Reminder About Upcoming Changes to PetHelpful and Dengarden
This is a reminder that on October 31st, 2024, we will start operating Dengarden and PetHelpful as standalone sites within The Arena Group. Because we are endeavoring to grow the Dengarden and PetHelpful brands alongside our Parade brand, we have made the strategic decision to pivot away from the user-generated content model used by our HubPages system. Moving forward, the content on Dengarden and PetHelpful will be managed on a separate content management system. Content will be scheduled/pitched, written, edited, and updated using editorial practices shown to provide growth for the other successful properties owned by The Arena Group.
Please be aware that as of October 31st, The Arena Group will no longer be able to share revenue on content that remains on Dengarden and PetHelpful.
We appreciate your writing and expertise and hope you will continue to create content for Discover.HubPages and stay a member of our community. If you want to request your content on PetHelpful and Dengarden move back to Discover.HubPages, email lwinter@thearenagroup.net by Oct. 29, 2024, to ensure a smooth transition.The revenue on Discover HubPages is going down. Could someone from the admin clarify whether you expect this trend to be temporary or to continue?
"we have made the strategic decision to pivot away from the user-generated content model used by our HubPages system" seems to suggest that there won't be revenue sharing on the Discover site in the future either or it'll be discarded. So perhaps it's just a temporary holding site for moved articles until October.
Hmm, I noticed that line in the latest update. Yet, I hope the admin will clarify what they expect to happen and if they plan to abandon Discover HubPages. Also, there is Owlcation and other such pages.
The line in question is only in relation to PetHelpful and DenGarden as it relates to them moving to a different system. As for the rest of HP, only time will tell. Initially, as we were told, things were moved around this summer due to Discover’s higher authority score, which has also improved since the move despite issues with traffic and earnings.
Maybe they mean TAG proper and HubPages will be run as a separate entity or sold off.
Who knows where things are headed.
What we do know is that TAG's CEO sees the future as video-sharing and AI.
Textual publications are increasingly seen as old hat.
Revenue sharing and user-generated content are perceived as archaic models.
Owlcation is also going away. Please see my post below where I share an email I received from HP editors.
I received the following email on 9/30/2024 regarding one of my articles that I'd submitted to SkyAboveUs. Read all the way to the end. It's my understanding that all HP niche sites will be eliminated but Discover. Do you interpret this response the same as I do? Note that the last paragraph in their email to me completely contradicts what was stated in the first.
"Hi bravewarrior,
Thank you for submitting your article, Observation of Nesting Pileated Woodpeckers, for consideration on SkyAboveUs. Unfortunately, we are no longer accepting submissions to HubPages Network Sites except for HobbyLark, WeHaveKids, WanderWisdom, Owlcation, LetterPile, and Delishably.
We constantly strive to ensure that articles achieve the best possible visibility and engagement. As such, we are in the process of moving all articles currently on Network Sites back to Discover HubPages, and we believe your article has the potential to attract more traffic and generate higher earnings on the Discover HubPages domain.
Thanks for writing on HubPages, and let us know if you have any questions!
Kindly,
The HubPages Editing Team"Interesting (and perplexing) contradiction in their email, especially since LetterPile hasn't published anything in over a month.
Patty, SkyAboveUs has been eliminated. The only ones left are HobbyLark, WeHaveKids, WanderWisdom, Owlcation, LetterPile, and Delishably.
However, I agree with you that the last paragraph is a contradiction. That seems to suggest they may change their minds about that too. The way things are going, and with their stock price dropping, we can’t assume TAG will continue to support HubPages.So if TAG is gone down the drain, hubpages is gone also?
That would most likely be the result since TAG owns HubPages. The only alternative would be if another company buys HubPages or if we buy it as I discussed in my article on my website.
They should give it to us f.o.c. or for a small nominal sum.
Is $655 from each of us a small enough nominal sum?
Well, I could do it but I was thinking $1 to relieve them of the responsibility
But $655 is based on the number of active Hubbers and the remaining capitalization of TAG.
It would be a fascinating adventure into the murky world of online publishing if you Mr Glenn Stok were to contact Mr P. Edmondson (via TAG) laying out a detailed business plan and proposition for the future of HP with particular emphasis on the nominal sum (perhaps negotiable?)....as spokesperson and lead voice for Writers United, democratically appointed of course, you could, in my wildest dreams, purchase the ailing HP and revive it, refresh it, rekindle the flames...oh yes!! I can see it all unfolding before me, now......
Yeah, right! You are correct that it only is in our wildest dreams. lol. That’s because most Hubbers won’t want to put up $655. My proposal is already detailed in my article for Paul Edmondson to see. In addition, I included a shoutout to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos to consider that investment. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that revival could actually occur? (Dreaming).
I doubt very much that Paul E would want to get involved, if his interviews are anything to go by.
The problem with the site when it was independent, according to Paul E at the time (see YouTube), was that they struggled to attract enough investment.
That's why he was so enthusiastic about the Maven development.Without that, my understanding was that HP would've gone the same way as Squidoo.
I don't think the company would last long on its own and I can't see hubbers injecting the necessary money to keep it afloat.
HP never made a profit and so was always dependent on investment.
The scene has changed a lot since HP was born. Back then, there were a lot of investors willing to pay good money into online startups in areas like blogging and publishing.
There's far less willingness to prop up an established company that doesn't appear to be going anywhere in 2024.All very good points, Paul. And your last point clarifies why no one is interested. I agree. A company needs to show it’s going somewhere to attract investors.
They should hand the site to a selected committee of hubbers. As it is currently sinking, they should be glad that a few people might be willing to take it on. There really should be no question of paying a substantial chunk of money because that would exclude writers who have been propping up the site for years.
Unfortunately, it would take more than a few people willing to take it on. At the present market cap of $23,680,000 with The Arena Group stock trading around 80¢, it would require $655 from every Hubber. But when I wrote that article we had 36,191 Hubbers with published articles. That’s been dropping as more people are giving up.
I can see how you get your figures from the math you're employing, Glenn.
My only question would be don't you only need a majority of shares for control?
Assuming that all the shareholding hubbers voted as a single block, wouldn't they just need 51% of the shares and not 100%?Good point, Paul. I hadn't considered that, but you're absolutely correct!
Unfortunately, not even as few as 18,000+ Hubbers would do it. Most of them are probably not even paying attention.
Goo idea. At present, hubpages have no such a commitee. Should it be set up, all writers here will benefit.
Glenn, can I and the others have a link to the article in question?
Miebakagh, It’s against policy to post self-promotional links in the forum, but when you click the home icon on my HP profile, you’ll find it.
Lisa--You notified me that one of my articles was still trapped on Dengarden after I requested on September 29 to have it moved back to Discover HubPages. Apparently, it developed a "bug" that would not let it migrate. You told me the engineering department was notified on September 30 to correct this situation, yet my article is still on Dengarden today, October 8. This "bug" has evidently shut off my edit option as well, which means that I could not exercise my right as author to remove it if that was my decision. Yet I received an email from HubPages yesterday congratulating me on my 14th HP anniversary and encouraging me to write a new article. Under the current circumstances, that message was bittersweet as the clock is not-too-slowly clicking toward October 31.
Good morning, thanks for the notice and email on this.
One of my most successful articles is currently on PetHelpful. Is my understanding correct in that I won't be receiving any revenue from this any more going forward?
If so, how do I take it down? Just delete it? I'd be planning to publish it elsewhere.
I'm not happy about a Third Party company profiteering off my work with no compensation, or purchasing the article off me.With regards to your last garagraphe, all you have to do to avoid such a scenario, is to email Lisa Witer at her given email, for your articles on PetHelpFul to move out to Discover on or before October 29, 2029.
Thanks for correcting me. I wonder where or how 2029 come into my mind. But I can explained how the typo garagraphe, instead of paragraphe happen. Do have a nice time.
(Thank youvMiebakagh57, yes, I get that. Your reply didn't answer my question, my post was to the Staff Member that made the post. No matter, I've emailed them now to ask that it be moved.)
Dear HubPages Staff,
In the publishing world you either earn revenue from sales/ad revenue, or you get a one off payment for your work as you've sold it to the publisher. It feels wrong that unless you explicitly email to give your instructions, the default is that they just take your work anyway to claim all the income for themselves. It always seemed the deal on here is they provide the web domain based on their own template model, and editing staff, you do the work, then get a snip of the ad revenue in exchange.
To have the articles claimed by whatever sites Dengarden and PetHelpful are going to be going forward, and not receive anything in return is audacious to say the least.
It'd be great to hear what the Arena Group has in mind for HubPages and its child sites going forward so that I can make a decision to self-publish or not. This announcement has left me feeling twitchy.
I have enjoyed the community here and writing on this platform for many years, but if traffic and revenue are going to dry up, and my articles taken then I'll be taking them all down and publishing on my own website instead.Thank you, and well done. But forgive my typo...it's October 29, 2024 instead of 2029. Thanks again.
Good luck, Pollyanna, if you attempt to have your most successful article moved from the niche site to Discover HubPages. I made that request September 29 for my most-read article to be moved from Dengarden. I was informed on September 30 that it had a "bug" that would not let it migrate and the engineering department was working on it. Eight days later, it is still trapped on Dengarden with the deadline for removal only 23 days away. Is it the "bug" that now prevents me from accessing the author's edit option for the article so that I cannot even remove it should I choose to do so? Question to other HubPages writers: If you have articles on any of the niche sites, can you still access EDIT for them? This situation is beginning to look very suspicious to me. It is bad enough that the good articles are consistently plagiarized (my most successful one is currently all over the internet, and my words are even used as a script for audio on YouTube). Do we now have to worry that our creative work is going to be taken from us here on a platform we've trusted for years?
Requested it on Aug 30th and doesn't look like a thing has been moved. First they asked me for my username, sent it about a week ago and nothing. I have 122 articles on there...
You must request that all of them be moved, Not one at a time. Are you emailing Lisa Winter directly?
I used the email they provided and asked them to move my articles. I did not say please remove one at a time or send the link of one article asking it to be moved. But they are obviously reading this because they were moved today.
I am not at all pleased about this current situation but cannot remove my most successful article as Lisa told me it still has a "bug" that won't let it migrate (so it cannot be moved until the engineering department has time to work on it, and she said yesterday that my article is not a high priority). I have also been blocked from using the author's EDIT option, which includes being able to delete the article from HubPages. I have enjoyed being part of the HubPages community for 14 years, but the current situation is negatively different from what HP was in the beginning and continued to be until the last couple of years. The email I received recently from HP congratulating me on my 14th anniversary as a Hubber seems bittersweet. I am not sure I want to stay, but I certainly do not want to just let TAG confiscate my writing.
Jaye, Wow! I am so sorry this is happening. HP/TAG just let the cards fall as they may without regard to the writers who put HP on the Internet. Very sad indeed.
I am happy that the blue color appearing on my stat. Blue is my favorite color
Eric, the blue downward facing triangle indicates traffic is falling. Red upward facing triangle indicates traffic is rising. So, why is blue your favorite color when it comes to your stats?
It was just a joke...
just expressing my frustration about what's happening to us right now... Oh. I guess your sarcasm went right over my head!
I'll be honest. I'm also getting frustrated about getting articles moved over. I first emailed on September 18th and for the third time today. I only have four articles to move, so it shouldn't take more than a few minutes. I wonder if they are putting off moving articles as long as possible now so that they don't lose access to the articles they want, not that my articles are top earners.
Hi Anne. I responded to the email address we have on file for you.
I finally got my most successful HubPages article out of Dengarden, but I had to delete it section by section (of text) and photo by photo. Lisa had been trying to get the engineering department to handle it because a “bug” was preventing its migration to Discover HubPages. They kept telling her it wasn’t a priority, but I was allowed author edit access again. That was all I needed.
That article had been on HubPages since 2011, but the topic was evergreen and continued to get traffic. I looked at my stats, and it had more than 3.6 million views over time, and was still garnering respectable viewing numbers. During the heyday of the earning program, it made quite a bit of money for me and was plagiarized over and over.
The funny thing is that I wrote it in response to one of the contests on the “old” HubPages that suggested topics for articles. (Remember those, HP old-timers?) I chose one that I would never have considered without that nudge.
As I deleted the final words of that article yesterday, it felt like the end of an era and made me sad. But things change with time and HubPages has changed a lot over the past few years. I can even remember when an article could be read here without encountering huge ads between every paragraph. Ah, the good old days!
I said all that to tell you this: if your writing is currently on one of the niche sites and you want it moved before the end-of-month deadline, you may be forced to delete it yourself. Then it will be your choice whether or not to republish it on Discover HubPages. But don’t wait until the last minute.I'm sorry you had to go through so much trouble, Jaye. Great advice, though. Ah, yes... the good old days are greatly missed.
Jaye, Oh man, that's tough. I feel for you.
These bugsI think ate the results of excessive ads on hubpages?
I feel sad to read this Jaye.
Miss those good old days.
So, Jaye, you have retrieved all your articles from the kidnappers' clutches, haven't you?
I only rescued the one on Dengarden. It is completely removed from Hubpages. The articles that were on PetHelpful were already moved to Discover HubPages at my request. But I'm going to check them all again today just to be sure. (This situation is causing a bit of OCD.)
I didn't think I had any on DenGarden but just had a look and I do have one
Moved within a couple of hours. Thanks Lisa.
My views seem to have halved this week. Soon they'll be down to double figures levels.
Anyone else?
I had an article on Owlcation that was doing reasonably well with 100 views per day. That's dropped to 3 views per day though. Must have been an algorithm update.Yes, the decline appears to be accelerating.
I have some articles that get mainly Pinterest/social media traffic where I am thinking I really need to move them, especially when there are Amazon links involved.
The big advantage of this site was always that HP attracted Google traffic. That's no longer the case. I'm even wondering whether it's a burden.
I guess I'll have to put together a plan of action.
Remember when ragTAG first announced the movement of articles to Discover? Of course you do. Remember as well that ragTAG said it was the organization's belief that our writing would do better on Discover? Something about domain authority.
I'm here to tell you it isn't working. Earnings are now at a level last seen five years ago when I had fewer than half the number of articles published.
Over the last few weeks, new articles posted on Discover have been getting single-digit views; that single digit often being zero. At the same time, two of my new articles have been boosted to Owlcation, after my submission, and are getting dozens of daily views. Not spectacular but massively better than on "domain-authority" Discover.
I don't expect ragTAG to do anything about this so it would be nice if Lisa stopped saying "We appreciate your writing and expertise ..." Because obviously ragTAG doesn't give a hoot about the writers who made the platform viable.Frankly, I'm over it. HP has gone downhill since they first sold to Maven and now TAG. HP wasn't broken before the take-overs and now I don't see any way to fix it unless the HP originators take back their platform and reinstate an amenable profit share equation. Face it: profit share doesn't work when there are millions of writers on a platform and most of them are either using AI or just plain out don't have a decent writing stitch up their ass.
While I share Rupert's frustration with the overall state of things, I have to say that my stuff in the niches is doing just as badly as the articles in Discover.
I don't see any substantial difference. Some of my best-performing articles are actually in Discover nowadays but it doesn't seem to matter where they're published, as everything's doing badly and gravitating toward zero.My 2 million views article that used to get hundreds, sometimes over a thousand, is now garnering around 33 reads a day.
My earnings are down 50% compared to last month. So it's not just views, my income is also headed for zero.
I thought things would continue to decline but the rate of decay has increased.Back in the days when I received four figure payments per month, I never imagined that would drop to pennies. Since our income is approaching zero, that means TAG is earning next to nothing from HubPages as well.
Therefore, I can’t imagine how HubPages will continue. I would not be surprised to see TAG pulling the plug and just keeping for themselves what they think is profitable. But wait! That seems to be what they are doing already — with PetHelpful and Dengarden!Glenn, I think you're in the minority in having earned four figures per month in the past. Nevertheless, I think you're right that HP will eventually drop off because it'll probably cost them more to keep the site alive than the meager revenue they may earn. The competition is too great to keep them alive. Back in 2011, which is when I joined HP, I also wrote for CopyPress, a mill that actually paid by the word. In our training we were told to stay away from HubPages as a research source because it was not recognized as a reliable source of information because the articles were not backed by viable, proven authorities, nor were the authors to be trusted as offering reputable, accurate information.
HP is even deeper in the unreliable pool than it was thirteen years ago.In 2011, HP was like the Wild West. People could essentially publish virtually anything that wasn't reported as hate speech or a direct duplicate.
There was all sorts of spam, misinformation, clickbait, and even malevolent material. The majority of the site was essentially total crap.
So, yes, it was unreliable back then. I don't believe that was the case after they introduced niches and started editing, though.
Moving everything back into hubpages.com or its subdomain, hubpages.discover.com doesn't seem like a recipe for success by any stretch of the imagination.
I think Glenn's right that we're now at the beginning of the end.I agree. Time to start looking for a different path on the trail.
Back in the day, HP was a wonderful path to follow. In today's market, I don't think there's any platform comparable. Freedom to post what strikes your fancy, Garnering comments that lead to future post ideas... HP was a great springboard for up and coming writers. I don't know if a format such as what we grew up on exists in today's market.
It's sad, but I foresee an HP funeral forthcoming in the very near future.
I remember those days, Shauna, and you're right about that. HubPages needed a lot of work to gain that credibility.
However, thanks to Paul Edmondson, he achieved that by creating niche sites and enforcing a rule that authors needed to include information in their author bio about their authority on the content. Then, the editors only moved hubs to the niche sites that followed those rules.
They even allowed up to 100 individual bios for that purpose, so we could customize them for each category we wrote about. Remember that?
Unfortunately, many authors did not use the bios properly, which is why they discontinued displaying them in our hubs.
I concur with Paul Goodman's reply to you about things getting better after they introduced niche sites and started editing to keep them there.
TAG has eliminated all the positive stuff Paul E. had introduced thirteen years ago. I don't know if that was intentional or just plain stupidity.Yeah, Glenn, I remember that. I wrote separate bios to coincide with the articles I wrote for each niche site. Sadly, those sites no longer exist. We HP writers are destined to become dinosaurs and will fall off the the face of search engines. Between Google AIO, sponsored search results, and Redditt, HP authors are doomed when it comes to showing up in search results. I hate to see HP's demise, but it's evident that it's dying a not-so-slow death. We need to be prepared.
I don't want to think we are destined to become dinosaurs, Shauna. I hope you have all your articles backed up. You've put much effort into creating quality content; it would be a shame to let it all go. Even if no reasonable platform exists for publishing, you can always make your own website, as I have done. As you said, we need to be prepared.
Glenn, all of my articles were written and saved in Word. I don't know if I want to go through the trouble of backing them up as they exist online. I've given up on building a website because I've been leaning more towards editing and proofreading as far as services to offer. Frankly, I've lost all desire to move forward with that. Tragic life circumstances have gotten in the way and I just no longer have the drive. I haven't given up completely, but for now I just want to collect my monthly social security payments and chill my brain while I can afford to.
I truly appreciate your comment regarding the quality of my content. That will help me to move forward in the future.I use Word, too. But I also backup the online version every time I make updates. I use a Mac, which has a “reader view” icon I click to display an article without all the ads. Then, I copy and paste that into a new Word doc.
I’m sorry to hear that you have “tragic life circumstances” you’re dealing with. I wish you all the best with whatever it is.Are you all really giving up? You don't see any future for Discover? Also, my earning reports for the last three days have not appeared on my account. Is the entire system shutting down?
The missing stats are a normal occurrence.
Not giving up completely - will hang around to see what happens and to collect my diminishing earnings.Right. I was worried about the missing stats, given the dire situation. It is a relief to know that is normal. As you said, I will hang around too for some more time.
Thanks, Glenn. I might try your backup method. I don't have a Mac. I'll have to see what options I have available to me.
The simplest way to back up an article is to print it to pdf.
- From your stats page, click “author view” on an article
- In author view, click “source” below each media image (just to display the source link)
- Highlight the whole article from title to copyright
- CTRL +P
- Save to PDF
This method preserves your links and copies into a pdf format that you can save to your computer.
Mine too. Down from 2000 a day to 50 for one article that's on Owlcation. All the others on Discover are heading for zero views.
Except this difference: if you leave articles in the niche sites, you may lose your right as author to edit or unpublish them. And the editorial group may decide to edit or completely rewrite your articles as they wish without asking for your permission.
On a positive note personally, I got my science and engineering blog approved by Adense after 10 months. However Google still haven't indexed it, even with 96 articles. I'll probably only make a pittance from it though.
I still have my Adsense account from the days when we used it on HubPages, so now I monetize my website with it. It's good you got yours approved, Eugene. But what is it with your 96 articles not getting indexed? Do you have a Google Search Console account? They communicate well with everything affecting your indexing.
https://search.google.com/search-console/aboutYes, I have a search console account and only five pages are indexed. I'm not sure whether those are pages with multiple blog posts (7 displayed per page, but each post has a different URL) or each post is counted as a page. The homepage of the blog isn't indexed. I discovered later that the code in ads.txt for an older approved blog is the same as that for this newly approved one. Maybe I could have just copied and pasted it, but I thought each blog had to be individually approved.
Are you using Blogger to create your website? I so, there is a parameter under settimgs you need to enable to allow indexing. Look for "Visible to search engines" and toggle it on.
Yes Blogger. I have that setting turned on. I'll double check it though. I also have a problem where Facebook have banned the blog because I think I shared it too often in a short space of time. That ban has been in place for four months and they still won't lift it. They have no customer support and Facebook is pretty much a machine at this stage.
I've experienced some of the same issues and have effectively given up on Blogger.
As you say, Google isn't really supporting it and hasn't done so for some time. There are perhaps similarities with TAG and HP.
I believe that Google bought Blogger when blogging was fashionable but never saw it as one of its core long-term products. (I think its core products were always search and advertising, certainly up until the arrival of AI, and everything else is seen as expendable).
Any plans I make for going forward won't include Blogger which seems beyond moribund and unlikely to do a Lazarus...
Have you tried submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console? It might help speed up the process.
Shauna, Gregory posted detailed instructions on backing up with Windows or Google. I don't know where he posted it, but I found it helpful.
Thanks Kenna. Remember too that Eugene also gave us some very constructive tips on what to do and not to do when backing up an article. I learned a lot from him.
I remember that, but have no idea how to find either of your tutorials, Gregory and Eugene. Would one of you consider starting a new forum thread explaining how to backup our online articles?
Shauna, I am working on a project right now at home that desperately needs my attention.
When I am done in like one hour, I will gladly go through my posts and find both of the comments that were made. However, I think that you will find Eugene's very helpful.OK, here is the thread from five weeks ago. You will have to scroll down the page to where Kenna and I were discussing backing up articles. Eugene's comment is down further from my comment. He had some really helpful suggestions.
https://hubpages.com/community/forum/36 … ost4342102
I am sure that perhaps you and other authors here have a better way of doing this. However, I have spent lots of time since 2018 writing and researching my American nostalgia articles, and I just don't want to lose any content.
Like you said above, all of us need to be "prepared."
Edit: I wish that I had read Eugene's comments before I backed up all 114 of my articles.Saving as a PDF is another option, but some browsers don't include images in the save AFAIK. There's also the option to print to PDF. A problem with PDF saving though is that images can get split between pages as there are no page breaks in HTML, so the save/print will partially save an image if it won't fit at the end of a page.
I'll see if I can find that thread. But I think HubPages search is broken.
I hear you, Gregory. One of the benefits of this forum is helping each other.
I've forgotten all those tips. You can probably remember better than my sieve head can.
Lisa, can you please advise as to why LetterPile hasn't published anything in nearly two months?
Genna, it is much the same over at HobbyLark. Nothing has been published there since late August. Perhaps the remaining staff is too overwhelmed to review the articles for inclusion on HobbyLark, LetterPile, etc.
Thank you, Gregory. Oddly enough, LetterPile began to publish again today.
Genna, I hope that one or more of your articles was moved there. As far as HobbyLark is concerned, no activity there yet.
Yes, they were, thank you. But it seems as though a number of others suddenly appeared as well with September and October publishing dates.
And good good luck with HobbyLark, everyone. Please let us know how everything goes.
Really? How about HubPages being severed of maven/TAG and reverting to it's original status qua?
