Earnings

1. 87

   john000posted 15 months ago

   My earnings are now at 2011 levels. I have read all the commentary, but is there any enthusiasm to starting a new business for our articles? The reality is that many of us are capable of tracking seo trends, etc ad nauseum. I would be willing to give time. Would our combined articles support a blog - maybe a super.blog?

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      JerryFisherposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      Yes I agree, if this turns to custard.

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      1. 87

         john000posted 15 months agoin reply to this

         OK. Thanks for the response. Interesting use of "custard." I have always loved it, but may have to rethink

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         1. 80

            JerryFisherposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            'Custard' Never thought about it before you mentioned it. I'm a New Zealander so 'turned to custard' is a very old, widely used expression here. I guessed it was an old English expression as many have been passed down to us over the centuries but just looking it up - on Wiki - it's all our own. Who knows the origin of that?

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   2. 79

      chef-de-jourposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      A new business, not there's a thought. Occasionally and in a light-hearted tone, given all the recent chaos and uncertainty re TAG's handling of their brands, I put out an SOS in the forums for a young, crazed entrepreneur willing to pioneer a new writing site a la HP but with total emphasis on pure human-based writing, a kind of gut reaction to all this AI business currently making waves.
      
      I really do hope and believe that with the non-stop tsunami that AI is becoming there'll eventually be a natural vacuum created, to be filled by pure writing. A small percentage of online visitors will crave non-AI inspired work and this young, crazed entrepreneur will have hit on a successful niche market.
      
      Your idea of a giant blog is an interesting one but it'd take a massive effort to get off the ground as a collective project as some on this forum have noted. That said, there are talented people on HP with much to give but there'd need to be an inspiring core team to deal with technicalities, monetisation, editing etc etc etc. A mammoth task.
      
      I'm not sure I'd be keen to contribute to a blog - as a veteran HPer I'd much prefer to write articles at my leisure through the well tried capsule template.
      
      TAG's bizarre venture into AI and subsequent financial cockups may well be the beginning of the end....let's hope not...I'd hate for HP to become Kiwi custard (is that lumpy or thick?). At the moment we're on a diet of gruel and dry crusts with not much else forthcoming on the menu.....

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      1. 77

         GoldenRod LMposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Understand. The idea of a different path floats in my mind all the time. I see all the content at HubPages and the value. It is as if it is sitting in a bog. Don't get me wrong, I loved HP for years and still do, but I see it withering. Anyway, perhaps folks out there will start to throw ideas around and come up with new ones for enhancing HP.

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   3. 84

      Kenna McHughposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      I think the idea of creating a collective group is what we have here with HP. However, if someone or another company approached me and asked me to participate in a similar group, I would heavily consider doing so.

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      1. 77

         GoldenRod LMposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Right. It seems that in the corporate world, there is an insatiable desire to "grow." When all of the entities involved in growing get their share of the fruit, there are few bites left. Ironic that I feel on the lowest rung when it is, in the final analysis, the content which is the valuable asset. Let's hope that things look up for HP, and the value is recognized.

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2. 69

   PaulGoodman67posted 15 months ago

   Setting up one's own website to earn was always potentially a good idea. I tried it early on but it didn't work out, mainly because I didn't know what I was doing back then.
   
   I should've maybe had another go but I didn't.
   
   However, with AI's arrival set to bring radical change, I no longer believe that it's a good idea to put a lot of time and energy into such a scheme. There are transformations of publishing, search, and many other things afoot.
   
   Given that we're entering a very unpredictable period, I'm reluctant to put energy into something that may well become archaic very quickly.
   
   For me, it makes more sense to find new opportunities that arise from AI.

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      JerryFisherposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      I believe what John is suggesting here Paul is that if this site goes down that we could form our own collectively. There's enough writers here with experience with different internet skills on the side and it would be just a matter of transferring our best articles across.
      Rather like a rebirth of Hubpages and earnings from Adsense.
      
      Problem is if this goes down, I guess it goes with immediate effect and we lose communication with each other as the forum appears to be the only way to communicate.
      
      But I guess just a last resort, as Matt believes we're here to stay.

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      1. 83

         Justine Guiaoposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         I really would like to believe that the site is here to stay.

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         1. 77

            GoldenRod LMposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            Yes.

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      2. 87

         Jan Stepanposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Forming a new one collectively is easier said than done.
         
         You'd need a proper structure in place because otherwise, it would become chaos. As someone who knows management more than well, this would require massive work to make it sustainable over time.
         
         I do hope HubPages makes it. And I somehow still think it will.

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         1. 68

            eugbugposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            I can't even get Google to index the articles I've written on my DIY blog.

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         2. 77

            GoldenRod LMposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            Pity we don't have a person on the inside so we could understand the reasoning. That really is disappointing. Good luck.

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         3. 77

            GoldenRod LMposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            Me too!

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      3. 69

         PaulGoodman67posted 15 months agoin reply to this

         It's unclear what is being meant. So I made a general point about the challenging environment for earning with online publishing. It's already become very difficult to rank with Google and the entire search system looks set to explode.
         
         Something on the scale of HubPages requires thousands in investment as well as paid staff.
         
         However, when I hear phrases like "writers here with experience with different internet skills on the side," it just sounds like a basic Wordpress-style blog for a limited amount of people that's being discussed.
         
         I'm not sure I'd be interested in a collective, anyway, to be honest. The appeal of this site for me was having lots of individual freedom and leaving the non-writing stuff to someone else. I see our current situation as working freelance at a private company.
         
         While there is some genuine community here, as an entity, this place is a complex techno business that attempts to make a profit off advertising revenue. A self-run collective would almost certainly be something very different.

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         1. 77

            GoldenRod LMposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            I understand your point. But I always am wondering if being a complex techno business is the problem. We hear all of the stuff about AI (I understand advertising is essential for profit), but perhaps an
            AI company would be interested in taking on the advertising side?
            What a coup if a company could take that end of a business over.
            There are degrees of collective effort. But anyway, thanks for your thoughts.

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   2. 87

      john000posted 15 months agoin reply to this

      Interesting. Thanks for the reply. Seems such a shame after the huge collective effort. We shall see.

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3. 34

   larry-leaseposted 15 months ago

   I'm game with anyone that wants to create a blog.

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4. 83

   Solarasposted 15 months ago

   I would be interested in starting a pet specific website with like minded authors.  I have started one in Word Press, but as noted, the technical aspects of it have stymied me.  If anyone can recommend a free Word Press tutorial site, I would be interested in checking it out.
   
   There are advertising platforms, such as Ezoic, who will place the ads and can track income by author.  I think it would be fair, if someone was able to handle the technical end, that they get 10% of the sites earnings for their efforts. 
   
   My idea was to put new content there, and I have some waiting for the site to go live, and rewrite articles that once performed well here, but have fallen into the doldrums or removed to the hubpages site.   
   
   In a few hours we will find out if we are getting paid today, or if we are in the same bucket as Authentic Brands and those who own TAG's debt.  Personally, it will be very important to me to be paid and on time.

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   1. 79

      chef-de-jourposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      Over the years the one constant certainty was the monthly HP payment of the 28th, give or take a few days delay here and there. That you should question if payment will take place today is a sign of the chaotic times we've had to endure since TAG took over and ruined HP.
      
      I wish you well in your new venture if it takes off - a pet specific website should have a good chance of success if you can get someone/some people to handle the admin and tech. There's the editing side also. And the financial aspect. A massive task to commit to but what potential there is for freedom of expression.
      
      Just out of curiosity, would you be an AI friendly site or not?
      
      Obviously I'd like HP to survive this current nightmare and pull through and be reborn but the prognosis isn't a positive one.
      
      Please keep us informed of your progress, sounds fascinating.

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   2. 69

      PaulGoodman67posted 15 months agoin reply to this

      I think that creating one's own website with WordPress or whatever, or say a small bunch of people operating a site together is perfectly feasible but doing something on the scale of HP, or anything near, requires huge resources. It doesn't take the involvement of that many people for the whole thing to get cumbersome and a lot of work.
      
      It's not that hard to set up your own individual site and produce the content. I think the hardest thing is to rank well with the search engines. That was always a strength of HubPages, though not so much now.
      
      There's also the question of how you earn money. General advertising is usually less lucrative than many people think. The ideal is to have products or services that you sell, as that makes it much easier to make money.
      
      I'll admit that I didn't do very well with my attempts. I think I could do better now having learned some of the problems and challenges but I'm reluctant to do all the (non-writing) work that's involved.
      
      Perhaps ironically, I suspect that AI will soon make it much easier to set up and run a large website with relatively little effort.
      
      Chef: What does "AI friendly" mean in relation to a WordPress site? ChatGPT and Bing potentially scrape anything and everything that's in the public domain and use what's garnered to generate their own responses to queries.
      
      Are you referring to that process or something else? Currently, there's no advantage that I can see in helping the AI chatbots do their thing.

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      1. 79

         chef-de-jourposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Yes Paul, my AI friendly question was aimed at Solaras (and her hypothetical 'like-minded authors') should her collective idea get off the ground. Would she/they allow AI generated material from individual authors on to the page/site?
         
         Currently according to Matt Wells AI generated articles are not allowed on HP - I was curious to know if her WordPress idea took off and writers submitted AI influenced material would she/they allow it to be published.
         
         I'm from the old school. I know very little about the AI world but am fascinated/disturbed by how it's use might influence future online writing, especially for those writers seeking to earn money.
         
         So I guess my question is based on the daunting thought that in the near future writing sites like HP or those Solaras is thinking of setting up may have to accept AI generated material because that's what the majority of searchers will be satisfied with.
         
         Such a scenario is here somewhere online, already?I hope I'm wrong.

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      2. 77

         GoldenRod LMposted 14 months agoin reply to this

         While on the subject of AI, if it is capable of scraping the Internet for content and then, essentially, rewriting it to avoid copyright problems, what is to stop our articles from being rewritten and posted elsewhere, by the dozen? I really don't understand its potential. Hope someone else understands better.

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         1. 78

            theraggededgeposted 14 months agoin reply to this

            There is nothing to stop them from rewriting. Neither can we stop them from reproducing them word-for-word. We are fighting a losing battle.
            
            I'm in the process of 'stealing' my own articles and publishing them on my website. I may as well earn some Adsense from them while I can.

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            1. 69

               PaulGoodman67posted 14 months agoin reply to this

               Yup, AI is going to progress and it's able to produce material in greater quantities and at faster speeds than any human.
               
               Our only hope is that we somehow get compensated for the material that's scraped but I'm not hopeful.

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   3. 87

      john000posted 15 months agoin reply to this

      Best of luck to you. Very interesting. Wonder if that concept could be broadened to all of the current HP type topics with a page to direct folks to the appropriate one? Anyway, good luck.

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   4. 80

      JerryFisherposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      I can confirm payment from HP a few hours ago. Hopefully things have stabilised.

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      1. 84

         Kenna McHughposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Same here!

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      2. 83

         Solarasposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Yes, what a relief.

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      3. 83

         jansharesposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Finally. After months. Yes, relieved to have gas money returned to budget.

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5. 85

   Nell Roseposted 15 months ago

   I have been here for over 12 years, and this month is the first I will not reach payout. I think the answer really is just to keep writing, as I have tended to rely on old articles here that brought in the money. Trouble is, the more people writing for the Internet the less subjects out there. When I started I actually managed to write an article that wasn't even on here, lol! Not happening now, I'm afraid.

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   1. 80

      JerryFisherposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      Here's a suggestion:
      
      Maybe we should all start writing again and see if that gives the site a leg up.
      
      Most of us stopped some time ago after HP asked us to update and update and everyone did that but got totally discouraged as that had little effect on views/earnings. But that was maybe a year or so ago.
      
      Perhaps Google sees this site as non progressive as there's fewer and fewer new articles for them to evaluate so they just keep sinking the ratings - How about then a big effort on new fresh stuff to see if that has any affect?

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      1. 69

         PaulGoodman67posted 15 months agoin reply to this

         It's certainly bad for the site that people aren't writing much new stuff. However, I've got no plans to start again without more of an incentive.
         
         I agree with Nell, too, it feels like evergreen content has reached saturation point. We just can't compete when the niches are in Google's bad books.

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         1. 68

            eugbugposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            Deciduous is the new evergreen.

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         2. 80

            JerryFisherposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            Yeah likely right and in the meantime we're competing against AI.

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            1. 69

               PaulGoodman67posted 15 months agoin reply to this

               A few years back, the advice was for writers to find topics that hadn’t already been covered. That’s become harder and harder. I’m not sure it’s even possible nowadays unless the topic is obscure. The joke is that it turns out we were creating the raw material for AI to scrape.
               
               AI has barely begun. It’s going to be a huge shakeup.

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                  JerryFisherposted 15 months agoin reply to this

                  Too true. AI has us to thank.

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         3. 77

            GoldenRod LMposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            I recall that pitch for so long - you can't give up, keep writing and the reward will come, etc, etc. That falls on deaf ears after a while, especially when folks who have written so many hubs are looking elsewhere for relief. To solicit more effort is really asking a lot. I too hope HubPages survives and flourishes, but the effort to write good articles requires a carrot. This bunny is tired.

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            1. 87

               Jan Stepanposted 15 months agoin reply to this

               I am a stubborn Taurus. I will stay here no matter what.

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               1. 69

                  PaulGoodman67posted 14 months agoin reply to this

                  So your optimism about the future of the site is rooted in astrology? That makes sense!
                  
                  But seriously, it's obviously a personal choice how we react. I was hopeful too until recently. I was optimistic for about 12 and a 1/2 years.

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                  1. 87

                     Jan Stepanposted 14 months agoin reply to this

                     Don't you dare to mess with stars, Paul!
                     
                     I know that you've been here for a very long time.
                     Be glad you've been here when there weren't these issues. I wasn't as fortunate. I found HubPages in 2021, so I joined relatively late.

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               2. 93

                  Sherry Hposted 14 months agoin reply to this

                  Me too!

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      2. 84

         Kenna McHughposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Jerry, I agree with you from what I have seen.

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      3. 85

         Nell Roseposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Yes, totally agree!

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6. 81

   bhattucposted 15 months ago

   Any idea bringing more views to our articles is welcome.

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7. 34

   larry-leaseposted 15 months ago

   All my articles keep getting blocked

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8. 85

   Lowdown0posted 15 months ago

   I'm calculating a $1.50 RPM for the last month or two. On average, since I've been here for 10 years, I've made around $6-7 from HP views without Amazon.
   Low views and each counting for a tenth of a cent, plus the ads degrading the reading experience, have me writing my creative writing at Vocal now. Hopefully, HP will recover and revamp.

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9. 68

   eugbugposted 15 months ago

   Earnings for January completed and they're 23% of those for 2021 and half those for last year.

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   1. 69

      PaulGoodman67posted 15 months agoin reply to this

      It’s only a matter of time before earnings fall below zero. Then we’ll have to pay HP at the end of each month!
      
      

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      1. 68

         eugbugposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Yes, that had crossed my mind.

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         1. 69

            PaulGoodman67posted 14 months agoin reply to this

            A site that depends on search engine traffic to prosper isn't so good when there's no search engine traffic!

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10. 34

    larry-leaseposted 14 months ago

    I'm starting to see my earnings increase.

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    1. 69

       PaulGoodman67posted 14 months agoin reply to this

       Unless you're able to write and publish articles that get into the niches, your views and earnings will almost certainly be very limited.

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