Is a short hub considered substandard?
Can a hub be flagged as substandard for being too short? I have recently published short hubs, and I fear that they may soon be considered substandard. Sometimes hubs are simply short, but having relayed useful information.
I believe the minimum text is 300 words. Less than that can be flagged is my understanding. Adding a photo with a caption can help you meet these requirements as well. I don't think it's automatic, but does increase its potential of being flagged.
Yes. Hubs are not blog posts!
Of course it's possible to write a short post which says one interesting thing about a topic - but what HubPages wants is the kind of article you'd read in a magazine, offering something of substance.
I've taken a look at your Hubs and I can't say any of them offer solid, in-depth information. If you can't write more than 400 words about a subject, then it's likely you don't have enough useful knowledge to write a Hub.
I always thought that hubs had to be around 400 words or more. My shortest hub is 410 words, but I always try to aim for around 600 or more. Some of my hubs, I have had to do more research to increase them in length.
Surely it depends on the hub. Some people write poetry and this may not get past 100 words or photographic hubs where the point is the photo's. A picture paints a 1000 words as the saying goes. A minute of video paints 1000's of words.
It depends on the quality, which is again a subjective evaluation.
The hubpages 'flagship' standard is at least 1500 words, a map, a video, at least 5 pictures, a poll, and a links capsule. Most long term hubbers that I have read, come nowhere near this standard and it hasn't stopped them writing.
Yes, a hub can be flagged as substandard just for having too few number of words, even though nothing else is wrong with it. A hub with a photos can also be substandard due to too few words
Try to shoot for 500 words minimum. 1500 words would be optimal.
I think poems and recipes are different, but regular hubs should be longer (I had heard 400 words or more, with the ideal being 800 to something higher - maybe 1500 or so?). Anyway, yes, short hubs are one of the things that can be flagged.
I don't think it affects the hubs standard. If your hub is interesting then you will see traffic flowing to your hub. and accordingly your hubscore will rise. I have seen several hubs which are merely 300 words long
I think it's best to write the article in Micrsoft Office Word (or the equivilant), and see if you can get over 1000 words. If you can get 2-3000 words, you've got people's attention, plus you'll get more feedback on how to improve it and even more shared info on the subject.
As Wright said, you need to have much more than 400 words, as these aren't blog posts. You don't have to publish them the moment you make them, as I'm currently working on a Caligula and Braveheart film review, and I'm stuck for ideas.
Just remember, work on the things you like and know a lot about, then you can stray onto popular topics that you know about ^^
I want to thank everyone for their helpful advice, especially Marisa Wright. I have edited and reformatted those of my hubs that were under 400 words, providing more information about the chosen topics.
I also think the answer to your question is yes they can be flagged as too short. I've had my haiku have the alert of substandard attached as I was writing. I added information about the origination of haiku and I was already in the process of adding haiku. The substandard message disappeared. I usually have longer content in my articles.
Marisa Wright said it best. I recently wrote an article about the value of Quality Content and how it is important when Publishing on HubPages. If you are interested, here's the link: http://jsmatthew.hubpages.com/hub/Lesso … ing-Online
Hope this helps!
JSMatthew~
by Carolee Samuda 12 years ago
I was hub hopping and had to flag a few hubs for being substandard (word count). One hub had exactly 10 words and 2 photos. There should be a way the system prevents you from publishing a hub like that except if it's in the poetry section.
by Sherri 14 years ago
The question of whether poetry Hubs should have 400-word minimums came up in this thread a few minutes ago:http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/70203#post1528809I've been puzzling about what to do with poetry Hubs I've found while hopping. I haven't flagged any of them, because poetry is a unique...
by Shil1978 14 years ago
HubPages has this wonderful feature called Hub Hopping or Hub Hop to flag low-quality/copied/spam content. I know some hubbers do use this and help HP staff weed out the substandard content. Here's one more reason why everyone should 'hub hop.' I came across this thread on a Google...
by arthurchappell 14 years ago
Rather distressing to find a Hub being flagged back at me as 'substandard'. especially as some readers have given it very positive feedback - worse, the list of possible reasons for it being a 'violation' (very strong accusational phrasing) is very unspecific, especially as the Hub has been pulled...
by January Moon 12 years ago
Why are some hubs flagged for substandard articles, and other hubs that are Plainly substandard andare not flagged? Ive seen articles with two paragraphs, or pictures only with one sentence, these articles have not been flagged for correction, so Id like to know what the real criteria is for...
by dingdong 14 years ago
So, I had my hub moderated as substandard and I didn't see what made it so. I mailed them and got this reply:Well, the hub in question only had some text portions copied from my own hubs. But still, it's counted as duplicated and further considered substandard as the percentage of duplication was...
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