Is Hubpages Trying To Grow Too Fast?

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ryankettposted 14 years ago
Is the growth sustainable? When I arrived 4 months ago, we had 400,000 hubs. What is it now, 500,000?

Does this site really benefit from people writing almost identical hubs on the same topics?

When somebody arrives they are told to write, write, write, write. 30 in 30 basically. I am being a little hypocritical because I am doing the same.

But surely promotional initiatives on quantity need to be stopped once and a while for quality control?

Something like.... right you have finished your 3rd 30 in 30, now spend a month effectively tagging, working on improving your keywords, completing summaries (I havent even done summaries yet), building backlinks, hyperlinking between your hubs, sticking in news feeds, rss feeds, videos, spell checking, reorganising capsules to improve adsense ad placement.

How about a proofreading week? Why cant people team up and spend a week proofreading?

Those other things (which seem to have been brushed aside) are going to be just as important to revenue streams, SERP, PR, as quantity.

There is a point to be reached where decent keyword titles are scarce (just like .com domains). So surely emphasise should be placed on quality as well as quantity?

Everything I say recently seems to be labelled as critical or abusive, but pure quantity of output just does not work..... people are joining hubpages believing that quantity is key to earnings. Then we have people saying that they havent earnt anything for 5 months and yet dont know what a keyword or SEO is.

There are incredibly poor quality hubs, with no optimism in any sense of the word, that are hogging some incredible keyword rich URL's.

So would it not be in everybodies benefits if those completely unique URLs were of the best possible quality, and utilised to full effect financially?

I could go and write a 200 word hub in 30 seconds using the URL 'best-credit-cards' and not earn a cent. Or I could spend 3 days on it and potentially make hundreds of dollars.

Anybody can slap out a hub a day, because some hubs are just easy. But if somebody is spending one day (and never another hour) on one of the sites best possible sub domains, then this is potentially going to be a sad situation.

People like Mark Knowles have lost SERP on high earning pages, as the price for swamping the site with all sorts of incompetents and couldnt-care-lesses or people that expect to earn a $1000 a week with no knowledge or self education.

Again, I know that hubpages can do no wrong, and I expect to be severely criticised and hit on for this. But quality is everything. All of the best hubbers know this. Relache, Mark Knowles, Darkside..... they are all high earners (I am assuming in one case, I know in the other 2) and they will all tell you that quality is key (although Relache is a strong candidate for defending the site here).

If this is the case, and quality really is key, then why does this site want to effectively turn itself into Squidoo (which gets less traffic) instead of a reliable and valuable information source?

I have not said this lightly, I have been offered the place as a Hubchallenger. And despite being somebody that has completed 4 consecutive hubchallenges, and am on route to another one (and believe me, some of my hubs still need improvement). I am going to have to send a heartfelt apology to Mr Hupfer and refuse to play a part (well, actually I should have done this ages ago - sorry). Because I just think that YES a 30 in 30 is valuable, but only of they are fixed term initatives and allow time for hub improvement. Where is the 'Spell check all your hubs' initiative? Or the 'move your capsules for adsense' initiative?

This site only gets one attempt at quality content for each URL. Once the URLs are gone, its down to second base.

JUST TO NOTE, I HAVE GREAT RESPECT FOR THE HUBPAGES TEAM, BUT I DO GENUINELY BELIEVE THAT THEY NEED TO CONSIDER THIS. Yes I could have sent Private emails stating my concerns, but everybody is saying it on the forums. Some of the greatest hubbers have been saying it on the forums, and saying it to my email inbox.
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  cosetteposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  i have thought about this...the quality of my hubchallenge hubs...i have only written 10 so far because i take the same amount of time that i always do...i don't want the quality to suffer to save time.
  
  and while some of what you suggest takes place in the forums, good ideas and suggestions are scattered all over the place and it's hit and miss because no one can read every thread...i actually like the idea of having HubTeam-sponsored things like 'Proofreading Challenge' or 'Keyword Challenge', among others.
  
  sort of like the Hubchallenge where hubbers have to, say, build backlinks to 10 hubs, or write 10 hubs with the focus on keywords only, etc.
  
  excellent ideas, Ryan, because it makes writers focus on individual elements, which has to improve the quality. the only way to achieve quality written material is to focus on one thing at a time, then go back and look at it from another perspective, etc. and refine it.
  
  for me, Hubpages' appeal is the quality of the articles, and so many truly talented writers. when i reigistered at that one site full of people who stole other people's stuff, i deleted my profile once the problem was resolved because i don't want to be a member of a community like that....
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  Jimmy Boydposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Ryankett,
  
  How do you really expect people to write proper hubs when Hubpages does not offer good training? Look at all the Hubpages information provided by them personally. Please point me to a lesson provided by Hubpages which actually teaches proper SEO.
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  lrohnerposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  It is not, never has been nor ever will be Hubpage's responsibility to teach anyone proper SEO. I don't want to put words into Ryan's mouth, but I think he was just giving an example of some constructive things that could be done occasionally rather than simply churning out low-quality hubs day after day.
  
  When we talk about low quality, we mean bad grammar, bad spelling, visually unappealing, no useful information, etc. Bad SEO does not make a bad hub.
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  Jimmy Boydposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  So a car dealership has no responsibility to teach its sales staff how to sell? That's your logic. Sure, they don't have the responsibility, but you're talking semantics. I could have just as easily replaced SEO with smooth Hub design or proper use of spellcheckers.
  
  You really think the suits at Hubpages are wise to sit there going "SEO. Nah, they'll just figure it out on their own. Not our responsibility." Speechless in Texas.
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  darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  The Straw Man Argument. I see it. Right there.
  
  If you must know, they don't teach their sales staff how to do a full service on a car under warranty. I think that's the analogy that fits best. And sinks your argument.
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  mandybeau1posted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I just think, that there is enough duplication, as it is. The Challenges produce stuff that is not up to the usual standard. I don't get the challenges, I hate challenges and contests, they belong at Primary School. Just original interesting informative, but please no more regurgitated info.
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Whitney05posted 14 years ago
This has been brought up before, especially with the first 30 hubs in 30 day challenge. Many have suggested an editing and revision contest, myself included. I'd love to see a contest as to who can edit their hubs for the better in attempts to improve traffic.

They're not really saying quantity is more important, as the team has stressed, but it is the impression they ARE giving out. They want hubbers to strive for the best and write those 30 hubs that are optimized and researched as good topics and keywords. They're not saying to write 30 picture hubs in 30 days just to have those 30 extra hubs, but most new hubbers don't really see that.
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I agree with you. I can see no problem at all in the site taking a breather from the 30 in 30, and placing the emphasise back on quality improvement and SEO improvement (and in some cases even updating older articles which may no longer be completely relevant). I would love to see a challenge which takes people through specific stages, so that everybody knows how to produce the perfect hub. There is just as much money to be made for the business through quality control as their is filling URLs.
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Sufidreamerposted 14 years ago
Some good ideas, Ryan

I agree fully that quality is exceptionally important. Not just for the reasons you stated - the URL optimization, but the health of the site as a whole.

This site has a unique blend of writers and SEO experts. The SEO experts find people and encourage them to visit, high quality writing makes them bookmark and return. It is only one man's opinion, but I feel that if somebody looking for information strays upon one of the lower quality Hubs, they will mentally note HP as a site to avoid. Without repeat custom, business is difficult.

In addition, I know that some of the top-end writers, such as Pam, James Watkins, and Sweetiepie are excellent recruiters - they inspire other writers to join. It would be a shame if they were swamped in a sea of mediocrity.

IMO, you were right to put this in the forums - I don't think that you are being critical, just looking to bounce ideas around. Nothing wrong with that!

EDIT: Whitney - Good idea
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Im glad that you agree. I think that most people would find the experience a positive one too, with the exception of one or two 'experts', who can perhaps give an hour or three towards offering advice to those that want to improve their existing portfolio? At the moment people write 60 hubs, and then wonder why they make no money (I was the same at 40 hubs). They could have spent that time writing 30 hubs, and the other half of their time making it optimum quality, optimum adsense potential, utlising a few SEO tips..... and could earn more money from that 30 than they did the 60.
  
  In fact, I have only just started to make serious money. But I would be making near enough the same if I deleted 44 of my first 50 hubs.
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frogdroppingposted 14 years ago
Ryan I'm with you. Much of what you've had to say will only benefit the site as a whole. I know how many emails I get week to week - from hubbers wanting guidance and so on. It takes a lot of time up (replying etc) and to be honest, I'm hardly a long-time hubber. So I figure our longserving hubbers (sounds like prison hehe) must get twice or three times the volume.
And then some.

I know it's not practical. Or at least I'm presuming so ... but the likes of Info Barrels and Ezine do not allow new writers to publish anything without checking it over. And even then, you've got to have submitted 'x' amount in a certain time span before you're allowed to publish at will.

I'm not saying that this goes onto to prevent dross completely but at least the writers are very clear on what is and what isn't suitable. And many that aren't up to standard would get bored and sod off before they were allowed publishing freedom.

And as for the URLs. I have to say I agree with you. I'm half sick of finding a great keyword that I'd make good use of to find it's taken. When I look as to why, it's almost always taken by someone that wrote 5 hubs and left (or similar) or writes the odd one now and then and they're a pile of shite.

Who is that helping? I check the URL, which may be a year old, it's not even indexed. It's just a huge waste to my mind.
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  gary777gposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  "Who is that helping?..."
  I think many people write for the pleasure of it and do not see this as an economic venture. Unfortunately, those who want everything to make themselves money then cry when something does not go their way.
  
  I have AdSense but I have no ad sense. I do not know what the letters you are talking about mean. I write what and when I want and if people like what I write - good. If they don't, well then I am sorry - but still thankful for a place to write and maybe thay will find another writer that they enjoy more.
  
  I seem to remember reading something about this in the beginning, when I first found HubPages. You CAN make money, but not everyone does. Not everyone wants to. Please don't cry about URLs or keywords being taken and money you could have made being lost by these words not being available to you. This can only bring about more rules and less freedom.
  
  I am relatively new here. I have much to learn. Who knows - I may be crying about the same things soon - but I doubt it. I really am thankful for these HubPages even though I don't understand everything yet and am not sure how to do everything - it is wonderful to find a place to express ideas and read what others have to say.
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  People who write for pleasure usually put effort into it, and are the best producers of content. It doesnt have to be a money maker to be good quality content, if your hub is good quality then it is respected. It is those that bash out poor quality hubs on high value keywords that is bringing this site down. Put it this way, you are not likely to start talking about variable mortgages, or reviewing credit cards, for pleasure. The major culprits are glorified spammers and those that bash out a hub in 20 minutes. So people like you are not including you in this wrath, writing for pleasure is fine. Look at the 'latest' hubs, have a look through them..... and you will see what people mean.
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  sandra rinckposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  You probably will if you really love to write. I love to write too and not all my hubs are geared towards making money but offering my writing by way of inspiration, imagination and in the spirit of fun.
  
  So imagine (and I don't know anything about you so this is just an example) you love writing about a certain fish. Tuna fish maybe, and you go to write a hub about tuna fish but that is already taken.
  
  You look for it and see that the hub about tuna fish has nothing to do with tuna fish but is a blog about how someone cat likes tuna fish.
  
  The hubber could have chosen a more relevant term like My Pussy Likes Tuna. This would have been a more effective and eye catching url that is completely within the rules. As it were, using the url Tuna Fish also attracted non relevant readers and the bounce rate goes up because that was not what someone looking for information on tuna fish was looking for.
  
  Now, you come along and want to write about Tuna Fish but have to pick something else like Yellow Tail. You go to write a hub on yellow tail and guess what. Someone already used that url to write about something like, a bird with a yellow tail.
  
  Can you see the problem? It's nice yes, that people get to write what they want etc. but there should be some conscious effort to attract real readers instead of misleading urls or hubs that attract traffic by mistake and increase the overall bounce rate.
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Sufidreamerposted 14 years ago
Sure - one idea that I can think of, off the top of my head, is to gather all of the best Hubs about SEO etc. and have it as a sticky at the top of the help forums. Maybe something similar about good writing practices would help, too.

The Hubs are already there - it is just a matter of gathering the resources in one place.

I am always happy to answer e-mails and give advice, but I usually end up trying to remember where I saw a good Hub about the subject

As for the quality - that is tough. I suspect that the idea of community flagging is not robust enough. Most of us tend to read Hubs by those we are a fan of, so the substandard ones slip under the radar. It is a tough problem to fix
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emievilposted 14 years ago
Just a thought (don't know how silly this is, feel free to tell me if it is), will increasing the number of the Hub Team help? I don't know but I think we have less than ten people in the admin and I don't think it is enough. I mean 500,000 hubs with thousands of hubbers plus the checking the forums plus talking to the owners of outside sites who are getting our hubs plus replying to our concerns plus constantly improving the site - lots of work for ten people (or less). Sure they have us, but how many people are really flagging and consciously checking the hub qualities?
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Suggesting another employee (I believe there is 7) normally gets answered with the very predictable response of "this means we cant give you 60% of impressions". But which actually either means "this would eat into our profit growth", or "our profits have not grown because of the way our website is spinning out of control". Just my take of course, but if a 100,000 new hubs has not increased their revenues.... then it is time for them to take heed of our concerns. If it has increased their revenue substantially, then yes it is time for them to take on somebody else. In this day and age it is possible for people to work remotely, and I have seen a post from Darkside saying that he wants to work for hubpages (albeit 2 years ago, but may well still be relevant!), problem sorted.... give Darkside a job, as 'Quality Control and SEO Challenge Manager' or something like that.... and the problem begins to be solved. Not saying it has to be Darkside, but that would be a good candidate.
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  emievilposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Yup, was thinking they can get one or two or even three hubbers to work offsite. Or a 24/7 'customer service' sort of . Some of the problems we had happened during week-ends and by the time the team gets in on Monday, most of us are in a frenzy trying to address things on our own. And this is an international community, a lot of us are awake when they're asleep and vice-versa.
  
  Darkside as QC and SEO Manager - now this I want to see.
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relacheposted 14 years ago
I think HubPages has reached a point where the affiliate marketers and schemers have more to do with the growth of the low quality component of the site than the Hub team. "Word of mouse" spreads that gospel faster than anything.

Personally, when we hit the 500,000 milestone, I think it was bad form of HubPages to give publicity to the person who's created the most Hubs, and is clearly one of the most low-quality producers of content on the site. I don't think that was beneficial at all.

I disagree with Sufidreamer's suggestion about gathering SEO hubs and having them as a sticky at the top of the forums, as people don't read. I mean, they already don't read the help/faq section...

I do agree with Sufidreamer's comment that the community isn't doing enough to flag spam. That's the methodology that HubPages has chosen for how they operate, and either they have to encourage and educate site users about it, or we all have to get in the habit of doing it ourselves. That's why I advocate just a few minutes a day of reading stuff and flagging the spam and the TOS violations. It's not like it's hard to find some. (the "latest" hub link is a treasure trove...)
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Although I agree that word of mouth is a huge factor (e.g. 1 resident of a modest part of India earns $5 a day on hubpages, and next thing everybody on his facebook is trying to do the same thing with poor quality picture hubs of fat ugly women).
  
  But somebody pointed out on here that hubpages is advertising in magazines and newspapers under the pretence 'Writers needed'. If that isnt encouraging fast growth, then what is? There has to be a point where there are enough regular contributors for the site to grow at a sufficient pace, with quality being controlled easily, and revenues being sustained or growing at a decent pace?
  
  I just cant see what the benefit would be if 20 million Americans signed up to Adsense accounts and published junk.... subsequently never clicking on adsense ads....
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  Sufidreamerposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I should have made that a little clearer - I was following on from FD's point about answering e-mails. It would be nice to have a single link that I could drop into the reply and say 'there you go!'
  
  If not a sticky - perhaps a couple of index Hubs from the Hubpages team. I get what you are saying about the FAQ, but they are limited in scope. Don't get me wrong - I understand it is impossible to include all of the relevant information without risking information overload, but many questions that I receive simply are not there. Like Ryan, I think that there is not enough easily available information about SEO on Hubpages
  
  It would be much easier to send them to Hubs by you, Darkside and Knowles
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  Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Requoting this in full, because it's exactly what I was going to say.
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Star Witnessposted 14 years ago
Because of everything listed here, plus other quality issues with the forums, monitoring, and even the traffic direction and rating of writing sometimes, I have always found it hard to take Hubpages seriously. Just a fact.

The platform is wonderful, but that won't matter in the long run if everything else disintegrates.
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Jane@CMposted 14 years ago
I totally agree with everyone!

I have taken the time to start flagging hubs, but my guess, and only a guess, is some of these pictures hubs are bringing in a bit a profit, the bottom line for HP is profit, they are a business entity. Yes, they could use more people on their team (and my hubby is unemployed, we could move to CA ).

The fact that hub member successfully figured out the doc issues and help get them resolved was a huge eye opener for me. The hub community of writers DID resolve the doc issue, not the HP team, although they did get a hearty pat on the back, after the fact - when it was two MEMBERS who found the phone numbers and emails to doc (can't remember the name of that damn website) owner for other members to contact, email & get their stuff pulled.

Yes, there are hundreds of writers on this site, but only a fraction come to the forum...but I think the fraction of those who participate in the forum can, will, should - start flagging hubs that NEED to be taken down. And yes, I agree, the HP staff does need to grow - if they can.

As mentioned in another post, Hubpages is advertising for new writers, this helps the business side of the Hub grow. It is their business and I'm sure they want success. Profit is first, their writers (IMO) are second, and this is how the business world works.
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frogdroppingposted 14 years ago
As relache says - word of mouse is a powerful form of communication (ryan) because if you look for HP ads round the net, it says nothing of about uploading hundreds of pictures and calling that writing. The ads state that you can make money writing online etc etc and if you click one of the ads, you end up at the pages that states:

HubPages allows you to write about what you love and earn cash from it. Sign up for free to:

Write content-rich, informative and topical articles on whatever topic areas that you know and love.

Earn money through Google AdSense, Amazon and eBay ads. Many of our users are earning hundreds of dollars per month and some are even earning thousands.

Over 60,000 published writers and 10 million readers every month! High credibility with search engines Google and Yahoo.

Signup and use are always 100% free.

There is nothing in that text would make me think that HP is for anything other than writing - content rich, high quality articles. So - why isn't it?
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  A very good point well made frogdropping. Its not the number of users that creates the issues, its the lack of subsequent quality control. But like somebody mentioned (may even be you), picture hubs probably mean money. But I cannot see how hubpages has not increased its revenue in the past 3 or 4 months, which means that they can realistically invest in personnel. If they havent increased their revenue, then something must be seriously wrong with the systems which they fail to deter.
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  frogdroppingposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  It wasn't me. Maybe shinujohn would help out here. He posts such hubs. I honestly don't know, but I'm sure they don't earn much for anyone - I've read that they don't in the forums.
  
  My point was that the ad is misleading, as is the page the ads takes you to - therefore those that spam, or pretty much create hubs from pictures must be finding out some other way - word of mouse.
  
  Because spam and picture hubs are not content rich, informative and topical articles.
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  And there was me thinking that you meant people like us are lured to Hubpages in the belief that it is an outlet for serious self-publishing content writers, only to find that people can get away with submitting whatever they want without penalty and at cost to the better members of the community.
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  relacheposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  To me this is where the thumbs up and thumbs down comes into it. A thumbs down is for stuff that's not breaking any rules, but which I just find to be vacuous.
  
  However, there are a lot of site users who say they would never give a thumbs down to someone, so that's part of why the non-violating-but-weak Hubs continue to proliferate. (this is, of course, just my opinion)
  
  Do I give a thumbs down to things I think are not content-rich, informative articles? When I come across them, yes I do.
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  frogdroppingposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I do flag hubs. I have no problem saying it either. I know some say we're like hubpolice but I don't see it like that. And I also flag hubs that have filth written in the comments.
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  sandra rinckposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Just reading through here and thought I would interject. I agree with Raleche, in the internet world, spammers are taking over. Out of 31 new sign ups only about 5 of them actually produce quality hubs. Maybe 3 of them are spammers and flagged and the rest produce nothing at all.
  
  I didn't know that hp was advertising in the paper and stuff and I don't believe that the ad is misleading. You really cannot expect them to know what everyone is going to do.
  
  Also, it should be expected that after you reach a certain threshold that the rate of growth will accelerate 10 fold. So it is possible that in order for hp to counter act the number of spammers on the site, that they need to draw or at least try to draw in people who are serious and can produce quality.
  
  When I think about it, the moved to a different source. I think it is wise because people who are serious about working and writing and making 'real' money are those reading the paper.
  
  It's too simple on the internet to see a site and just sign up especially when it is free and most don't care about what they say or do nor do they read the TOS, they prolly figure they just get booted anyways, no sweat of their backs right?
  
  So, it's not like I disagree with Ryan, I only disagree with the assumption that HP is trying to grow too fast because they want more money or the assumption that if they have not made more money then something must be wrong.
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Sufidreamerposted 14 years ago
Just throwing ideas out - I understand that many of them will be unworkable

I wonder how many of the poorer Hubs are from accounts that have had no activity - the user has not logged on for months and their Hubs have had no hits, as FD said.

Maybe HP could have a spring clean - send these people an e-mail stating that if they do not log on within 28 days, their account will be obliterated from the space-time continuum. Many free e-mail providers do this, and it could free up some of the URLs.

I agree about the photo Hubs - I don't mind the ones where the person has written 200 - 300 words of original content, but the ones that are just photos piss me off. Maybe a minimum word count for Hubs, although I appreciate that the temptation may be to include 300 words of crap
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I thought the same, although I thought "6 months without publishing new content". The only issue there is that hubpages is unlikely to be able to ascertain how much money those accounts may be making them.
  
  If somebody writes 20 hubs, then gets adsense rejected, never comes back..... then hubpages are taking 100% of impressions. Although that would be a short sighted way for hubpages to look at it, as a good hubber could earn more in 40% of impressions than a bad one with 100%, this remains the way that I believe the team would look at such a scenario.
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  Sufidreamerposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Sure, although I was thinking more about those with absolutely no traffic and therefore no adsense. There may be many good reasons why it is not practical - I am not a techie by any stretch of the imagination
  
  Relache: Point taken - I shall follow your advice and be a little more proactive with the thumb!
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  sandra rinckposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I think that is an excellent idea. It would free up the tags too! You got my vote.
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rebekahELLEposted 14 years ago
I'm going to jump in here as one who has not jumped into the 30 day challenge because I know I would not produce quality writing.
I also have life outside of HP and can't imagine trying to produce something worth reading in that time frame. I've read many of the hubs in the challenges and some are good, but many are written so poorly with many errors and I just stop reading.
No one will look seriously at those articles as being written by a writer.

I like the idea of flagging, but in order for it to be effective, people need to have some sort of standard that HP sets. I've looked at some of the HP youtubes and while a few are educational and informative, some are just messing around. I would prefer to see Youtube used more as a tool for the HP community where we can watch and learn at the same time.

I know I have a lot to learn, but there are some great writers here who have taken the time to help those of us still on the learning curve and I do look to theie hubs and comments for guidance. I'm always open for any constructive advice.

good thread, does anyone know on average how many hubs are published a day?
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broussardleslieposted 14 years ago
I have not been on HP long, so I do not yet have any great suggestions for how to improve HP. I would like to share with you my thoughts in hopes that they spark a great idea…

I joined HP because I wanted to write and I wanted feedback on my writing. I realize that HP is not a writer’s group, but figured it would serve as one effectively. I had been writing most of my life, recently started a blog, and wanted to truly be a Writer. I wasn’t receiving feedback on my blog (because family and friends just don’t do that), so I joined HP. Any monies I would earn through Adsense would be a bonus. I wasn’t necessarily interested in the pennies I’d earn through ads; I desired the feedback.

Hubbers have provided for me everything I have asked for. I have GREAT fans like Scott.Life and James Watkins that respond to everything I write and even provide suggestions on how to make it better. The rest of my 50 or so fans pipe in whenever I write something they care about, and I am okay with that. I get feedback, and that’s what I want.

Recently, however, I have become interested in the monetary side of HubPages. I have not yet had time to research the SEO, backlink, key word stuff. I have decided to NOT write anything new until my 20 hubs are monetarily optimized. So, any time I would have spent writing will be spent researching and updating.

Okay, so now that you know my history, here’s my question:
I understood HP to be sort of like Ehow or Wiki, in that it was a Hub of knowledge for people looking for information. Not always step-by-step and not always 1500 word articles, but helpful none-the-less. (I.E. I have a couple children’s Bible stories – not instructions, but helpful in that they give you ideas on how to share difficult Bible stories with a child.) So…what about the Hubs I see that are basically blogs? What about the Hubs I see in broken English? Or with spelling mistakes in the title? Or hubs I see that COULD be improved with a bulleted list rather than 1000 words? Do I make suggestion in the comments? Or send an email to the author? The rating and flagging was never quite explained to me. Are these the items I should be flagging and/or rating down?
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  frogdroppingposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  If you know, in good conscience, that they are low quality, spam, pornographic, of neither use nor ornament to anyone, anywhere, flag them.
  
  When you flag a hub it takes you to a page that allows you to click which rule they may have broken, as per HubPages TOS.
  
  If you see something that is none of the above yet needs improving, say so in the comment box. That's what it's for - feeback. And whilst it's wonderful to receive praise ... you can also advise.
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  broussardleslieposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you for the clarity, Frogdropping. That actually helps quite a bit!
  
  Ryan: Thanks for creating this forum. I think it is really helpful for newbies to read this. It is great to hear what the "experts" want out of HP.
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lindagoffiganposted 14 years ago
There is not a "too fast growth rate" for a writing web site. Hubpages is ranked number 146 of 150 major writing sites so the growth rate of Hubpages should not be criticized as growing too fast.
You must realize that hubpages is not a BJ's where the quality control clerk check to see if all the items are in the shopping cart before you leave the big box store. Hubpages is a writing site, as advertised, where you can write about just about anything except adult content.

The quality of the hubpage article will dictate the Google Adsense earnings. The spellcheck and the proofreading should be the responsibility of the hubpage writer. In a perfect world or if Hubpages exist in an utopia, then all of your criticism would be well taken. With less than 200 hubpages it is great that you were offered a part dealing with the hubchallenge. I have been asked my opinion about subsequent Hubpage Challenges. I have participated and agreed that the platform was great to keep the hubpage writers continously writing and increasing earnings.

However, the quality of the hubpage article and the growth rate of the site itself is dependant on the writers and the latter should not be hindered for the quest for perfection.
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  Mark Knowlesposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I beg to differ. I am slowly coming of the opinion that filling pages and pages with crap like:
  
  "The listing of information when writing for relevant content has to be implemented with an explanation. The explanation of the listing is the provisions for the contents of your hubpage article. Numbered or itemized explanations are useful when writing for relevant content because it gives the reader a direction in which to focus attention and to grasp information in a logically manner."
  
  Which I have just lifted randomly from the first of your hubpages I chose to visit, is bringing the overall authority of the site down in the eyes of the search engines.
  
  What you have done is create more than 600 hubpages full of this type of writing - clearly spun and not written with a reader in mind. I think it is writing of this type that will be the downfall of hubpages as a quality site.
  
  No offense. If they are asking your advice, then I am sure it is the type of writing that works well with adsense.
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  lindagoffiganposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  9,970 posts in a two year period means that social networking is taking precedent over production.
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  Mark Knowlesposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Yes - that would be the difference between you and I. I am not concerned with "production," unlike yourself.
  
  And what I do with my time is really none of your business.
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  lindagoffiganposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I have to get back to work but I have to offer this quote as a last reply as work that is not considered "crap" from one of the greats: Mark Knowles
  
  Forums is essential to your success here at Hubpages... It is the portal to gain friends and even enemies nyahahaha. This is the place to ask questions and when lady Luck smiles at you hehehe, you'll get lightning replies hehehe. Moreover, you'll get to know about anything under the sun hehehe and even non-sense things too hehehe... and if you'll love heated arguments and fiery debates just visit the Religion Thread and be sure you're equipped with an arsenal of lots of stock knowledge hehehe to pull through.
  
  As I must now be on line two of this rendition, I am back to work on producing instead of social networking.
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  Mark Knowlesposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Work?
  
  Ah yes - producing meaningless crap for the search engines.
  
  The best I can say about it is it passes a copyscape test. And when hubpages decides to go back to "quality" rather than quantity - it will be gone.
  
  Have a nice day.
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Well run along then..... I look forward to seeing most of your hubs deindexing in a few months. Quality is everything, I can bet my bottom dollar that Mark Knowles has made twice as much money as you in the past 6 months on hubpages with 250 hubs. <snipped - personal attacks not allowed in the Forums>
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  sandra rinckposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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  Mark Knowlesposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Totally. If I said that somewhere, please take me out and shoot me hehehe........
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  cosetteposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  um
  
  i could be wrong but i don't think peppering your comments with "hehehe" is going to enhance your credibility any...
  
  i've never understood hubbers who keep track of other hubbers' comings and goings and post counts. very odd...
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  sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  they show their shortsightedness in thinking that we all exist and publish only here and only as the face they are talking to now
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  9,970 posts and his hubs still make sense!
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Sorry but I disagree with almost everything that you have said there. Actually I have seen hubpages advertised as a 'Blogging' site, so maybe that says all that I need to say. Growth is not everything, ask the CEO of Squidoo..... they have more pages than hubpages I believe, and yet have lower traffic and lower page rank. You dont back your thoughts up with any proof whatsoever, please tell me how a rapidly increasing number of hubs, but falling traffic (and yes hubpages traffic did take a big hit, before slowly increasing again) is of any benefit. Please note make reference to my number of hubs as if it bears any relevance in the slightest to my opinions, I know the date of my first published hub and you dont (should I wink now?). I have completed 4 consecutive hub challenges, and my earnings have naturally grown significantly..... but if I stopped writing now, my traffic and earnings would fall again. Thats simple logic, you may write 100 (completely crap) hubs a month, but I bet if you stopped now at 646 hubs.... your traffic would begin to decline within 2 months. The number of pages is growing at a fast rate, the traffic is not growing at a fast rate, it doesnt take a genius to work out that google doesnt a) like it, or b) need it.
  
  You are the exactly the type of user that needs to have their account deleted if this site is going to maintain authority. Its time for hubpages to grow some balls, either delete these semi-literate money grabbers or delete me so I dont have to watch with sadness.
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  rebekahELLEposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Ryan, I thought the very same thing when I read this. it's kind of obvious??
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  "How to find a boyfriend is not as difficult as you would surmise it to be. Finding a boyfriend is not like finding a needle in a haystack."
  
  "First of all you have to know where to look for a boyfriend. It is not a game of hide and go seek as you can actually make yourself available so that he can find you."
  
  "Writing Hubpages should be a stress free experience because you elected to use the computer server to communicate your ideas to others. Just as the television set for the weary is there to turn on after a long hard day, your personal experience of keying and clicking on your computer should be a place for solace and not dispute or dismay."
  
  What does all this shit even mean? Sorry but I could write 100 of these a week too. Its just a load of rambling crap which serves no purpose and educates nobody. This is exactly why work by people like Mark Knowles is now not being taken seriously by google, and exactly why this site will become another Squidoo.
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  broussardleslieposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Ryan: I agree with you wholeheartedly. But I am still wondering, what is YOUR vision for HP? If you had it your way, what exactly would it look like? What is missing that you so greatly desire?
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  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I believe that the owners of the site are seeking a growth in profits through pure growth in the number of pages. I see nothing wrong with seeking growth, but I dont think they are doing it in a healthy way. And I think that they could suffer because of it. The 150,000 hubs in the last 4 months, are they going to be as high quality in general as the 350,000 hubs before that? Backlinked as much?
  
  Basically....all I want is for them to put an onus on quality, because falling quality means falling page rank. I have nothing against them, I can just understand why some of this sites highest earning hubs have been dropped by Google. Its a penalty, it can be taken as a warning shot. Traffic is stagnant, content is growing, there is a reason behind that. It is you and me that suffer, and hubpages which doesnt gain in the long run. All I am saying is that a new hubber doing 60 hubs with no knowledge of SEO or keywords is not beneficial to anybody, when they take key URL's and dont utilise them. Hubpages make very little money from those hubs, and neither does the hubber. Why not get people up to scratch, teach them SEO, teach them Keywords.... and then let them take a high paying keyword as a URL. Remember that those URLs can never be used again and yet when used properly..... they are the most important thing to revenues. That is why quantity is irrelevant to long term sustainability and growth.
  
  I also feel patronised, as do many people, by the way that concerns are addressed. But that is a small issue and not relevant. Hubpages and the writers are two stakeholders that need each other to earn money, but perhaps the objectives of hubpages are conflicting with the objectives of some of the greatest writers. Maybe I know too much, and maybe I should shut up. I am sounding like the one stirring a pot here, and maybe I will be frowned upon by certain people...... but if you look at the first 4 pages of the best hubbers..... at least 8 or 9 of those hubbers have emailed me in just the past few days to tell me what they feel. I wont repeat that out of courtesy, but most people are singing from the same hymn sheet.
  
  All I want is for this site to a) stop marketing itself as a blogging site (which encourages short pathetic hubs), b) stop allowing digusting pornography (see comment boxes on indian aunties etc hubs), and c) see the benefits of educating people before they write 60 worthless hubs, and d) understand that they are actually providing a service to writers.... yep, they provide a platform, which we make use of, and they benefit from writers using that platform. It is a useful platform, its SEO on a plate, and is worth it (at the moment). If this sites loses authority on google as a result of poor quality content, then maybe people would be better served just sticking their stuff on blogger or wordpress and trying to build it up to PR3 or PR4 over a period of time.
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lynnechandlerposted 14 years ago
This is an awesome thread.

My only thought is a possible group of mentors that could help the newbie with finding their way around etc. The mentor could review the hubs created by the newbie and give suggestions etc on how to improve them. Once the newbie has mastered the plan then they would be released unto the world of Hubpages. This would then open a new spot for that mentor in his/her role to have another newbie attached to them thus keeping everyone in the loop. There is of course more that would have to be worked out in this process but it could help.
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viryaboposted 14 years ago
Points raised in this forum are very important and crucial, and the HP management must speedily look into this.

Ryan did well by bringing this topic up, and there has to be a sort of follow up on it. Flagging and stuff may be insufficient IMO. However, setting goals may go further.
I'm on my 2nd hubchallenge now, but even though i'm glad i've written more hubs, there is this nagging thought at the back of my mind that what i really need to do is to fully optimise my first set of 30-30 (including my first lousy attempts at hub writing).
The greatest help we can get is (as was mentioned), to have a challenge whereby we work on our already published hubs by improving the quality of each and every hub we have written for the challenge.
Maybe set a goal where the aim will be to optimize fully with backlinks (which i have hardly mastered), or lets say - hubs that can attract a daily traffic of at least x-amount of views.
I don't know, i'm hardly an expert, but i'm in total agreement with views expressed here.
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travel_man1971posted 14 years ago
I just Hubpages more than a month ago. I attempted blogging before, but due to my hectic schedule overseas onboard a commercial vessel, I didn't have enough time checking my blog site. I can't remember the password either.

I write based from my own experiences.

I didn't even know the so-called links and AdSense. I did try filling up the requirements for AdSense, but I had no telephone line at home. My family members only use cellular phones. We didn't even try to maintain a landline to minimize budget. Then a Google AdSense advisory stated that my hubs are substandard.

What did I do? I reviewed all my hubs. I add some details, some videos, news, pictures, links and more. Little by little my ratings are moving up.

My problem is how can I link with URL affiliates. I don't even have a credit card and my bank didn't want me to have one because my work is only contractual (being a seafarer) not a regular 24/7 job.

I think, I'll take it one at a time. I may learn the ropes for a longer of time.

I just have to write what's the hot topic for the moment.
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Helen Caterposted 14 years ago
http://hubpages.com/hub/weightloss-with … -freetrial I think this may be an example of what Ryan is talking about. My first one I have flagged. Am i right to do this
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  Uninvited Writerposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  It's already gone...I usually flag that type of article as spam.
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frogdroppingposted 14 years ago
Yep. That's not a hub Helen. That's just self-promoted rubbish. The instructions from the side of a bottle of whatever it is the site is selling.

They may be allowed, I don't know, I'm not the moderator of such things - based upon the fact that the outbound links are not in html, simply typed in.
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Helen Caterposted 14 years ago
That was the first one I looked at so I am guessing there are hundreds like this posted each day. How do they get away with this?
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Sufidreamerposted 14 years ago
lindagoffigan - I seem to remember that you flooded the social networking sites with links to your own Hubs. That may be one of the reasons why most of them do not accept Hubpage links any more.

I liked your last point about the quality writing, Ryan - the strength of Hubpages is that it offers something to everyone. The site includes some of the finest writers that you will see, yet also offers good information. So far, its ranking as an authority site is justified

Put it this way - when I am searching for general information, there are some sites that I trust - eHow and Wisegeek are two examples. Ezine can be a little hit and miss, but is generally OK.

On the other hand, there are some sites that I mentally note and avoid like the plague - I know that most of the stuff that they contain is crap. I hope that Hubpages never falls into the latter category.

As a side note, whilst they may not make money, I hope that HP always keeps a place for the creative writers and poets. They may not directly attract the adsense dollars, but they enhance the quality and reputation of the site, as well as making the HP community richer
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Anti-Valentineposted 14 years ago
I am so sorry to say this, but this lindagoffigan is UNREAL.

Linda go off again...to do some more "work".
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Sufidreamerposted 14 years ago
Without quoting you, Sunforged - I had heard that. I remember reading a blog from that Grizzly bloke, or whatever he is called, that mentioned that very thing. Still, I am here for other reasons than adsense, so that is a line that I cannot and would not pursue!
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sunforgedposted 14 years ago
Nor would I, Sufi.

Just trying to add that perspective when assuming what the money of hubs thinks is in their best interest

and Yep, im sure Grizz said that
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Anti-Valentineposted 14 years ago
I don't think she likes Mark Knowles very much. But then again, maybe she does...
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Sufidreamerposted 14 years ago
'Tis true, Sunforged - I browse oDesk occasionally and was surprised to see a familiar name bidding upon a couple of jobs. Writing can be a small world hehehe
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  sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Really!!!!, I hire through Odesk frequently- through another name, its been ages since I bid there, i wonder if my writer account can autobid, as it is certainly me, ill have to look into that
  
  oh, btw - i never got back to the thread about freelance content writers, thanks for setting me straight on what prices the good writers deserve
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  Sufidreamerposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Sorry Sunforged - I was meaning our friend Goffigan! The limitations of internet communication. Mind you, I will be looking out for you, now
  
  How do you find it from the buyer's side? Things became very difficult for writers after an influx of low quality candidates - I have not bothered much since then and receive more work through my site and Hubpages
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  sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  thats a relief! I thought maybe I had my account preset to bid on certain topics, I get crazy with automation and sometimes forget what I set in motion, : )
  
  As a buyer my needs are very minimal, when I first purchase new domains I dont have time to develop them all immediately, rather than share with a landing page company, I stick up 8-10 posts, adsense and related affilaite offers, pretty much to just let the site age and test to see how it performs.
  
  So since my needs are so simple, i am a happy buyer, my current main outsourcer is a PHd candidate ! my low budget american, buys him the equivalent of 10 movie tickets, and I am training in him in all facets of internet marketing, link building, promotion etc as we go. Im hoping eventually to be able to stop paying him and just partner up.
  
  That all being said if, well rather WHEN I need quality content because my projects are exceeding my reach, ill just be PMing you guys here at HP
  
  i should add that i have yet to actual hire anyone through odesk, so far everyone has been happy to go private with it, I pay a little upfront to prove Im for real (and I am) but I dont think its a wise move on their sides to do any spec work w/o payment first or whatever protection odesk gives.
  
  if anybody reads this - take the free out of freelance! - protect yourself
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waynetposted 14 years ago
I too feel that the less quality hubpages need addressing and also inactive accounts need to be sorted out or assigned to other hubbers to use or re-write if the hubpages are poor quality.

And yes the quality of Hubpages content does need to be seen to be addressed, yes sure there are things in place that offer some measure of flagging for the user, but who really does this often? only a handful of people will flag hubpage content, I do on some Sundays for an hour, but I do feel that something has to be done for the site to not fall to the spammers.

It was a great moment when they got rid of the adult hubs, because that showed initiative and it improved the overall seriousness of the Hubpages brand, but there has to be some kind of clarification and direction in place for new hubbers to follow and I'm pretty sure there will be, but it needs to be perfected and provide users with a clear focus, rather than a vague write more hubpages and you will get lots of traffic and earnings.

I myself have been here for 3 years, which is about the age of the site, not taking into account any periods of time for private beta testing phases and so I've seen how this site has grown and shaped itself from the way it looked way back in 2006.

I'm sure if the hubpages community voices their concerns like you all have here, they will listen and try to implement some of things that have been talked about.

I'm all for milestones of hubpage numbers and having them set amount of hubpages really bashed out and shaped into some of the best hubpages that they can be, so that I am allowed to move on and create my next batch of hubpages.....I wonder if something like this would be the way of Hubpages future, to have achievement based milestones to reach, before you are allowed to progress to the next level.
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  cosetteposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  when i first joined Hubpages, i didn't start hubbing for a whole month...i wasn't sure about the site yet...maybe if accounts are inactive for say, six months?
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  waynetposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Oh yes sure, a good amount of time before they get took away...sorry I forgot to add that!
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  cosetteposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  oh that's ok
  
  haha...darkside..."Now I'm off to research some more material for content I'm working on. I'm not happy unless I'm flooding this place with quality hubs."
  
  i didn't know half this stuff, you guys. seriously? someday i hope to be included in the class of 'best hubber'. will that day ever come? maybe. maybe not. but i know it will take years and that's fine with me. i will just be happy when my hubs start earning significant ducats. i know this will sound elitist and snobby but i don't mean it that way...but when i read so many excellent hubs by people who write 'quality' hubs, or who write with a lot of heart and feeling i'm proud to be a part of it.
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I*n*v*i*c*t*u*sposted 14 years ago
This is surely without reading all the posts, yet many earlier...
I am of full understanding of the big steal of the past weekend, yet, Google has just recently alterted their 'new' program has arrived, as well and it was stated in one of the many threads and clearly stats that anyone in the organic realm would see shifts, yet campaign based authority will see small shifts...they could not clearly state as to the exactness of those, yet a difference would be noticed... should be sorted out in a couple of weeks..

They also alerted those whom are managing accounts with canpaigns to be watchfull of those accounts to see the affects and to plan...

I am green and trying to learn because I feel it imparitive to be knowledgable to help maintain a great community... I am simply amazed at the great efforts of Thranax~ surforged~ and Hubteam this past weekend and it is very inspiring as a greeny poet to learn more to help collectivly help our community.. I just loved PD's passion as well as many others...

I feel we are still at top of the chain.. google is shifting as the world is...

I am in classes to be more of an asset to this community to be a of assistance in preserving the awesomeness!

I just want to say thanks to all because this intro to the cyber world has been such a great blessing!!

ciao!

EDITED ~ My spelling was way off.. now no spell check ( on new browser) and flying with words.. apologize..
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Mrvoodooposted 14 years ago
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  waynetposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Ok then! What you selling mr mouse?
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  Mrvoodooposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Well for the small sum of just $100 a day I sell you my secret to making $101 a day on the internet <insert pictures of fast cars and skimpily dressed women>, it's a fool proof system that comes with my own personal guarantee of success. Or your money back.
  
  lol, not really, you'd have to read the thread from the start to get the pic.
  
  I was just being silly.
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Sufidreamerposted 14 years ago
Interesting - that is a great idea with the partnership. He is going to be learning a lot of interesting and useful stuff from you - the stuff that you can only learn through experience

I have a good relationship with one of my clients in designing a scientific resource site. He does the technical stuff, I do the writing, and the adsense covers my fees. It is now PR5 and officially an authority site - some books are planned

oDesk is pretty poor at protecting writers - I have lost a considerable amount from people not paying for fixed price jobs. They have the hourly model, which is payment guaranteed, but it uses keyloggers to check that you are working hard enough. I already moved away from that grind.

On-spec work: If anybody asks for a 'sample article,' I tell them that I will write it, put it up as a Hub, and send them the link. They never come back!
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darksideposted 14 years ago
Here's my opinion:

If you find a hub that's poorly written, has factual inaccuracies, or for whatever reason you don't agree with it, give it a thumbs down.

If you find a hub that violates HubPages TOS, flag it.

If HubPages are advertising in newspapers and magazines, it's because they're trying to find a better class of writer. I'm not sure which magazines or newspapers, but no doubt they'll find the good, the bad and the indifferent. And it's usually the good ones that stick around the longest.

If HubPages are using the word 'blogging' in their advertising copy, it's because people know what the word means. People can relate to it. Though I remember a day when the word 'blog' was only known by a couple of my friends. It would take a few more years before it was used widely in the media. Now it's a part of our vocabulary. There's a lot of blogs these days that aren't really blogs. They've become personal article publishing sites. When these prospective new bloggers arrive here we can educate them in the difference between a blog and a hub.

Now I'm off to research some more material for content I'm working on. I'm not happy unless I'm flooding this place with quality hubs.
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Carol the Writerposted 14 years ago
I still think a 'holding area' would be a good idea. Hubbers with a rank below 50 would click to publish, but it would not really be published. It would sit for a specified time and volunteers with a hub score over, say 70, could flag them. Hubpages staff would make a final approv/disapprove vote.
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Uninvited Writerposted 14 years ago
Then you get people like the guy on this thread who wants everyone to leave everyone else alone so he can write about what he wants without being flagged.

http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/24256
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  Jane@CMposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Holy bad word batman...I went and looked - ew, gross, yucky!
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Kidgasposted 14 years ago
This has been an interesting thread. I agree that there ought to be a better way to get rid of the deadwood. I just hope that I am not part of that crowd. I do try hard but my I feel my skills aren't always up to snuff.
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Jane@CMposted 14 years ago
On sites like How to Do Things, your articles are not immediate, once you submit you get a notice that the article will be reviewed & any they will notify you if there are revisions to be made. It can also take up to 5 days before your article hits their site.

I think if they implemented that here, it would kill the site and immediately kill their revenue.
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earnerposted 14 years ago
The problem comes down to who decides what is and isn't good. A lot of admin time can be sucked up with poor quality being not accepted. I ran an online photo agency and there were about 3,000,000 photos on it. Anybody could join up, photos were uploaded and then there was a room of people sat in a cheap country marking each one as: OK, REJECTED. From that the people wanted more of a clue as to why it was rejected, which they were then given, so the photo pickers then had to define one of 8 responses. But from that the photographers still wanted further clarification (or a fight) over their photo being rejected.

Whether something is brilliant, good enough or bad can be subjective. At 100,000 hubs in 4 months, if they are being added at an even rate that is one every 2 minutes. Try doing the logistics/costs on how many people you would need (without one of them going mad and stabbing people) to just load it and decide, factor in 24/7 and turnaround times, then take out sickness/holiday times, recruitment, meetings, feedback/stats on their progress, disciplinaries if you employ a rogue mod... it all adds up to "not really doable".

Then there's the back end. the queries, arguments, time spent digging out the rejected ones, the lists of "You rejected mine, for XYZ, but here are 50 others I have found that are worse than mine, so how can you reject mine???"

It's a nightmare.
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  Kidgasposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Very true. You should read the eHow forums after an article sweep. It isn't pretty.
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  earnerposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I've looked at writing for ehow, but whenever I get that crazy idea, I load up their website and am horrified by how rubbish most of the stuff there is. I can't bring myself to.
  
  My writing's not brilliant, but most of them on there seem to have not spent more than 15 minutes putting their pages together... I can spend up to 5 hours doing just one hub (I know, if I put 5 hours in I should be better ... but I kind of lose the will to live after that long and publish it anyway). On average I'd say a hub takes me 2 hours apiece.
  
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rebekahELLEposted 14 years ago
I think hubbers need to be careful before going on a flagging spree, keep in mind there are business, professional people here who do not spend all day on writing content, they may not be as active as others and yet want to be here and have their hubs posted. as was stated before, if there is an obvious below par hub, flag it.
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  earnerposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  +1
  Hear, hear.
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PJ_Deneenposted 14 years ago
This has been an interesting thread. I admit that I've had trepidation in moving too much forward with HP because of the spam and Indian auntie type hubs here. HP and other sites have helped me grow as an article writer, but I'm focusing my efforts elsewhere.

I still will publish hubs, but I agree with that old adage about not putting your eggs in one basket (especially if the basket is crumbling). I do my best at performing quality control on my own pages. Quality can be subjective as others have stated, but there is clearly a spam overrun happening on HP that needs to be more aggressively addressed.
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blue dogposted 14 years ago
granted, i've not put together admin's alter egos yet, but i find it interesting to see, other than ryan's snipped comment, that mgmt has yet to pipe in on this thread, perhaps one of the most important threads i've seen on hp since joining.

while i agree with most that there's a lot of crap being published here, the problem is greater than just published crap. anyone spending time in the forums, as it's suggested that we do, knows there are major issues there, as well.

anyone who has been in any sort of management position knows that 7 people cannot run an operation like hp, not with the announced growth over the last few months. tied to that growth, we now discuss a hp ad campaign. with some sense of marketing, i know it's not cheap. while we continue to write for peanuts...

as suggested some time back on a thread - that died a quick death - there should be some sort of convention or workshop that affords the opportunity for those interested to becoming better producers of revenue. this becomes a win-win, both for the hubber and the community. granted, it would flush out dual personalities and alter egos, but tough.

while there is information to be gained in the forums, many times it comes in the form of morsels, or as a direction given to someone's hub on a certain topic. this is fine for pv's, but really misses the point.

perhaps a survey is in order regarding issues for improvement.

don't be surprised, hubbers, if we're the last to know.
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  emievilposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Definitely agree on this. 7 people can't run a site this large or something is wrong with their business model. They must have some sort of plan to grow with the growth of this site or it may just as well blow up all over the place.
  
  Just thinking about something (brainstorming more like it). Is it possible to have a sort of 'contractual period' where new hubbers are placed on a sort of probation for like two weeks or even one month? During this time, all their hubs will be reviewed by admin. If they're okay, they'll be let loose and their hubs will just be randomly checked later on. Or the admin to put up a sort of 'watch list' (don't know if they have this already, feel free to correct me) where hubbers with constantly short / flagged / voted-down hubs are under tight watch. If they improve, that's good and they'll be removed from the list. If not, I'm not sure - does Hubpages have a policy of booting out constantly erring hubbers (in terms of writing, not behavior in the forums that is )?
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thranaxposted 14 years ago
Personally, I think we are really being hit by Google somehow still. When I joined my first Hub was Indexed within 5 hours of publishing. Not only that, everything on Digg is often Google indexed within a few hours too. Why aren't the Hubs indexed as quickly? Its annoying, because Hubscore is effected by traffic, and traffic is which makes us money. Basically, with needing to wait about a week for a hub to even get google traffic is like saying "new fresh idea that will sell like hot cakes today...seal them up in cellophane paper because there will be no one buying for a week when there stale".

Really, I think my Hubscores would be higher if Google traffic started coming within the day of publish. Not only that, but it also means the Hub cannot make us money (easily) until its already a week old. The only way to generate profit until indexing is our own linking systems and maybe yahoo or a different engine, which doesn't get nearly as much traffic in all as Google.

This also has an effect on how we can improve our google ranking per page. Because it takes so long to be indexed its a week before you know that its on page 9, now to make the changes you need to re-image the idea you had and rewrite it to fit the keywords better, so when it is pinged or checked it will be moved up.

~thranax~
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  sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  There has been official google algorithm changes (Caffeine), many report non hub sites being moved in the rankings, they will settle again
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sunforgedposted 14 years ago
Any of the information that hub users would need to improve their marketing and writing skills is readily available.

Google searches are pretty easy, once someone learns how to click the little magnifying glass they are 98% of the way there.

Two great resources (that are coincidentally also partly responsible for a a lot of the crap here)

thekeywordacademy.com

30daychallenge.com

General Seo/Marketing Forums

sitepoint.com
webmasterworld.com
digitalpoint.com

The authority on google

mattcutts.com

google webmaster forums

One of the central tenets you see in online marketing is

"stop reading and act"

Im sure everyone has had a healthy dose of good information, only 2% of you will ever act upon it.

Testing and optimizing what to what you find works is important also.

I think it would be great to have some quality based challenges, but I dont expect that HP should have to be responsible for implementing everything.

Anyone can start a thread and write a hub.

Most of the long time hubbers have wrote Hub Specific tutorials - everything that is needed is here and has been here

Those who care to improve will improve and can improve, the low quality comes from those who are just taking advantage of the sites popularity
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Mark Knowlesposted 14 years ago
I am thinking there needs to be another flagging criteria.

I do flag the hubs that break the HP TOS as I come across them - they are easy.

But the issue we have now is the amount of "work" that does not break the hubpages TOS. I cannot legitimately flag 400 words of rambling nonsense that is written in English and basically repeats the same thing over and over without saying anything. Because it does not break the letter of the TOS. It does break the spirit in that it is not "informative," or "content rich".

In the sort term - as sunforged rightly pointed out - this might be beneficial, because it is so badly written a reader is more likely to click on a google ad.

But in the long term - I think it is in all our interests to get rid of this stuff, because these "writers" will just move on to the next popular site when the damage has been done to HP.

Where are all the "serious" writers who wanted the photo hubs removed? This is more of a worry because it dilutes the "serious" writers efforts.

I don't think hubpages can possibly remove this type of thing without active participation from the community. And it may be that the short term benefits are big enough that they do not want to?
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  frogdroppingposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I have the same problem. I still flagged a couple that looked like they'd been through an online translator. To me, that's low quality.
  
  That's not writing is it? I've also flagged a few pic hubs. The pictures caught my eye because based on my previous life and what I did for a job, the pictures were reminiscent of forced child snaps. Where a young female is forced to pose in sexy postions, in a run down backdrop. All the pictures were taken from a porn site - and it wasn't soft porn either.
  
  They just used the ones where the models still had some clothes on.
  
  Anyway - on point - perhaps an added section that states as per the spirit of the site (and purpose?) that hubs need to be informative and content rich. Maybe the 'other' catergory could be used?
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earnestshubposted 14 years ago
I like the bit about informative and content rich, but it would cut a swathe through the number of hubs. Anyone like to guess a percentage that would survive those criteria?
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  emievilposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Er, conservative - 10%? Not conservative - 50%
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  earnestshubposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  It would be high that's for sure.
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Jackson Riddleposted 14 years ago
So is it time to start thinking of putting some more time into a blog on the side? Possibly with multiple people from HubPages, anyone care to join me?
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sunforgedposted 14 years ago
I got it

Hubs below a certain hubscore get hit with a noindex tag (dont crawl) a grace period is given for the owner to correct, if it not done in say 3 months - the hub is booted - who wants to host a non earner!

automated solution
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  Ryan Kettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  That is an excellent idea Sunforged, the only problem is that there are some awful hubs reaching 70 or 80.... I have hubs that are 75 before I have even published - purely on the basis of the number of words and the number of capsules. If rating up and rating down had more of an impact on hubscores, and the community became more involved in rating up or down, then this would work perfectly. If rating down actually lost somebody a number (so your 75 hub would become 74) and rating up actually gained somebody a digit (so it became 75 again) or similar (maybe relative to page views).... then this could work. I would say any hub with a score under 50 following the new rating system, after 3 months of being published. Maybe this could work?
  
  The problem at the moment is that I have seen plagiarised hubs with a score of 68 or 69!
  
  By the way I am banned
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  emievilposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Jeez Ryan, was about to ask why you're using your other account again. Have to echo Art here, why were you banned?
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  Jane@CMposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Ryan, did you NOT listen to the advice I gave you yesterday????
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  Ryan Kettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  In fairness, I think I said whatever offended way before I spoke to you
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haydenhuntersposted 14 years ago
Without the community there would be no hubpages wouldnt there? every page represents unique topics, so no way. It is growing according to the topics. I can equally post on a blog, but i don't get enough readers to make it worth doing.
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DennisBarkerposted 14 years ago
Heres my 2p worth, I've just worked my way through the thread for half an hour.

Just a suggestion, why not make the 30 day challenge into a 60 day challenge with the second 60 days devoted to improving quality, backlinks,spelling etc.?

That way people get to be in the moment creative and the quality gets to improve over time.

This is pretty close to how I write anyway. Reviewing, rewriting and adding sections over time.My hubs may start out as short but they develop over a couple of months.I find that a natural way to improve quality over time.It also means that anything useful I learn along the way gets applied to all of my previous hubs.
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  broussardleslieposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I think this is an excellent idea. I think the problem is getting HP to agree with us - that QUALITY matters.
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  Mishaposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  How about admitting that HP is more knowledgeable and experienced in this business, and knows better what really matters and to what extent? Instead of getting it to agree to your obviously not-so-qualified opinion on the topic?
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  Nelle Hoxieposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Well said Misha.
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  broussardleslieposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Adding a smiley face at the end doesn't make your post any less disrespectful.
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  Mark Knowlesposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  LOL How is that being dis-respectful?
  
  Clearly you do not know what you are talking about.
  
  The smiley just takes the edge off.
  
  I didn't bother.
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  Mishaposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Why disrespectful? Doesn't your post quoted below clearly state you are new to online business?
  
  There is nothing wrong with being new, we all start somewhere. However, trying to enforce your amateurish opinions on pros does not seem like a reasonable thing to do. And HP staff ARE pros, trust me on that.
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  broussardleslieposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Misha,
  
  I'm sorry if somewhere in my posts I implied that I think HP is not professional. That was not my intent. If I offended anyone in this thread with my opinions, I am sorry. I was under the impression that Ryan was looking for input from anyone who was willing to give it.
  
  Yes, I am new to online business, but that doesn't mean I am new to writing. Ergo, my opinions DO matter in that I am looking for an outlet for my writing that will be successful. I've read multiple posts that reference other websites that are failing. I have put all my eggs in one basket - HP - because I do not want to operate multiple websites at one time. Therefore, I have an interest in the success of HP. Because Ryan did not specifically invite only two-year veterans to post on his thread, then I do not see why you feel it okay to devalue my input.
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  Mishaposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  I don't think you offended HP or anyone on that thread, you need much more to achieve that.
  
  But you keep missing the point. Here is your post that triggered my response to you:
  
  Considering you are the amateur in ONLINE BUSINESS and HP are pros, this pretty much looks like your passenger demanding you ride your bike the way he/she deems right. Not you the driver, but your passenger. Are you with me?
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  broussardleslieposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Obviously, we have had some serious miscommunication here, Misha.
  
  Never once did I demand anything. Never once did I imply that my opinion regarding quality is truth. All I said was that it seems that HP does not agree with the majority of people posting on this thread that feel that quality should trump quantity. Why you decided to flag me for voicing my opinion rather than anyone else is beyond me. But, truthfully, all you've done is convince me that spending time in forums is a complete waste of my time.
  
  Have a good day.
  
  Ryan, good luck with your quest to to make HP the best it can be.
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HealthTipposted 14 years ago
Why were you banned Ryan ?
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  Ryan Kettposted 14 years agoin reply to this
  Im not so sure, I dont want to jump to conclusions, but I didnt get the normal '3 day' email.... so I guess I may have rocked the boat a little. I am not expecting to be allowed back on in 3 days put it that way, and Im not expecting this login to last too long. Maybe its a good thing for my earnings objectives, but I have only said what hubber after hubber has been telling me in my email inbox (in fact, I held back!).
  
  Of course, it might be for another reason... I did tell somebody that there hubs are s***. Hopefully it is that, would hate to think that it was related to this thread.
  
  Like your new pic by the way HealthTip.
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sunforgedposted 14 years ago
Its 4am in cali, you should have a couple of hours
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HealthTipposted 14 years ago
Probably the telling someone their hub was shit , you have beaten my record and that's going some lol. Tis my online dating photo btw !

Been reading your post and deff you have raised a lot of great issues. I actually think the 30 day challenge is a good idea but only if your hubs are half decent but how hubs can monitor that is the question. I think it does effect reads, comments and a lot of interaction within the site though.

I also blame a lot of the purely indian female photo hubs which actually get highlighted on the front page. I read a hub yesterday that was one large photo and about 6 lines of writing and a hub that was basically 20 photos and no writing.

Funny thing is Golden Toad actually warned of the damage the 30 day challenge would do to the site 3 months ago and was ignored, I think that was one of the reasons he left the site. Ok the site is here for everyone to do their own thing but you have a point Ryan, a very good one.

Btw when you return you should use that pic on your normal account, tis a more relaxed looking you
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