Is Hubpages losing popularity?
I know that back in September Hubpages views and therefore, peoples profiles took a major dive. I read that writers were leaving Hubpages in droves. Are there significantly less writers here? Is it regaining popularity?
One thing I know is that people come and go. Others like the place and they stay forever. For me, this is the first site to write for and the first site to earn from. So i am sure that i am here to stay since i get a payout every month. There are those who leave because they do not get what they wanted.
For those who have got what they wanted, I am sure they will stay despite the numerous challenges they will encounter on the way. What i am sure of is that those who run Hubpages would like it to be popular as ever. To them it is a business and they have to do their level best to maintain it.
I personally don't think so. I am new to Hubpages and i guess it is not only me who is new here. I have plenty of idea to write about and it is only the time which affects me. May be to the older members who have written plenty and now they having nothing to add on apart from earning only. I like Hubpages and from outside there, it is mentioned as one of the best sites to make money on which means that it is still popular with regard.
If we consider Hubpages' standing in search engine results, the answer is no. Most of my hubs managed to get on the first page on infamous keywords without applying serious SEO strategies. This only signifies that Google and other search engines still consider HP as a great resource of reliable information.
HP has not lost its popularity with me. I guess it all boils down to what people are looking for on a writing site.
I started out writing on several different sites throughout the years. I left many because of horrible quality controls, plagiarism, and nonsensical content. Eventually I landed on a site that was primarily filled with writers from the UK, the U.S. and Canada. The community was fantastic and the earnings were phenomenal. Alas, it folded and many were left floundering in a sea of despair when a few of us caught wind of HP. One member joined, then another and the rest is history.
I find that being a member here is not restrictive as far as content and offers an array of venues to be active in. I've been fortunate to have several of my hubs published in a national magazine that is sold in all Barnes & Noble and Book World stores within the United States. So, for me, HP is as popular as ever and the people I follow and who follow me are what solidifies our community here.
Popularity goes and comes, but a far as what I know, HP is one of the best (if not the best) writing site. There are many qualities that makes this site great. We may not like all the things that HP does but it is better than many others.
Since September, the month you mentioned in this question, there has been a steady exodus of writers from the hub pages. I've been keeping track of the statics since last year, and the numbers look anything but favorable for the hub pages - http://goody5.hubpages.com/hub/Google-vs-the-Hub-Pages You can use your own judgement on this, but numbers don't lie.
I suppose the only way to answer this would be to make a comparison of how many writers join Hubpages over a certain time period, and and how many leave, or don't interact. As I have absolutely no idea of these stats I cannot really answer this question. I am quite new to HP, but it certainly is not losing its popularity with me, or, I suspect, with my many new HP friends. I guess as people leave, others take their place.
It's a bit like walking around in a crowded city, and someone asks you how many people live there. If you're in the middle of them, it feels like a lot, but you really have no way of determining if this is so, and exactly how large the population is.
some people may joing but not do much on HP. Others may look at other get paid to write sites to se if there is something better. Some of those who leave may come back. It doesn't seem that there are less writers because I believe for every one that leaves HP, another person joins.
I know that I simply did not have time to get on and write. I have returned to Hubpages in the past few weeks and hope to remain active. Other people may simply just go through periods when they do not have enough time either.
Putting together what I see here, I think the clear answer is "no, HubPages is not losing popularity."
Our position with Google is maintaining or increasing, in spite of Panda updates, thanks to the dedicated work of the HubPages corporate team. Those who stay with the program can get increasing readership, even if the growth process is slower than we like.
People who come to HubPages for community and sharing of writing have a great place to be.
People who come to HubPages to make money face a huge challenge. Most will find it more difficult than they thought, as I have. Each of us will either adjust or become inactive or depart. Big events like the September Panda update will create a "shakedown" in which uncertain people will leave rapidly. This gives the appearance of shrinking.
But does a garden have less life in the winter? Can a ski equipment business gauge it's success by comparing January to June? No. Cycles are natural in a growth process. The weeding out is unfortunate, but necessary.
I believe HubPages continues to be strong and vital, and the key factor is mentioned by DailyTop10.
Now, I also trust Goody5's reporting of the number of Hubbers. But I disagree with Goody's metaphor. I don't see a battle. I see Google, HubPages, and each of us Hubbers who wants to make a significant income as an online writer working together to provide real value in an increasingly noisy Internet. Also, a 10% drop in the number of Hubbers over 6 months is not a big issue. Many companies go through such cycles and succeed. In fact, all great companies do.
For each individual who wants to make money on HubPages, is the number of other Hubbers a significant factor? I don't think so. Rather, the quality of new hubs is key. So, if there are fewer hubbers, it may be because writing stellar hubs is essential to success now, and that takes a lot of work, and most don't want to do it.
But each of us has our own sub-domain. So our success is not keyed to the number of other hubbers. It is keyed to our own commitment to succeeding in online writing.
For me, that's here on HubPages, though I will also diversify.
HubPages is suffering some of the issues that many companies suffer when they institute "change for the sake of change". Having been here for over three years as a writer, I have seen format changes which did not improve but actually made things worse. The change you mentioned being one of the worst. At one time there was a way to view all "hubbers" and see their scoring levels....all gone now. HubPages continues to have some level of success because most of its competition is far worse in terms of functionality and format. So what it boils down to is that HP is not so good...to the contrary, the competition is just so bad. Many of those that I started writing here with have lost interest because HP and Google have so choked down the exposure as to make their efforts rather worthless....not in terms of money but just visibility as a writer. ~WB
I haven't been recording the "regulars" vs "passersby" stat over time, which would allow us to cut through subjective impressions and look at the actual numbers, but you can study overall traffic for the site over time here:
https://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com
it's doing much better than it was during the first year of Panda, but as with so many sites that were hit, its traffic has never totally recovered.
Bring retired executives like me to come into the fold of HubPages announcing special incentives and recognition the the golden oldies. Senior persons have rich practical experience and if experience and technology shake hands the end result will be superb. HubPages knows how to achieve it. At least I am not going to leave the HubPage till I live...
I think that Hubpages is still popular. Popularity rolls in and out with every Google panda change. Views come and go, but every site experiences the same ebb and flows.
Hub Pages has definitely lost some of it's popularity. The site as a whole had a drop in page rank due to people writing too much spammy/press release type material. Another issue plaguing hubpages is the manner in which they manipulate the earnings. I personally stopped writing on this site when I found out that hubpages keeps all of the income from sales from ebay. They promise a 60/40 split, but don't mention that means they keep all profits while handing you pennies. I had an $80 commission on a sale from a hub, which hub pages kept all of. I have had hundreds of dollars in commissions credited to my articles, and hp has kept every penny. I can't speak for anyone else, but I will not write anything else on this site until they change that policy. They are cheating the writers out of what should be their money, and that makes me sick.
That doesn't sound right. Is that true? I got commissions from Ebay sales.
Glenda, When they talk about September, they are talking about September of 2011 when Panda hit all of the content sites. The writers that are leaving now are the ones that are unhappy with hubs being put in idle. It does seem to help to update hubs that are not getting traffic, so it is a good idea. It just should have been carried out where it warned you that the hub needed updating instead of de-indexing it.
I've been here almost 3 years and I still find Hubpages the best place to write.
i don't understand why people are leaving HP. I find that HP has the most interesting hubs and are popular in google search.
I don't think that HubPages is losing popularity as it remains a major site for people searching for information.
As to writers leaving, I have been writing for HubPages for a little over six years (I joined HubPages a few months after it started) and have seen some good writers and many poor writers leave. I have also seen a large increase in good writers joining HubPages and regularly writing great Hubs.
I imagine that most good writers who leave do so for various personal reasons. In many cases, HubPages is a side job for them. This is probably true of part-time writers as well as professional freelance writers.
For others, like me, writing for HubPages is a part time affair engaged in during spare time while working 40 hours or more a week in another profession.
I can see people leaving or at least stop writing for a while because they are busy with other commitments (my friend Jimmy the Jock stopped Hubbing for a number of months due to the press of other responsibilities and then returned after a few months).
In other cases HubPages may have been a starting point for someone wanting to move into a writing career and once they established themselves moved on to other writing jobs.
So I don't think that HubPages is losing popularity. With thousands of part-time amateur writers publishing on HubPages there is bound to be a degree of turnover as some current Hubbers leave and new people discover the site and join thereby replacing those leaving.
by Carolee Samuda 13 years ago
Recently there have been a lot of talk of HP in financial trouble, loss of it's Amazon Associate's account, Low traffic and whatever else there might be, whether it be Panda or Yogi bear.Is HP in trouble and will it be closing it's doors or rather closing site?What's with the California...
by Dr Abby Campbell 10 years ago
Here is the latest and greatest from BillyBuc. Today is his 3 year anniversary on HubPages. If you don't know Bill, here's a little about him:914 Hubs84,658 Comments590,148 Views2,257 followers2012 Most Helpful Hubber and Most Beautiful Hub2013 Best All-Around Hubber2014 Best All-Around Hubber and...
by Sondra Rochelle 9 years ago
At the end of this month, I will have been here at HP for four years. At first it was interesting, challenging and fun. I met so many fantastic people and talented writers and was inspired to learn and grow and write my heart.Then, almost imperceptibly things began to change.Now, I...
by ryankett 15 years ago
I really wanted to share this as an example of how traditional writers, irrespective of their level of talent or area of expertise, need to either a) adapt to online media to become 'successful' on hubpages, or b) choose more traditional offline media as an outlet. This is all very hypothetical of...
by ryankett 15 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...
by Don Bobbitt 9 years ago
I've been an active user of HP for over 6 years. Over that time, my income would increase until, suddenly, my "reads" would take a hit and my (modest) income would take a drop.This has happened a number of times, as you all know.And, I dutifully went through my articles and modified,...
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |