Hubpro Editing - Aaaaauughhhhh!!!!
They do give you a link to the article showing all the changes. You can always email your editor during the process and discuss what you will accept and what you won't.
I've had two done and they've both been very positive experiences. The first brought an old article completely up to date with new developments. The second simply rearranged the text a little and added new images.I don't have any communication from any editor nor have I on the other articles the Hubpro edited. The article has been locked for a week so that I couldn't go in and revert it back to the way that it was. So far they deleted over 500 words of my original relevant content and added over 800 words of their own in the form of questions that is stuck in the middle of the article, breaks up what little of my argument is left and has no relevance. It is clear that it is just a blatant attempt to rank for other keywords though if I understood it correctly, this is one of the things Google will take your rank down for. While my rank hasn't yet dropped and is still at the number one position I will be surprised if it stays there as views are already down by 75 or so from my average for the last two months and by more than 100 from my average for the last month. The article has the feel of someone slapping it together in a manner just to take advantage of SEO techniques and get views and not to impart any kind of real information. As it is still locked and thus still being edited I have absolutely no idea what other changes they will make but it is no longer my article at all.
Oh my... that's bad. I've always had communication with the editors. Maybe check your spam for the email from your editor, there was another case on the forums where the email was sent to the spam folder.
Thanks. Just found it in my spam folder. While it says he wants to work with me and will check with me and discuss any changes he made, that was the last I heard from him.
Probably because you didn't respond. Send an email asap and start the ball rolling.
Natalie, I've had one article of which the editor contacted me. I've had a couple that have been "hubproed" without my knowledge or permission. Funny thing, I was happy with the latter, but in the former, the inexperienced techie made some mistakes that my old editor's eye picked upon very quickly. After he finished fooling around, I made reverted some changes in information to it's original content, SEOs be damned.
My editor did send me an email suggesting that I take some more photos, and I would love to have complied, plus a few more suggested rewrites that I couldn't review at the time. However, I had to explain to him that it was physically impossible because of the terrain. My article was finished within 24 hours after my reply. What I didn't like was his "overkill": a numbered list, a chart, and then a bulleted list basically all outlining the same thing.
In the past, I've seen the editing tool pick out some typos and grammar errors only to find that those were made in the comments sections. I don't go in and correct errors of my commenters.
Before I go into my problems with this process I want to start by saying I do want to say that I very much appreciate the editors when they stay true to the purpose of the article and make small changes that do in fact enhance the article. The basic editing service I think for the most part is stellar and I can't thank them enough for the help they provide in making sure that mistakes and typos are corrected, everything is grammatically correct, and there aren't things in there which might negative affect searchability or the reader's experience. I edit for a living and know that we all need to have another pair of eyes read our work with the intent of strengthening it. I also know I have a lot to learn about writing and will my whole life and certainly have a lot to learn about SEO techniques.
However, my experiences with HubPro Editor have been less than satisfying and have resulted in changes that altered the intent and meaning of the article, it's integrity and in each case resulted in decreased views and ranking position.
1)Communicating with the author - While I did in fact receive a detailed email from the editor, and while he did say that he wants to work with me and will run changes by me, this initial email was the only one I received from him. The article is a complete different article and not one I am proud to have my name on. As for the changes the editor said he would be making these were a bit shocking, especially for an article that was responsible for over half my total views, was my biggest earner has which has held the number one spot for over two months now. These changes included: Adding capsules and content, deleting capsules and content, deleting ads, deleting and adding pictures, restructuring and reorganizing content. improving grammar and spelling, changing the layout, turning text into lists, moving around text, adding tables, adding media, adding bullets and numbers, adding capsules and content including possibly a table and a poll, adding Text Capsules with additional content (here he states he'll add content based on research of what search engines want, but we will always email me first letting me know his plan and ask for my input - Nope, didn't happen), Removing and replacing images and adding new ones, removing products/adding new ones (here he says that they've found that a single, well-placed product receives up to 20 times more purchases than blocks of ads and he'll be helping me choose and position ads that will sell - however, while he got rid of the two relevant ads, not blocks of ads which I've never included in any of my articles, that were placed with the info about them, things that I used and the article was based on, and done with hyperlinks not capsules, he certainly did not add any new products that are likely to sell.), removing links and adding new ones, changing the title and subtitles, optimizing for Featured Snippets, and changing the bio.
Then at the bottom, as part of the article and not as an advertisement is an commercial for Mac Computers which is based on 1984 and has absolutely not one thing to do with the article. I imagine somehow HP is making money by including it in my article but I am not, as it is a component of the article not a source of revenue - at least for me.
So with all that, I have two big questions - 1)Why is all this necessary for
an article already ranking #1? and 2)What is left of my original article?
I am not writing this just to rant. As I've said, I've had other articles edited by HubPro. I mostly left two they way they were edited, and they subsequently lost most of their traffic. Last week I changed another one back withing 5 days or so which was completely disastrous and which had also started losing traffic which hasn't yet started to come back up.
However, this article is the most significant reworking/rewriting and seems to be resulting in a piece that uses tricks to gain views rather than good writing. It already isn't the article I wrote and it's still being changed.
I am speaking out as I am beginning to fear that in an attempt to be able to stay in the game, HP may be starting to slide a bit towards using tricks instead of techniques which may increase views but will also compromise the integrity of the articles. I do not want HP to end up being just a clone of Maven. While they have some excellent authors on there, there is also a lot of poor writing that is clearly only aimed at advertising bucks.
I know that most authors aren't on the forums though maybe there are also some lurkers that just don't weigh in but keep up with what's going on. It is easier to just let them edit as they see fit especially as it is frustrating at having to spend hours and in some cases days changing an article back to the way it was before an editor gutted it. I also know I have seen a number of threads over the past year from writers who are equally frustrated and upset over what happened when their work was edited with Hubpro. At the same time, I recognize that there are also those that feel Hubpro editing truly enhanced and improved their article.
I just think there needs to be some kind of discussion between us and HP staff to come up with a more consistent process for this type of editing and to ensure it is not a waste of time for them and for us so it truly can be a valuable service each and every time it is utilized. I don't know how many others have had bad experiences with Hubpro editing or how many have had good experiences. But if there are a number of authors who have had similar problems and just written of the loss of traffic, rank and earnings I think it bears discussing.
Thanks for listening to my frustration. Again, I don't mean to be attacking HP staff. I truly appreciate all their hard work, their support and their ability to keep HP operating when so many other sites have gone belly up.All I can add is:
1. The editor did not send any further correspondence because you didn't reply to the original email. Of course no one knew it was in your spam folder.
2. Even if your main keyword is #1 there are so many other related keywords out there that you may be #2 or #10 at. Writing a better article (In terms of SEO) can get you these rankings. That's what I did on my hub on watering tomatoes.
The lists etc are being done for SEO purposes. But this should not be done if it changes or in this case takes away your voice from YOUR article. An editor did this on my green apples hub, but it was just a conversion from one kind of list to another number to bullet or vice versa) with minor text alterations which I was fine with.
Now that you got the email I think the best thing is to contact the editor directly and put forth your concerns. Together you'll could come up with something that works for you. It could still be in your style and without Mac stuff while getting some SEO benefits. SEO isn't manipulation as most understand it to be. So I hope it doesn't have to be that on your article.I already have contacted him and explained what the problem is then a second time when I received no response asking him not to finalize the article until we had communicated. He hasn't contacted me back but in the last half hour or so has finalized the edits which I saw only because of the little red 1 that is over the green edit symbol on my accounts page.
The upshot? More than 80% of the article is now his writing, and his ideas, there is no longer any thesis and no real argument supporting my ideas about the topic though I guess that's a given since my ideas are no longer in it. It is dropping in views, and interestingly enough even the hubscore has dropped. He got rid of all the photos and provided no replacements so there are now zero photos, not even one at the beginning. The discussion of totally unrelated questions and definition of terms to the tune of over 500 words words of new content which has absolutely nothing to do with the topic are still stuck in the middle of the article with no attempt to even try to relate it to the rest of the article. There is practically no discussion left of the actual topic and what there is displays a lack of understanding of the undying principles and is superficial at best adding nothing new to what's already out there.
I appreciate that they are trying to help us gain some SEO benefits. While white hat SEO isn't manipulation, choosing the highest traffic key words on a general subject and then adding them and a ton of added content the only purpose of which seems to have space to fill key words, while repeating a couple of other keywords over and over again in the subheadings is manipulation. The main keywords missed are the ones that the article actually is supposed to be about. I spent a ton of time doing keyword research on this one and I think my efforts were paying off but all of that has been deleted as well. I don't even know how many dozens of times "1984" although "Nineteen Eighty-Four" another huge keyword appears no where. 1984 is in the title, every single subheading I believe, of which there are now a relatively large number, and in every single question not to mention at least once in every paragraph. Seems a lot like old school keyword stuffing to me. Maybe I'm wrong but I thought that Google penalized you for those types of strategies. I do know that if you lose your Adsence account there's no reversing the decision for any reason.
The actual phrases from the book that should be the focus of the article as opposed to it just being a bunch of different stuff related to the novel thrown together for no apparent reason are in the title and one each in three different subheadings and that's it. No links. No products. Same references except all of the material that was referenced from them has been deleted. He add no new references for the material he added but maybe you don't need it given it is all very simplistic and in thousands if not tens of thousands of essays already out there. There is no longer a unique word in this article.
I'm sorry but a new college grad who majored in writing and worked on the school newspaper does not necessarily have the credentials to be editing content he seems not to know much about. For now I'm just too frustrated to change it back. Unless something changes and I just can't seem to see the crazy SEO value and it takes off I will have to see if I am willing to completely redo the article from scratch or if I just delete it. If I decide to delete it though, I imagine that the sense of losing half my views and income when I'm finally at the point of making payout each month will result in me not having much motivation to continue writing on HP.May I suggest, with all due respect, that you should always keep copies of your articles off site so that if you want to use them to replace editorial work, it will be easy for you to do? If you don't do this, you make a lot of work for yourself. Also, if you are this unhappy, you should email Robin with your complaint. Sometimes Editors get carried away, and this sounds like one of those times!
I do have a copy of all my articles. But I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are edits that were made in terms of typos etc that were on the money and I don't want to lose them. That means I have to compare it paragraph by paragraph which takes a lot of time. You are right about emailing Robin, good point. Thanks.
I like the approach of the editor on how he/she enumerated all items that must be changed. However, in these past few days or weeks, if I'm not mistaken, I noticed how he/she changed the thought of my article. I must admit that I'm not an expert in grammar, but I absolutely know my recipes, specifically the culinary terms I used for my articles. I do appreciate rephrasing my sentences or paragraphs, but adding his/her personal ideas and changing my thoughts is a different thing. It's as if he/she is putting words into my mouth.
One more thing that irritated me last time was the use of the article "a". In my previous articles, I kept on using it but the assigned editor kept on deleting it. So I ended up following that pattern thinking it was the right thing. Only recently, it was raised through the email that I need to always add an "article" in my title. Though I edited my article, I left a comment saying: "I think it's unnecessary to do it so as per Google because I previously used it, but eventually removed by the editor." Yes, I know it's a simple matter, but may lead to confusion.
I still appreciate the hubpro editing because I'm learning a lot from the editors as they're trying to point out all my mistakes. They just need to be careful in changing words/sentences/paragraphs as this process may change the whole idea of the article.We must have had the same editor. I just had my first HubPro experience, and I'm not happy. It's a longer article now, but very little of my own writing is left. I do like the minor fixes (grammar and such) and a table he added, but otherwise, nope. I want my old article back. It doesn't feel like it's mine anymore.
I gave it three weeks as I was told by staff to wait and see what happened (with the exception of correcting something that was blatantly wrong and got me called out by a reader about it) because it took a while for Google to recrawl it and it to gain back whatever minor ground it had lost.
It had been in the number one position on bing and yahoo, had the snippet on Google which put it in the zero rank position, had been given an 100 hubscore in less than two weeks after it was published, had been moved immediately to a niche site and hit 400 views within a month with traffic growing from there. It wasn't unusual that it would hit 600-700 views a day and sometimes the 800's. Even on it's worst days it didn't drop below 400. By three weeks after it had been edited, views had dropped to between 150 -200, I'd lost the snippet and was ranked 4 on google, was no longer on the first page of Bing results and couldn't even be found any longer on Yahoo results. It's Hubscore also dropped point by point.
I started editing it and basically rewrote the intro and conclusions and deleted the first half of his rewrite and made it once more address the topic I intended it to be about. I left about 800 words of totally unrelated material and a totally unrelated table since I had been told if I didn't except the edits it would like be moved to HP. There's about 700 words that still need editing but for now I've left it. That was about 2 weeks ago. Initially, views kept falling until it was barely over 100 per day and I was despondent as it accounted for over half my views before. But in the past five days of so it's been slowly coming back up and while I haven't recaptured the snipped or made much progress in making up rankings, and maybe never will, I'm at least back over 400 views a day, barely but it's stayed there for the last 3 days so I'm hopeful and it's hubscore is at 98 now.
If it isn't your article or what you intended to say, try to keep some of the edits but turn it back into an article that you're proud of. I think there are likely a number of hubbers with similar problems, a lot of whom likely just aren't on the forums and others who just aren't saying anything. I have heard privately from three hubbers who had similarly horrible experiences.
I do want to say that there are some who have had wonderful experiences with Hubpro so I don't want it to seem like I think it's the entire program. I just think it depends on the editor. Good luck.
This was my most read article as well, and the views have dropped dramatically. Granted, the traffic tends to be seasonal and it usually drops this time of year, but not by this much.
I wouldn't have minded minor edits (which was what I expected), but this wasn't minor. It reads very much like a scientific journal article now, which is not what I intended.
I've started trying to fix it - I'm trying to reword some of the stuff he added so that it sounds like my writing style, and I'm condensing a lot. This is going to take awhile.
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