Don't do what I did.

1. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

   A true story.
   
   A Saturday morning it was (04/13/2019).
   
   Sitting there drinking my first cup of coffee of the day, I decide to visit one of my extinct profiles. There it is with its one-and-only hub; unfeatured due to lack of traffic it was.  Though unfeatured, it was still published and the ads were happily dancing around as usual.
   
   Meanwhile, Facebook had been poking me with a stick and waving a $10 ad credit at me. I bet you see where this is going...
   
   "Let's resurrect this hub and profile!" thinks I.
   
   So I do some minor changes and update the critter. I check and though under review, it is still happily published, etc.
   
   Off to Facebook I went, setup and fired off the ad.
   
   After Facebook had displayed the ad to 20 people, I decided to revisit the hub.
   
   HP had removed the ads from the hub. Yep, gone. Hub still published and still under review; but all the ads were gone, gone, gone. So there I was paying Facebook to advertise a hub that would earn me no money.
   
   Now here is where the rant-to-end-all-rants would normally begin, except for one tiny detail. The number of engagements by the Facebook viewers was precisely zero. In other words, the hub ads suddenly disappearing hadn't cost me anything; nobody had showed up yet to see them anyway; not to mention I was using an FB coupon to begin with.
   
   Needless to say, I immediately shutdown the FB ad and am using the remaining balance of the FB coupon on one of my website articles instead. It's really too bad; could have been a resurrected hub, profile, and all that.

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   1. 82

      sallybeaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I did not know that we were allowed to put Facebook ads on a hub.  Have you done it before?

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      1. 61

         paradigmsearchposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         A clarification. It was an FB ad on FB. The FB ad on FB advertised the existence of the hub and then included a link to the hub when a person clicked the FB ad on FB.

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         1. 82

            sallybeaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            I see, have you done it before and if so, was it successful?

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            1. 61

               paradigmsearchposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               Yep, done it before. In answer to your second question; even when HP doesn't suddenly remove the HP ads from your HP hub, the FB "Boosting" still isn't worth paying for. I only did it because it was free; figured why not use the FB ad coupon to get traffic to the extinct HP hub/profile, thus resurrecting it. But when HP suddenly removed the HP ads from the HP hub, I gave up and decided to use the FB ad coupon to advertise something else.

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      Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Could the ads have gone away simply because the hub was under review?

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      1. 61

         paradigmsearchposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Never happened before, but who knows? Meanwhile, the thread has a happy ending. All is well.

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2. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

   An update. The FB ad on FB results so far: People Reached 124,
   Link Clicks (to my website article) 3.
   
   Looks like the FB ad would have indeed gotten my extinct hub and profile resurrected within a few days. Oh, well; it was HP that called it quits, not me.

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3. 96

   DrMark1961posted 5 years ago

   Just curious if you have ever used adsense to increase traffic to a hub. I got one of those emails offering free adsense but on reading the offer could not figure out how to stop it if the article got too much traffic, more than the adsense was offering.

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   1. 61

      paradigmsearchposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Yep, long time ago; back when free meant free. These days, the AdSense coupons I receive all say I have to spend $150 real money before I can have the $150 coupon money. Based on experience, it's not worth it; you'll spend more than you make.
      
      Yes, you can turn the ads on and off at will. And you can make as many different ads for as many different hubs as you want.

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4. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

   Meanwhile, I have to retract the title of this thread. Maybe it is worth trying to resurrect dead hubs and extinct profiles. The hub that started all this is now featured and has ads. So I did a little SEO research and submitted it to a niche site. If HP thinks it has a shot at getting traffic, they'll accept it; if not, they won't.

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5. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

   Well, the FB ad is perking right along. As expected, am earning zero money from it; but I do believe the article is getting some long term benefits from it.

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6. 61

   paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

   Just an update. My resurrected hub did not successfully sneak onto a niche site. I knew the SEO spin on that particular hub was iffy, but it was the only idea I could think of that might generate some traffic. Oh, well. The amount of labor to resurrect that hub to featured status was not that much. I knew that the lone hub would never reach the HP Ad Program payout finish line, so I put it on straight AdSense with the others from elsewhere. All things considered and what with the labor to resurrect the hub being minimal, I'll consider just one AdSense click (even on the HP domain name) as break even and anything beyond that as pure profit. If I ever do get that one AdSense click, I'll alert the media.

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7. 80

   Wesman Todd Shawposted 5 years ago

   I don't know what I make off of Faceberg views, but I know it's something. I'm at around 80,000 Faceberg views in total. I only recently started doing what I do there.
   
   I join every last group I can find about the things I write about, and there are LOTS of groups, some of them with more than a hundred thousand members, and I post my links in those groups.
   
   Easy and free. Lots of traffic. The traffic doesn't last too long, it's just big bursts of traffic, but I'm not the smartest person in the universe, and so, sometimes I get some VERY useful feedback from persons in those groups.

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      Jesse Drzalposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I do tons of sharing in groups as well with music articles. I had a page with 300,000 plus followers sharing articles for a while. I would get 20,000 paid views on share some days with residual views coming in for a week or so. With that volume it was nice, but it is gone now as the page is run by a tabloid guy with no morals who ruined the page. I still do ok sharing in groups here and there, but the pay is no where near a Google impression and seems to be getting worse.

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         Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Really? There is a difference between a Google impression and a Facebook derived impression?  I thought each pageview was paid the same?  How can you tell?

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            paradigmsearchposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Yep, that's the common consensus. AdSense and Analytics seem to back it up.

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         2. 96

            DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

            According to HP staff (forum, do not have the actual qoute) the advertisers can tell where your traffic is coming from (search engine or social media) and will not pay the same for social media traffic.
            There is somewhere you can look on analytics that will tell you how much of your traffic is organic and how much social media, as a percentage. I do not remember exactly where since I hardly ever use that program, so maybe Glenn, Brandon, or Eugene can comment on where it is.

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               Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               That is sick. A pageview is a view. This is Google taking care of itself, forcing us to cater to them.

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                  DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                  Maybe, but I think it is all of the advertisers, not just Google adsense. They have decided that those that come from search engines are serious, those that come from social media just want to watch funny videos and see the pictures. (I have no idea what twitter traffic pays, but I think it is probably the lowest.)

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8. 80

   Wesman Todd Shawposted 5 years ago

   Well that all makes sense. If I'm typing search terms into a search engine, then it is MUCH more likely I'm shopping. I may have my credit card in my lap as I'm typing in search terms for this or that.
   
   Social media is....social. I may click on someone's link merely because I like that person, and want to know or see, or just be supportive of whatever it is they're doing. I'm not feeling any obligation to spend money, as I'm only being social on a social network.

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9. 78

   Isivwe Muoboposted 5 years ago

   Ouch! I can imagine how angry you must have felt at the time. Good thing you stopped it in time before wasting the entire money on the fruitless ad campaign.

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10. 61

    paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

    Bumped because of previous comments.

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11. 96

    Glenn Stokposted 5 years ago

    I just found this thread and see that the discussion includes the desire to know how much traffic actually comes from various sources, such as Facebook vs. Google Search.
    
    You can see the percentage of organic search, social media, direct traffic and referrals in Google Analytics by selecting “Acquisition > Overview”.
    
    Then you can further filter the data by changing the “Primary Dimension” on top. For example, if you change it to “Top Sources” you will see a breakdown of each individual source. Google, Bing, Yahoo, Pinterest, Facebook, HubPages, Ask, direct, etc.
    
    Interesting note: In my reports I see that Facebook referrals don’t stick around very long. They click away quickly without reading. The view duration is much better with Google traffic. They actually read! You can see that kind of data in your Analytics report by going to “Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium”. (Of course, your results may vary).

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    1. 82

       sallybeaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I find that my social traffic, Facebook and Pinterest do well and the bounce rate is lower too as compared to Google traffic.  They also stay around to read my Tutorials:)

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