has no place.

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