Meeting HP standards

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   Rupert Taylorposted 21 months ago

   Six months ago my article on irony was booted off Owlcation because of "low traffic." I reworked the article, added a new title etc., and resubmitted, only to receive the advise that the piece "does currently meet network site standards for publication" but it isn't going to be moved to a network site unless I do more work on it.
   
   (So, "low traffic" is an arbitrary standard that has nothing to do with quality.)
   
   I am urged to rework the offering by studying how "high-ranking articles on similar subjects (high-ranking meaning that they appear on the first and second pages of search engine results) and see how these articles are organized ... blah, blah, blah"
   
   I just did a Google search for "The World of Irony" (the original title) and my article is ninth on the first page. I really don't see how I can improve on that no matter how much time I invest in reworking an article that will yield pennies.
   
   Thoughts anyone? Here's the link:
   
   https://discover.hubpages.com/literatur … d-of-Irony

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      AliciaCposted 21 months agoin reply to this

      I love your article, Rupert. I think it should definitely be switched to a niche site, but I think you should make a few changes before you submit it again.
      
      There is no indication who the elderly writer is in the first section. If you’re talking about yourself, it’s probably not a good idea to admit that you make mistakes in the first section.
      
      A few more examples in the politics section (preferably not from the United States) could be helpful as well.
      
      I know it’s hard in an article about irony, but you should try to get rid of the word “irony” in the title of successive capsules.

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      OldRosesposted 21 months agoin reply to this

      If it were me, I would have sent them a screen shot of that search result and asked why ninth is not good enough.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 21 months ago

   Wow, Linda. Some great ideas. Thank you muchly. I'll try the changes before stalking off in a huff with the article in my pocket, which was my initial notion.
   
   I am rather irritated by the way this communication has been handled. HP is saying "The article is good enough for a network site but we're not going to promote it." And, I'm certainly not going to spend hours trying to unravel the mystery of what makes an article successful in the eyes of Google. If any of us knew that secret we wouldn't be here scratching around for loose change.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 21 months ago

   Caren. My search was very title specific. A more general search for "irony" didn't pick my material on the first two pages. So, my ninth position on page one could be viewed as cheating a bit.
   
   It's another issue that bugs me. If "only articles of the highest quality" (their words) are placed on network/niche sites, why are some of those that meet the standard rejected?
   
   Of course, I know the answer; it's all about making the Google algorithm happy. So, any pretense at valuing quality is just that - a pretense. Lowest common denominator and all that. Write rubbish, but as long as it's got eye candy it gets published. Dispiriting.
   
   Go to your happy place now Rupert.

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      Jan Stepanposted 21 months agoin reply to this

      "Write rubbish, but as long as it's got eye candy it gets published." You have perfectly summed up the journalism industry in one sentence only.
      
      It's a sad world we're living in.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 21 months ago

   I can see why HP uses low traffic as a criterion for judging whether Google likes an article. It's a straightforward metric to interpret and traffic is understandably a top priority for the publishing platform.
   
   However, it is also a crude tool and there are all sorts of reasons why an article doesn't get much traffic for reasons other than (Google's concept of) "quality."
   
   Rupert's articles are always of high quality when measured by traditional (not search engine) standards.
   
   The reality is, though, that not worrying about how many people search for specific topics and not using SEO will inevitably mean that some articles will get relegated to Discover because of the low traffic generated.
   
   One can get frustrated about it but it's the way it is and as far as I can see, unlikely to change. Ultimately, the algorithms make the rules nowadays.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 21 months ago

   Thanks, Paul. So, it's ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. It's always about the money, which is the determining factor for everything. If it makes money it's wonderful; if it doesn't make money it's rubbish. In the twilight of my life, I find that dispiriting, because it wasn't always so.
   
   My interlocutor at HubPages has advised me to research what works in gaining traffic. I'm just not equipped to spend hours trying to outwit the Google algorithm. I'm a writer, not an internet guru or marketing ninja.
   
   Following is a quote from the editor after I advised that I wasn't going to spend time reworking an article already judged to be of “the highest quality” (HP's words): “I was imploring you to do everything you could to ensure that its traffic improves so that it can both remain on Owlcation and positively affect the health of the site (which, in turn, affects other authors' traffic).” That last bit in parentheses is a low blow; it implies an article that offends the money gods is responsible for the poor earnings of fellow writers when the collective wisdom, as expressed in this forum, is that the current configuration of the platform is at least partly to blame.
   
   In a somewhat childish fit of pique, I am stamping my feet and killing the article. Will this make me feel better? Probably not. Will it cause HubPages to express remorse over upsetting one of its writers? Absolutely not. So, what's the point? Buggered if I know. Psychoanalysis of motives, please.
   
   As I have pointed out in my final communique to the editor, “Without writers creating high-quality articles, HubPages doesn't have a product around which to place advertisements.”

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   theraggededgeposted 21 months ago

   Rupert, your articles might do well at Medium. Here's the latest regarding their policy: https://blog.medium.com/new-partner-pro … 35f8557f6e
   
   You can self-publish so no editor to answer to. Or you can submit to publications for greater visibility. It costs $5 per month to participate in the earnings program.
   
   Oh, and no adverts. X

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      PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

      Yes, Medium might be a better fit, as the money is made from the membership, so there's no need for writers to kowtow to the search engines.
      
      I'm not sure how good the earnings would be for Rupert's material (only a handful of topics seem to generate much income) but if he doesn't care about money, that doesn't matter.

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   theraggededgeposted 21 months ago

   Plus, he could publish them there without removing them from HP.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

      I've never had much success with doing that, bar one notable exception. The copies generally didn't achieve much and I came to see it as a waste of time.
      
      I think part of it is that the topics that do well at Medium are limited, things like health and personal relationships. Plus, it's generally best to use a more informal, personable tone. Most HP pieces don't fit well in my experience.
      
      Plus, HP told me that it was problematic copying things over to Medium.

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         eugbugposted 21 months agoin reply to this

         What did HP mean by that?

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            PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

            I can't face trying to track down the email, but if I remember correctly, they said it was technically a breach of the terms and conditions to publish HP articles elsewhere.
            
            They removed the section of my HP Vs. Medium article which said that you could duplicate articles at Medium.
            
            It's not a good strategy anyway IMHO. I did spend some time trying crossover articles that I thought might work in both places, Medium for short-term earning and HP for the longer, but it wasn't successful.
            
            Generally speaking, I think articles should be catered specifically for the particular publication that you're writing for.
            
            There are exceptions where it works. If, for example, you're a famous person or celebrity expert then duplicating your blog posts from your own site I can see working, but generally, it's a bit of a time waster, in my experience.
            
            HP and Medium are very different animals.

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               eugbugposted 21 months agoin reply to this

               I still think that canonical link thing isn't flawless. I've seen Medium articles ranking higher than the version on HP.

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                  PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

                  Yes. That's another reason not to duplicate.
                  
                  I think the canonical link is essentially about intellectual property. It can influence the SERPs but that's not its primary purpose.
                  
                  In practice, a Medium duplicate can appear higher in the rankings and produce lower HP earnings, which is a possible reason why HP don't like it as it affects them too.

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                     eugbugposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                     I might delete all my content on Medium, in case it's affecting my traffic here. Articles on Medium don't get much external traffic though, maybe 20 a day. So they shouldn't be turning up high in SERPs and outranking the Hubpages versions. Unfortunately, articles on Medium can't be temporarily unpublished, just deleted. So it would be a shame to wipe everything just to see whether duplication is having negative consequences.

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                        Glenn Stokposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                        Yes you can unpublish on Medium. Edit the article and click "Manage unlisted setting." Then select "yes" and click "save." Unlisting is almost similar to unpublishing. It sets it to "noindex" for search engines. The only difference is that it is still available to anyone who has a link to it. But it will be removed from the SERPs.

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                           eugbugposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                           Thanks Glenn, I'll try that on any mirror articles on Medium that were generating high traffic on HP.

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                           Daughter Of Maatposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                           Glenn, I just found you on medium!

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                              Glenn Stokposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                              Hi Mel, I noticed that, and I read your latest article you posted on Medium about cataract surgery. I still never had the procedure done since it’s progressing slowly. And I remember you were very helpful answering my questions in the past. I’m following you to keep up with anything new you write on the subject. I want to be an educated patient when the time comes.

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                                 Daughter Of Maatposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                                 Slow progression is good as long as it's not affecting your day to day life. I'm glad I could help answer some questions. I actually retired from ophthalmology because I just couldn't stand the direction medicine in general is going. But I still keep up on everything eyeball related... occupational hazard LOL.
                                 
                                 How are you liking medium? I'm just getting started, so I'm on the fence.

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                                    Glenn Stokposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                                    Hi Mel,
                                    
                                    I think I know what you mean about the direction medicine is going. I had to change ophthalmologists a couple of times since they didn't want to answer my questions. And I couldn't trust them for having that attitude.
                                    
                                    In reference to your question, I find Medium very different from HubPage.
                                    
                                    The main difference is that articles on Medium lose internal readership after a month or so. It's limited to our followers.
                                    
                                    Interestingly, some of my articles continue to increase with Google traffic. However, that's useless since we only get paid when subscribing members read our content.
                                    
                                    That's why I prefer HubPages, especially for evergreen content, since I see my views continue with articles I wrote ten years ago. While it's true that HubPages traffic has diminished considerably ever since Maven took over, it's still better than Medium, where articles stop earning revenue after a while.
                                    
                                    I wrote several reviews comparing both platforms among my other guides listed under "Navigating the Medium Platform" on my author site—link in my profile.
                                    
                                    I wish you luck on Medium. It does have benefits, such as being reader-friendly with no ads. That seems to keep readers on the page longer. And it's a good alternative for non-evergreen content.

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         Jodahposted 21 months agoin reply to this

         Most of what I copy to Medium are articles that are older items still languishing on the original HubPages or Discover (surprisingly some of those have been my most successful there.) If it is on a niche site I generally leave it be.

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            Daughter Of Maatposted 21 months agoin reply to this

            Same! I'm not moving my most popular articles from here, just the ones that aren't doing well. So far, it's promising, but we'll see.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 21 months ago

   Thanks to all for enduring my cri de cœur. I will definitely look into Medium as an option, but writing about personal relationships and health is not my forte. I'm a history man who also loves quirky stuff such as the care and feeding of rutabagas or the mythology of the rat king.
   
   Anyway you've all combined to chase my grump away. Thank you.

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      theraggededgeposted 21 months agoin reply to this

      There are plenty of history and educational articles on Medium. There's a publication called Lessons from History with 21k followers. And there's lots of quirkiness. Once you start reading and following interesting publications, you see a lot more than just the relationship, health, and how to make money stuff.

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         PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

         Yes, I was talking about views and earnings, which are a priority for me. You can write about anything.
         
         Education in techno stuff like programming languages works well too.
         
         As with HubPages, there's an earnings hierarchy according to topic. So poetry, history, and fiction won't earn much but that's true anywhere.
         
         Medium is in decline too, like HubPages. The views and earnings are generally on a downward trajectory as readers leave and there is less money.
         
         But you don't really have to deal with editors and SEO, if that's a priority.
         
         You also don't feel quite so much like a cog in a machine.

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            Glenn Stokposted 21 months agoin reply to this

            Paul, I noticed the decline with Medium, too—fewer views and less earnings. That’s probably why they suddenly implemented the new policy requiring a paid subscription to participate in the earnings program. They must be struggling to stay in business and looking for other means of profitability.
            
            Even though views on HubPages also declined, the major difference is that articles on HubPages continue to earn revenue from organic traffic years after publication. But on Medium, earnings die off after a few months since we only get paid from subscribers. And they usually only see new articles.
            
            I get a lot of organic traffic on Medium, but as we all know, that doesn’t earn revenue.

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               PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

               I agree with all you wrote, Glenn.
               
               Medium.com lost about two thirds of its traffic according to SEMRush.
               
               I see that they're changing the way that they calculate earnings imminently. A different way to share out the shrinking pie.
               
               They're apparently going to crack down on clickbait and the crappy articles. We should be happy. However, pretty much every change introduced in the last couple of years seems to have cut views and earnings, at least for me.
               
               Part of the issue has been that Ev Williams was pouring money into the site. When he left, the financial tap was shut off, leaving Coach Tony to run the site with far less funding.

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   Jodahposted 21 months ago

   I often republish my articles and poetry from HP to Medium and earn approximately three times as much there each month as I do at HP. I actually think Rupert’s topics would do well there. The best part, no ads.

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      Jan Stepanposted 21 months agoin reply to this

      Poetry? Now I am interested. Does poetry work well on Medium?

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         Jodahposted 21 months agoin reply to this

         I find it does well once you have built a following, because Medium works on internal views. There are a multitude of specialist poetry publications there.

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      Justine Guiaoposted 21 months agoin reply to this

      Will short stories and novels (possibly) work well on medium?

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         theraggededgeposted 21 months agoin reply to this

         Short stories, absolutely.
         
         Novels, not so much. I've seen some authors publish their novels by chapters but readers have such a short attention span that they give up after a while. I know I couldn't be bothered to read an entire novel on Medium.
         
         https://medium.com/the-junction
         https://medium.com/literally-literary
         https://medium.com/the-creative-cafe
         
         And there are lots more.

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            Justine Guiaoposted 21 months agoin reply to this

            Thank you for the info! I'm thinking of using medium as well for my poems and short stories.
            
            Although the payment platform on medium is still unavailable in our country, I'm still considering it, hoping that it will be available here eventually

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               Jodahposted 21 months agoin reply to this

               As of next month they are extending the payment platform to an additional 25 countries I think.

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    Rupert Taylorposted 21 months ago

    Oh dear. I just joined up. Am I a rat getting onto a sinking ship?

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       PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

       It doesn't matter the same way that it does with HP. With HP, you have to be invested in the site because you're building up a portfolio of work that's going to pay you back months and years into the future.
       
       With Medium, you publish and get views for a week or two and then the attention generally fades away for that article. It's not about evergreen material.
       
       You'll still have to build up some followers and tackle a steep learning curve, though.

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          Jan Stepanposted 21 months agoin reply to this

          I've read much better and more helpful articles on HP than on Medium. I am not as familiar with their editorial procedures, but writers there tend to be less skilled than the best ones here. Am I mistaken, or is that correct?

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             PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

             There is generally no editorial interference at Medium, which is why Bev was recommending it to Rupert, I believe, as he was complaining about the HP editors. There's also no reason to worry much about SEO stuff as most traffic is internal.
             
             Medium's got a lot of clickbait articles and quackery posing as expertise. I would be wary of trusting most of the advice there. Some of the writing is polished and professional but most isn't.
             
             Medium's always wanted to be a more serious, quality platform than it is but the reality has never quite lived up to the aspiration. However, they do keep trying.
             
             What mystifies me, though, is that Medium has a higher authority score than the HP niches (check out SEMRush) because, as you say, the writing quality at Medium is generally lower than at HP and less trustworthy.

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                eugbugposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                But Google is pretty crap at establishing quality, judging by the stuff it high ranks high in SERPS. It can't establish E-E-A-T, no matter what it says.

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                Daughter Of Maatposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                So just out of curiosity Paul, where should a writer go these days? I'm starting to wonder if starting a paid newsletter isn't the better option. If both HP and Medium are in a downward spiral, is there anywhere left to go? I'm also curious your thoughts because of Google's upcoming AI search. From what I'm reading, it will curate answers from current articles/info on the web instead of adding links to said articles, which is not necessarily good for writers.

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                   PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

                   I have no solutions, I'm in the same situation as others and trying different things.
                   
                   A lot of writers are going to Substack, which uses emailed newsletters to contact followers. But you need a good-sized mailing list to have any chance of making it work, as far as I can see.
                   
                   I still like the HP model of evergreen articles bringing in regular income, it's just not doing great nowadays.
                   
                   You're right that AI will throw everything into the air soon and it's likely not going to be good for written articles that rely on search engine traffic.

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                      Daughter Of Maatposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                      I think Substack may be the answer to that AI issue. If you can build your audience before the AI is released, you won't necessarily need search engine traffic. But like you said, you need a good-sized mailing list for it to be viable.
                      
                      The AI issue also makes Medium an attractive alternative since it's based on community instead of search engine traffic.
                      
                      It may be that the written word is becoming more and more antiquated and video is the route to go. For us introverts that's bad news.

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                         PaulGoodman67posted 21 months agoin reply to this

                         It's difficult to predict what will happen with AI but it does look like there will be a big impact on the way that people search for information and get info.
                         
                         AI will have a huge impact on video too, I suspect, so that won't be any safer than writing. You'll likely be able to say what you want in your video and AI will create it for you. That sort of thing is already happening.
                         
                         I don't think all writing will completely disappear. I suspect that it will be akin to the internet's effects on the book trade and libraries. Huge impact but not a complete wipeout of everything. There's likely to be less money around though.

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                            Jan Stepanposted 21 months agoin reply to this

                            It's incredible to see just how, for instance, Bing changed in recent years and months. I agree with you, it's difficult to predict anything at this moment, and we're all engaging in wild guesses.
                            
                            Although I would consider myself an optimist, I am frightened of how things are evolving – at this moment and time. For writers, the good times seem to be past us. It's a sad reality.

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    Rupert Taylorposted 21 months ago

    I'm there now Paul and have published my first article, which I know you'll want to read. Then, I'm sure you'll want to follow to improve your knowledge of the world around you. I'm full of it, aren't I.
    
    https://medium.com/@ruperttaylor493
    
    My issues here are with one editor in particular - no names - most I get along with well.

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