My site was classified as Overly Promotional. Pls Help.

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   taxman813777posted 14 years ago

   I had 2 links in my hub pointing to different pages of my site and got the following message:
   
   Overly Promotional - Solely or excessively promotes another site(s), especially when Hub links all point to one site.
   
   This is my first hub and can't understand how many links to your own site you can put and where? I checked a lot of other hubs and they had 2 and more links to their own sites and ARE published.I get lost here.
   Can anybody give me an advise?

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      Norah Caseyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Hi taxman,
      
      If your hub is short and has a link/links to another website, it is considered overly-promotional. Other instances where a hub is flagged overly-promotional is when a large portion of the content is duplicated from another site and there are outbound links within the hub.
      
      This is a hub on what is considered overly-promotional flags by Maddie Ruud, the Community Manager:
      http://hubpages.com/hub/Overly-Promotional
      
      Hope that helps!
      -Norah

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         taxman813777posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you norah,
         
         I wish I posted my question  earlier. That was going to save me a day of searching for answers in the Help and Guidance sections.
         
         Thank you for the link too. Maddie Ruud's hub was very helpful and I still don't know how I got there at 4AM today .

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            Norah Caseyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            taxman: No problem!

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      Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      As Ivorwen said, if one of them was an RSS feed, that puts you over the limit.  Or maybe the Hub was just too short.
      
      Was the text original?  If it's published elsewhere on the net, you're not allowed links.

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         taxman813777posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         You are right one of the links was a RSS feed ( I had also to find what RSS means ) Now I took all the links off and left only one. I hope it will work this time.

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            Pearldiverposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Oh Yeah..... And Thanks to Everyone who took the time to provide helpful advice over the last 24 hours BTW. 

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   habeeposted 14 years ago

   Wish I could help, but I thought it was okay to have two links to the same site. I knew we couldn't have more than two. Hopefully, one of the "old pros" will answer soon!

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      Greg Cremiaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I think the number of links allowed depends on the overall quality of the hub.

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         mel22posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         If I posted this response, one of the "so-called" EXPERT Hubbers would be all over this...Where you guys at...Make sure to insult his intelligence too B4 correcting him  like you do to everyone else so we all feel equal.

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            Mishaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            And you were right not jumping the bandwagon, because it is not exactly true. As stated, it implies that on some quality level you can have one link, on the next level two, then three, etc. This is incorrect.
            
            Number of allowed links depends on the quality of the hub, no question, but this dependence is rather binary. Substandard hubs are not allowed any links. Anything better than substandard may have two, unless other overpromotional filters apply.

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   Ohmaposted 14 years ago

   My understanding is more than 2 links to the same domain is considered overpromotional but if I were you You might want to conside contacting the staff and aski them to explain specifically what the problem is that way there can be no confusion.

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      taxman813777posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I think I will take your advise and will contact the staff before I post it. Thanks

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   Bill Manningposted 14 years ago

   Was the hub just about your own site? If the hub is nothing more than an ad for your own site I could see why they would not like it. Also doing that in your first hub might not be a good idea also. Just some thoughts.

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      taxman813777posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The hub was not about my own site. It is about a type of investing and I put a link to a page in my site where I give a definition of  one of the terms used.
      
      Anyway I'll keep in mind your thoughts. Thanks

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   Ivorwenposted 14 years ago

   There are 2 possible reasons for this:
   
   1.  If you use an RSS feed to your site and a link, it will be counted as overly promotional.  For some reason, an RSS feed is deemed as multiple links.
   
   2.  If it is duplicate content, then you are not allowed links.  If you are getting the overly promotional flag because of duplicate content, then you should also be getting that warning. 
   
   If neither of these are your problem, then contact the hubpages, for assistance.  http://hubpages.com/contact_us/

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      starme77posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      cant really help with that but why ya call yourself taxman? Do you do taxes? Just wonderin cause thats what I do , thought I might find a mutual friend interested i the same thing , I love doing taxes

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      taxman813777posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Sorry if the name misled you. I'm not doing taxes I invest and sell tax lien certificate and when I had to choose a name that was the first one that came to my mind.

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   mel22posted 14 years ago

   Ivorwen, could it be ( big MAYBE so I don't get attacked ) that RSS is counted as a multiple link because not only does it point to a site but must also read from the site to grab the feed? Therfore like you said the RSS is already two links and adding a third anchorlink triggers the overlypromotional message? Just a thought.

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      Ivorwenposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Here is the reason, according to Maddie Ruud:
      
      "Promotional RSS feeds
      Obviously, the use of RSS feeds often (if not always) means more than two links to a single domain. They do generally provide an exception to the 2-link rule, except in two cases. The first is affiliate feeds. We provide Amazon and EBay capsules to allow users to generate revenue from the display of relevant products on their Hubs, so affiliate links to these sites are redundant, and affiliate feeds to other websites break our 2-link promotion rule. The other is when a user has linked to the same site both in the body of the text and in an RSS feed capsule, especially when these make up the bulk of the outbound links on the Hub."
      
      Taken from: http://hubpages.com/hub/Overly-Promotional

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         taxman813777posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I don't know why when I click on the reply button on your previous comment  it opens a reply window under the next comment, but not yours.
         
         Thank you for the link. I will use it for sure.
         
         Just for fun. Last night (or this morning) I decided to ask the staff to revise my  improved hub before I post it  and after this long reading in Hubpages site I wrote into Ask a Question window. Just now I found out that in fact I sent the question to myself.
         
         Hey there is a lot to learn here.

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   Has_aWayWithWordsposted 14 years ago

   if both links point to same domain and are in the text that is overly promotional, it is domain not page..if both pages were to your site on the same domain that is why, you can however put one link in a capsule and one in the text and be ok.

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   Has_aWayWithWordsposted 14 years ago

   here is an exerpt from the hub about this
   
   "Web newbies may think that, in linking to different pages on the same site, they are not in violation of this rule. We do not look at individual pages, but rather at the domain name (everything before the .com or .net). Affiliate links like Clickbank sites and cloakers** like TinyURL, though they may navigate to different domains, all count as a single domain for the purposes of the 2-link rule. In general, news sites and wikis are exempt from this rule. **Note: cloakers provide their own specific problems, which are addressed in the section of that name, below."

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      taxman813777posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      You are right. I read that too but still can't understand  what "cloaker" means. Is there any simple explanation of the usage of this word here?

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   mel22posted 14 years ago

   One word ppl forget in the overlypromotional issue is SOLELY.... A particular hub may not be EXCESSIVELY linking to a site but might be SOLELY linking to a site ; with only the intention of getting a backlink.

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      Mishaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Not sure I understand what you are trying to say. Can you re-phrase please?

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         mel22posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Overly Promotional - Solely or excessively promotes another site(s), especially when Hub links all point to one site.
         
         not sure how to rephrase but here's what the top poster put and is also the definition of overlypromotional - basically I was just pointing out that first word

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            Mishaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Well, it does not say anything about solely LINKING, it talks about solely PROMOTING. It might even not be about backlinks, if you get my drift LOL.

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    Has_aWayWithWordsposted 14 years ago

    It means if you have 2 links to your domain and a couple links to other resources you will likely skate by the overly promotional flag because while you are promoting your site, you also are providing additional info and resources

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    livewithrichardposted 14 years ago

    You can have 2 links to the same site as long as the material on your hub is not a regurgitation of what is on that site.  The material on your hub needs to be original content.

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    donotfearposted 14 years ago

    This happened to me recently. I ended up deleting the Hub entirely. I went in and tried to edit it several times, but it kept coming back the same way. so I shrugged and went on...

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       Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Donotfear, if it's marked as overly promotional, I'm fairly sure you have to resubmit it for the team's consideration before it will be republished.
       
       It's not just a case of editing then hitting the "publish" button again.

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       taxman813777posted 14 years agoin reply to this

       It gives me a little comfort reading that. It means to me that there is still hope.

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    Jane@CMposted 14 years ago

    Welcome to the world Norah

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       Norah Caseyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks Jane!

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    Has_aWayWithWordsposted 14 years ago

    It does say "solely for the purpose of promoting another site or all links point to the same domain"

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       Mishaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Well, yes, and? I am too lazy to go and read for myself, but your version really does not contradict anything of what I just said. Or were you just merely correcting Mel?

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    Has_aWayWithWordsposted 14 years ago

    cloaker hides the domain,it is essentially a link that if you saw just the link in text you would not know where it is really pointing to.

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