Unauthorized Link in My Hub

1. 68

   OldRosesposted 11 months ago

   Attention Hubbers!  Check you hubs IMMEDIATELY.  I was reviewing one of my hubs and found a link to another hubbers article.  Puzzled, I went to edit mode to remove it but it didn't show up.  Obviously, the editors placed it there.  I have emailed them to remove it.
   
   Remember!  Our hubs are our own copyrighted articles.  NO ONE is legally allowed to make changes to our hubs without our express consent.

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   1. 78

      psycheskinnerposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      I have noticed some Hubpages sites have automated links on nouns in the text - often very irrelevant to the article.
      
      I assume Hubpages leadership has decided to do this. I mean, it's in line with their current  approach of trying to improve their metrics and not keeping us in the loop,

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   2. 87

      theraggededgeposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      I would think that publishing on the platform means we have to accept that articles can be edited as per the ToS.

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      1. 68

         OldRosesposted 11 months agoin reply to this

         TOS states that we have a right to remove any edits the editors make.  In this case, the link does not appear in edit mode so I have no way of removing it.  HP is violating its own TOS, which is also illegal.

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   3. 91

      Kenna McHughposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      These appear to be shadow links. I have removed them by following standard link removal steps, and the connection disappears. Matt Wells should chime in to clarify this for you and us.

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      1. 98

         Shesabutterflyposted 11 months agoin reply to this

         I do not know what shadow links are (and searching was not helpful), but are you talking about the same links? I tried unlinking with the hubtool unlink button and nothing happened. My history does not show I even edited the article. I'm not sure of any other way we could try and edit them. In the above link I posted, HP staff said neither writers nor editors had the ability to change the links.
         
         "Since keywords and their corresponding links are determined outside of the HubTool, there is no way for authors or editors to modify those links within the HubTool."

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         1. 91

            Kenna McHughposted 11 months agoin reply to this

            I penned the name shadow link myself because that is what they seem like. I removed one when I highlighted it and clicked the button to remove it. I then checked the article online, and it was gone.

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2. 68

   OldRosesposted 11 months ago

   My point is that what they are doing is illegal.  No one, not HubPages, not TAG, no one is allowed to alter copyrighted documents.  I showed it to a friend who is a lawyer and they were appalled.  They said that the liability is enormous if HP is doing it to all the thousands of hubs on the site.

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3. 98

   Shesabutterflyposted 11 months ago

   Like psycheskinner said, you likely found one of their automated links. They have been around for awhile now, close to a year I think. There was a discussion regarding it, where HP staff popped in, but I don't think there was an offical announcement about it. https://hubpages.com/community/forum/35 … ated-links
   
   Certain keywords link to an article of their choice (oddly enough those articles also have a link to themselves). I do not think they can be removed, unless staff were to completely unlink the keyword. I have several in some of my articles (one of my articles actually has 7 such links) and if I change the word the link simply appears at the next instance of the auto linked keyword.
   
   We should absolutely be able to vet all links and decide if they are in line with our articles, beliefs, opinions, ect.

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4. 68

   OldRosesposted 11 months ago

   I will keep saying this, over and over again.  What they are doing is illegal.  It is a violation of our copyrights.  They can be taken to court and end up paying millions in fines.  It doesn't matter that it is automated.  What matters is that they are altering copyrighted documents which is against the law in every civilized country in the world.  That's probably why there wasn't an announcement.  They were hoping we didn't notice or care or that we would think that it was okay. 
   
   I want to hear from their legal department on this.  Was it approved?  What is their justification?  Are they willing to defend that justification in court in multiple countries?

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   1. 98

      Shesabutterflyposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      I would love for this practice to stop and was not a fan of it from the beginning. I'm wondering if we actually have any legal ground to stand on though? I was under the impression there was nothing I could do about it back then.
      
      I will be the first to admit I do not completely understand the legal side, nor all the ways we have legally allowed HP/TAG/whomever to use our work, but the way I was interpretting points 3 & 7, made it seem like I did not have a choice in the matter. I either ignore the links, or take my work elsewhere.
      
      https://thearenagroup.net/author-submis … -addendum/

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      1. 68

         OldRosesposted 11 months agoin reply to this

         Section 3 is about distribution.  Section 7 gives us the right to remove any edits made to our articles.  In this case, the link does not appear in edit mode so I cannot remove it.  HP is violating its own TOS which is also illegal.

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5. 87

   theraggededgeposted 11 months ago

   Yes, I've been encouraged to add my own links to new articles but when I don't the editors add those of other hubbers.

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   1. 68

      OldRosesposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      Which is illegal.

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6. 96

   PaulGoodman67posted 11 months ago

   I don't think it's quite that simple. Copyright can be partially or fully waived by the owner.
   
   Are you certain that you didn't give permission for TAG to "modify, edit, adapt" your work when you submitted it for publication?

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7. 87

   theraggededgeposted 11 months ago

   "The Platform, including all content contained therein, including Partner Content and Submitted Content, text, graphics, images, photographs, audio, videos, illustrations, themes, objects, stories, concepts, artwork, and other content contained therein, are owned by Arena or our licensors and are protected under both United States and foreign laws. Except as explicitly stated in these Terms, all rights in and to the Platform are reserved by us or our licensors."

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   1. 96

      PaulGoodman67posted 11 months agoin reply to this

      I think if you publish on your own site, then you maintain full ownership and are therefore fully protected by things like copyright laws.
      
      It gets way more complicated when you publish on a site that's not owned by you and they've asked you to surrender certain rights.
      
      I suspect also that there's an important distinction to be made between "ownership" and "copyright."
      
      I did work in an Information for Business department of a city library at one time. It gave me an insight into how bl**dy complicated it all can be.

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8. 78

   psycheskinnerposted 11 months ago

   I doubt it is illegal.  They can insert ads between sections of our text, and inserting a link does not change the text itself.  But I am no contract lawyer, so who knows.

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9. 92

   paolaenergyaposted 11 months ago

   I have a couple of WordPress sites and years ago I added a plugin that hyperlinks keywords to specific articles. I decided against these plugins after a while and uninstalled them. I think hyperlinked keywords in hubs could be because of a plugin so you could email the editors to remove the hyperlinks from their end.

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10. 78

    psycheskinnerposted 11 months ago

    It does add even more to the "over-saturated with ads" look

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11. 94

    Glenn Stokposted 11 months ago

    OldRoses, you have to understand that you permitted HubPages/TAG to modify your hubs by using the platform. That is in the terms of service.
    
    In addition, this linking process was officially announced in one of the weekly newsletters about a year ago. It could be helpful when done right since our hubs are also included in others—bringing us traffic as well.
    
    However, the problem I see is that they are not careful with how they apply it. For example, someone's hub linked from one of mine had later been moved from its niche site back to HubPages. Then, one day, I received a nasty canned email saying I should not link to HubPages from niche sites.
    
    I know that! And I say that was nasty because THEY are the ones who put the link in my hub.
    
    When those hubs are moved, these links evidently change to the new URL. They must have an algorithm to do that automatically. So, my hub ended up having a link to HubPages, triggering that nasty canned warning. So I removed it.

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    1. 98

       Shesabutterflyposted 11 months agoin reply to this

       I think there is some confusion regarding what types of links are being talked about. I never saw an official announcement in the forums, nor the weekly newsletter (although I don't read those as often). There was an announcement regarding a different linking system in the offical forums, but those are not the same.
       
       The auto links which I think is what OldRoses is talking about, only certain keywords link out to certain articles (for example all the links for cow go to the exact same cow article, but like Titia demonstrates in her reply the wording has to be the exact way in the system for it to trigger a link). There is zero give and take. None of my articles from the last I checked are being linked to from this auto system. On the flip side, Larry Slawson, has at least 10.
       
       That's not a system I want to be a part of. It is great if you are on the receiving end, not so much if your articles are taking readers elsewhere, early and often.
       
       I wonder if paoloenergya is correct that it is indeed a plugin. That would explain why we nor editors can modify them. I would assume that means articles moved back to Discover would lose their links, but maybe that is not the case.
       
       However, I do not think you are referring to the same kind of links. You would not have been able to remove the link if it was autolinked. Other articles would have been linking to your article besides just the one that was moved back to Discover. If you are saying your article linked out to someone else's and they moved that one back, I doubt they would have removed a home base link back to Discover without removing it from the auto system. Otherwise they would have a bunch of articles linking back to Discover. I think it is more likely you are referring to a different kind of link that an editor actually put in during the editing process, rather than an autolink.
       
       It would be great if staff came in and clarified this for everyone. I never thought the linking was illegal, but there are instances that I wish I could remove them and cannot.

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       1. 94

          Glenn Stokposted 11 months agoin reply to this

          Yes, you're right that there are two different types of links. I would not have been able to remove the link if it was auto-linked, as you mentioned. So, mine was obviously added manually by an editor.
          
          In addition, to clarify, that announcement I recall seeing in the weekly newsletter must have been about the manually added links. I haven't seen an announcement about auto-linking. I wonder when that actually began.

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          1. 98

             Shesabutterflyposted 11 months agoin reply to this

             Eric has a post about it around 8 months ago, HP staff came in and made a comment. I posted the link to that discussion farther up in this thread.

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             1. 94

                Glenn Stokposted 11 months agoin reply to this

                Thanks for posting that link about author submissions. Point number 3 under “AUTHORS AND AUTHOR CONTENT” confirms what I mentioend ealier, that authors give TAG permission to modify and edit our content.

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                1. 98

                   Shesabutterflyposted 11 months agoin reply to this

                   That is how I was interpreting that as well. Point 7 is also important I think for this example as we cannot edit the changes, but it does contain this clause "...Otherwise, if you object to such edits, your sole remedy will be to remove the Author Content from the Platform;..". In this case, we either accept the autolinks, ask to be moved back to Discover, or take our content elsewhere. I did not see any violations of the ToS.
                   
                   I do not like all the links, but not enough to move my content. From what I can tell, it hasn't helped or hurt my articles anyway. I looked around a few of the niche sites today and I could only find them on Pethelpful and in the dog topic, because it is saturated with them. The other topic autolinks are few and far between from what I could tell back then, and still now.
                   
                   I wonder if they ever launched the autolinking across the whole site or kept it to the three original ones. If I remember right, the links worked a bit differently between them, and the links on Delishably and Dengarden were more focused on the news section.

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          2. 91

             Kenna McHughposted 11 months agoin reply to this

             Glenn, I was able to remove my link, so it must have been manually entered.

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             1. 94

                Glenn Stokposted 11 months agoin reply to this

                Yes, there are definitely two types of links.

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12. 92

    Moondot1822posted 11 months ago

    One of my articles was selected for HubPro. The editor made lots of changes and placed many links. I didn't check them. And the traffic went high for that article—approximately more than 1500 views in a week.

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    1. 88

       Jodahposted 11 months agoin reply to this

       That is impressive, Moondot. Glad to hear it.

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       1. 92

          Moondot1822posted 11 months agoin reply to this

          Good to see you here, Jodah. That was quite encouraging. I have one more HubPro notice.

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13. 73

    Miebakagh57posted 11 months ago

    I read one of my articles on day one, and I don't see any link. So I forget the issue without commenting.
    Today October 3, the thread again runs on my feed page,  and I migrated to a network site to check one of my hubs. Again, no linking.
    I'm critically tired of linking, and de-linking.
    I'll later moved with this hubpages trend.
    Some here are saying by hubpages, is either legal or not. But I hope HubPages' don't give ground for scammars by this action to invade our stories.

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14. 91

    Titiaposted 11 months ago

    Those are automated links on keywords. In one of my sheep hubs I write about using cow milk and the word cow linked to an article about cows from someone else.  I opened my hub in author view  to remove the hyperlink, but there wasn't one.  I asked the editor about it and she told me that those were automated links and that they can't do anything about it. I changed the sentence somewhat from cow milk to milk from cows and goats and now the automated link is no longer there.

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15. 96

    PaulGoodman67posted 11 months ago

    It's part of the internal link strategy. When I joined HP twelve years ago, there was a similar approach. Then they moved to using the recommended articles to generate internal links.
    
    Almost certainly due to Google algo changes, they've now demoted recommended articles and gone back to text-based internal links.
    
    Regarding the legality, I think we all check various boxes when we sign up and submit articles here. Most of us don't read or necessarily understand what we're agreeing to.
    
    TAG likely see themselves as legally covered, you'd need a lawyer to go through it all in detail to dispute it. I don't see that as a worthwhile exercise but others might differ.

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16. 78

    psycheskinnerposted 11 months ago

    I doubt that we can remove these links.  They do change over time and one vanishing might have been a coincidence.

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