This Week's Network Site Migrations (9/14 – 9/18)
We are excited to announce that LevelSkip, Holidappy, TurboFuture, and FeltMagnet have been rendered by our front-end publishing platform and are currently live! ReelRundown and WanderWisdom are soon to follow!I am very curious to see what the effects of these changes will be.
I suppose for now I will keep publishing new hubs.What are the advantages of the site migration?
The advantage is that HubPages will be on the same servers and using the same platform as the rest of Maven (its parent company), which will save operating costs for them.
Good for Maven but neutral or bad for the authors?
As far as I know servers do not care what platform you are using. The only reason I can figure for this change is that they are doing this because Maven told them to do so since they would be able to fill the page with more advertisements.
I do not think they are saving operating costs but they are making more money at this point.They have moved to the Maven servers as well as to the Maven platform, so that is saving them money.
Once everything is migrated to the Maven platform, they no longer need a server room at HP headquarters - if indeed HP headquarters survives at all - and they can sack the HubPages programmers.
I said this a long time ago, Dr Mark - you could have a very successful website if you moved all your articles to your own website on Wordpress.com. Might be worth starting to think about it.There are no HubPages-specific programmers. Everyone works for the Maven at large. There is a lot of collaboration between teams.
Samantha, Maven must be aware that presumably all articles, certainly my own have fallen off a cliff in Google ranking since you have done this migration. Have they got a plan to somehow get Google to rerank them after this is finished? For one I can no longer be bothered yet again writing fresh edits for mine for re ranking. I've done that many times with success in the past only to see them drop like a stone when only Maven had something to do with this and not myself.
And why do you think Google has done this? Do you think the sites are taking too long to load because of the enormous video, or, perhaps ad stuffing?I think you are correct in that Google has done this because of increased load time. I also think the increased bounce rate is terrible for our sites and Google is going to continue to lower their page rank.
Even if Maven fixes all of the mistakes, which is doubtful, the pages are unlikely to ever move back up.
Thanks Marisa prior to this change I really did not think it was worth the effort. Now I am seriously thinking about it.
The main thing is to be sure you have a copy of every Hub, just in case.
If you decide to go ahead and need some help, I've got lots of time on my hands right now and would be happy to do the basic setup for you, no charge. Just PM me.I am spending this weekend looking into a platform to set up my own site for gardening articles with multiple authors in case things go south and people need a new site. Github with Jekyll is what I am looking into. Seems a bit complicated, but I guess I will figure it out.
This seems like it is turning into a self-inflicted Panda wound. I was not looking forward to setting up a site but that sounds like a good option.
Yeah setting one up is a good option. There's also HTML code you can place which tells Google there is another version out there that is the original, so you can have copies of your hubs online without affecting your traffic, all while letting your site age like a good wine. If something goes wrong, you just strip out this one line of code from every article and your site is the new home of all your work.
Medium does this a lot. People can copy entire articles and place the original source which Medium puts into the right HTML markup.
You have plenty and definitely enough to have a successful site on your own.I am reading that site now on another tab. Did you choose it for the above reasons?
I am also curious about the address. Does it end up having GitHub in the address you choose?
In your case you do not need to do something as complicated because I assume you will have a site for your own stuff. I have just a handful of articles, so I would like to have other authors be able to create accounts and post their own content. I, therefore, want a platform that will allow this (other than WordPress). I prefer static HTML, but most people would want an editor that is plain text. This is the only reason I am looking at the option I mentioned.
If I were you I would go wordpress or static HTML. Marissa says she would be able to help out, so maybe contact her and ask her what she is familiar with.
But to answer your question, no it would not have github in the address, I could buy and link it up with a domain name of my choice.Brandon, what do you think of Weebly from an SEO perspective? I've done WordPress before and it's fine but Weebly is just so easy. I definitely see some negatives to it as well though.
I'm not sure I want to build another wordpress site but that is probably the best option. I really don't want to leave HubPages but I think it's time to come up with a contingency plan.Weebly is the worst or maybe wix is worse. Wordpress is a lot better.
With WordPress you're going to have to work on the SEO, too but with Weebly some things are just not possible.Aargh! Run screaming from Weebly as fast as you can. It appeals to non-technical people because it's so easy to use - but it's terrible for anyone who wants to get Google traffic, because speed and SEO are awful.
Wix has improved enormously - it used to be just as bad - but I'm still not sure it's a good idea.
The problem with Wix is that you're stuck with it forever if you do use it. There is no way to transfer your website to another provider if something happens - e.g. their prices go up or they change their policies. You just have to trash your website and start again from scratch elsewhere. If you're going to leave HubPages then you're about to discover how much of a pain that is - you don't ever want to go through that again!
That's the appeal of Wordpress. There are so many providers. If you set up with one provider and their service gets bad or they put their prices up, all you need to do is save your website and upload it to another provider who's offering a better deal.Interesting that Wix has gotten better.
With respect to Marisa's last paragraph, that goes for all self hosted websites. If you are comfortable with HTML, HTML5 has some amazing templates which are light and are the easiest to get right in terms of SEO as you have 100% control of every line of code on each page easily.
WordPress is definitely the easiest (and good) option for those who do not want to deal with code.You're right, lots of options for those who want to use code - but I'd think most Hubbers are here because they didn't want to deal with the technical challenges of learning to code and creating a site.
The other thing with the Wordpress software is that you don't even have to deal with self-hosting - you can go with Wordpress.com, and you don't even have to do any site maintenance or back-ups, it's all taken care of. The paid version is slightly more expensive than using the Wordpress software on a hosting platform, but for someone who needs only one website, it's worth it.
And you can still change to self-hosted later if you want - and Wordpress.com even takes care of 301 forwarding the whole site for you!That's true. It is why I suggested self-hosted WordPress instead. If the .com people set up 301 redirects etc. that's cool makes them worth it.
Yes, the redirect is very handy. I only discovered it when I moved a site from Wordpress.com to my own hosting and when you close down the .com site, up pops a question asking if you'd like the site redirected and where.
The thing is, every time I wade into WordPress it seems like I find out I have to spend way more than I expected to get the site to do what I want it to do. Basic hosting packages and themes don't seem to cut it. Doesn't shared hosting have its own issues with speed and performance?
I've checked out managed hosting as well as platforms like Ghost. It makes sense for businesses to spend big $$ but for one person with 200 articles to move every dollar spent on the site is that much less profit.
What I really want is to do exactly what I do here on HubPages on my own terms. My own niche site.
Maven could make a few bucks with the old HP sites platform. Writers could pay them for hosting, attach their own domain name, etc.
I'm sure its more complex than that though.Paying to post articles seems to defeat the purpose of it. As it stands now Mavan/HP is getting money because writers are posting articles for next to nothing. That seems a good enough business model for them.
You can easily recreate exactly what you have on HubPages on a Wordpress site. There is no need to pay a cent for a theme or any plugins to create the same kind of look and feel.
When you start looking into creating your own site, it's easy to start getting fussy and say, "but I want the heading to look exactly like this" but you have to ask yourself, why? You joined HubPages and just accepted what it looked like. Your articles are now on Maven sites and you're not complaining about the look of the site (though we have complaints about videos etc). So what's the big deal about using a pre-made theme?
I suggest you sign up to Wordpress.com and try playing around with themes etc there. You can start with a free plan while you play. If you decide you like the setup, you can upgrade to a paid plan and get high speed, good performance and all your maintenance taken care of.
If you then decide you need more freedom, you can get hosting and transfer your site to your own hosting with a few clicks.
Shared hosting can have its own issues, but you can avoid them by choosing a good host. I have used shared hosting for years, never paid for a business plan, and never had an issue with speed or performance.
In fact, the biggest issues with speed or performance come from over-enthusiastic use of Wordpress plugins to add fancy features to the website. But that's easily monitored.
PS If you need a hand with the initial setup, PM me. I have a lot of time on my hands as Melbourne is in lockdown, happy to do it free of charge.Thanks Marisa. I appreciate it. But I have setup Wordpress sites before and I am familiar with it. Like I said, those are the issues I always come across. It has been a while, because I have been happy with HP for the past couple of years, but my feeling about Wordpress is that the "in the door" cost doesn't really give you everything you need to compete with the big sites.
Because that's the goal, right? That's why we tolerate splitting revenue on HP. I want my articles to be able to compete with the big names and they handle all the backend costs and maintenance to make that happen.
Why would you not want to use Wordpress? They do have a multi-author option.
I can see how Jekyll has an appeal for someone like yourself with technical expertise, but looking into the future, (when you might want to step away from the site, for instance), I'd have thought Wordpress was a safer option as it could be run by any of the members.Just because it comes with a lot of unwanted stuff and you need to know PHP well to clear it all up. Also, it is not possible (not easy) to have 100% control on each page. If I set up a multi-author system I want every author to have some level of freedom to set up their page the way they want it if they choose to in terms of layout.
Looks to me like Maven (and us) have copped a huge ranking penalty because of that unbelievably ugly video ad across the top of the page. I was just reading this under Google SEO guidelines:
Avoid distracting advertisements
We expect advertisements to be visible. However, you should not let the advertisements distract users or prevent them from consuming the site content. For example, advertisements, supplement contents, or interstitial pages (pages displayed before or after the content you are expecting) that make it difficult to use the website
When I go into a Hub that's on a network site, SPINDITTY.COM for example, I don't see a way to add comments.
Regarding comments—I have asked this question earlier too, in another thread. Without the comments section, there can’t be any interaction or feedback from the readers, which I believe is important for the writers. Recently, I have not been able to comment on some of the wonderful articles, and that is disappointing.
Secondly, the profile image of the author is not visible.
Hope someone clarifies.
Thank you.You are right. Reader feedback is an essential element to making HubPages a good place to post articles. It helps improve products overall and increases everyone's body of knowledge. it would terrible if the comment feature is not available.
Regarding FeltMagnet...Love the look of it however....
A couple of things, and I'm a bit biased because I write a lot on crafts, is that I wish that the article pics on the desktop version were vertical instead of horizontal. I think that when people are looking at crafts (and other sites, like recipes) readers want to see a larger image. That "eye candy" draws them in to an article. Unfortunately that narrow pic doesn't do much for any of the articles. It does look better on the mobile.
Also, on the home page of FeltMagnet, it used to be that there were sections (like Painting) that had a small box that a reader could click on to take them to that area of interest. It seems to be a bit more disorganized now. There's the top menu, but once you scroll past, it's not easy to find various categories.
Finally, curious what the algorithm is for how many articles show up on the category menu pages (i.e. Textiles & Sewing or Painting). There are not very many articles on that page and it is not real obvious how to navigate to a subcategory such as Quilting.
Edited to add...Is there a plan to make quizzes non-static or are they staying the way they are? Mine are placed near the beginning of my articles and it looks kind of weird so see that before pics and text. That will help me decide if I want to get rid of them. Thanks.
I will say that once in an article, the photos look much much much better!!! They seem to be larger and sharper and that helps with viewer experience on articles like this. Thank you for improving the pics.Same questions. Following the thread.
Hello,
Comments have been disabled until further notice. They are not supported on our new platform, so we must manually find a way to reinstate them.
On the main page, photos are square, so I'm not sure what you mean. Are you talking about category pages? It is odd that it changes. Again, something that came with the platform. We do not have any plans to change the layout anytime soon, but it has been brought up internally.
Similarly, category placement and quizzes have also been brought up, but no plans currently to change anything. I'm sorry I don't have a more concrete update.
We are working on different algorithms to feature different articles, but there is a set number of articles that will appear on each page.Thanks Samantha - With respect to the pics, I was talking about the pics in the category pages.
I'm seeing square.
I wish they were a bit smaller so there were more articles visible.
I know ad placement is not changing, but are staff looking into the large ads at the bottom before and throughout the related articles section? Reelrundown and WanderWisdom have the same issue that Dengarden has. Some of the ads in that section are too large causing articles to overlay the ad which makes certain article titles hard to read.
I haven't heard anything about that, no. But I'll ask.
Edit: So we can understand what you're talking about, please send a screenshot to team@hubpages.com if you can.
Don't know yet, I like the design better, but having polls disappear and youtube video's in the articles show up as a gray square without the video + a 20-25% drop in readership right after migration of pethelpful (probably, because some articles of mine were on popular lists and right after migration they weren't on the main page anymore). I hope things will be ok again in a month or two.
It does seem earnings per view/click are better.
I was wrong, it was a couple of days and now declining steadily since migration. Will wait for a turnaround by Christmas.
Any possible explanation for the decline other than the migration?
My guess is your Google ranking. Since they slapped a humungous video across the top I think Google has taken exception to this ad stuffing and sent all sites spiralling downwards. I know my most popular article has gone from page 2 on Google to page nowhere since these changes. Makes me really mad because I've built that article up over time to over 11,000 careful words so it would rank well and now its completely tanked. The whole article looks like a complete mess starting with a huge video ad that immediately is an off putter for a reader. Then (my article is how to sell cars) they have to step past completely irrelevant ads like bad breath, with the most grotesque close up in someone's mouth full of yellow teeth and cavities.
I understand your anger. HubPages often cuts out my Amazon ads, which are article related, supposedly to keep the ranking up in Google. What they did with the migration apparently helped HubPages at your expense.
Yes, the page views have declined considerably. Around 60 to 70 percent in most of my articles, since the migration.
It seems they caused much grief for the authors will little benefit.
Definitely, I have not seen it better. It really is frustrating though that the UK pages are not being shown at their best. Often there is no video at the top of the page and the ones that are showing are not relevant to the hub. The Amazon Ads are still not being shown in the UK.
My earnings are down to a third of what they were at their best, and my traffic is half.
It's depressing.
The new sites are still not displaying properly to people in the UK. All that needs to happen is that you add a proper privacy notice in line with GDPR. Any indication if this will be implemented soon?
Hopefully I don’t have anything new moved to those Network sites until comments are enabled.
Exemplore has gone over - traffic is falling even lower than previously. Down to half of last year's.
