Weigh in: HubPages at imminent risk of becoming irrelevant/shutdown?

1. 78

   Kyler J Falkposted 5 months ago

   Hopefully someone in administration will weigh in as well, but community opinion is just as important.
   
   I've been gone for a hot minute, my score has dropped by about 7-10 digits, but my gaming content (notoriously my most popular earning content) is still performing quite well. I get hundreds of organic impressions each day, impressions are steady, and though impressions on my more contentious content is becoming more sporadic, I'm not seeing much of a negative change in earnings.
   
   Individuals in the community here have mentioned TAG's record earnings and restructuring, the restructuring including them distancing themselves from HubPages as a whole while poaching specific content for their own gain.
   
   What do ya think, time to shift over to other platforms like Medium full time, or is HubPages still the hip and happening place for quality content creation?
   
   My main earners here won't do as well elsewhere, I've tested the waters, so I'd rather not have to change platforms and rebuild engagement. I have to admit I also have some sense of what may be misguided loyalty to HubPages for their convenient infrastructure.

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      chef-de-jourposted 5 months agoin reply to this

      With over 450 articles on Owlcation and 12 years writing here I'm hoping there's still life in the old HP 'brand' but the signs are ominous. TAG has dropped the HP name from its website, there's minimal editing if any, and all enthusiasm for creating fresh material has faded. Pessimism, uncertainty and confusion rule the roost. As writers we've been exploited of late which some might interpret as abused. That's the reality.
      
      Yet some are earning still - I'm steady on 3 figures for the month for instance -  so I guess someone at TAG is assessing the income&demand or are they simply waiting for the next tax deadline to arrive before folding up the whole shebang?

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         Kyler J Falkposted 5 months agoin reply to this

         I really do wonder just how invested TAG is in keeping HubPages alive in the long-term. I can't imagine anything about the site itself really hurts the bottom dollar, more so the salary for staff they have managing it. Even just a trickle of profit would make it worth keeping around.

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      2. 84

         SerenityHaloposted 5 months agoin reply to this

         I didn't realize HubPages was taken off the Arena website. Just double-checked for my own eyes.
         
         Perhaps they are quiet quitting us or in the process of selling to another company. I think they already took what they wanted, DenGarden and Pethelpful.

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         SerenityHaloposted 5 months agoin reply to this

         I think our only hope is Matt Wells and/or a new owner. TAG seems to be breaking up with us.

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      Cheryl E Prestonposted 5 months agoin reply to this

      Many of my holiday articles get boosts this time of year.  I did not like that on Medium you need paid subscribers and I did not et a lot of views. I was doing well on NewsBreak but things go up and down. Vocal Media is pretty good if you have the time to put into it.

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      TheShadowSpecterposted 2 months agoin reply to this

      Well, Kyler, one thing that has been happening recently is that HubPages's customer service has been faultering significantly.  A moderator disabled my ads in an article without providing me any explanation or reason for doing so.  That moderator could have at least notified me that they were going to do it and what their reason was, but I didn't even as so much get the courtesy of an e-mail from that moderator or from anyone about it.
      
      It always seems that these moderators go after political articles of mine from four or five years ago, which makes no sense inasmuch as it wouldn't seem logical that they would want to demonetize an article after so many years.  They usually do so whenever the article is gaining traction in its number of views.  On top of that, they give us so very little compensation for our articles that it doesn't seem right.
      
      Since the middle of last week I have sent them two complaints about this through the "Help" feature here on HubPages and even e-mailed their HubPages Team on top of that.  All I've been getting is crickets.  What's up with that?  I'm thinking about phoning them at the phone number that the HubPages website provides, but the instructions to it reads that it is not for customer service.
      
      My experiences have always been that whenever any online outfit either gives excuses for not paying you or they don't give you any excuses at all, they are usually either getting ready to go belly up or someone in the powers that be is getting ready to shut them down for one reason or another.  Usually because they're not making the kind of money they would like.  Otherwise, they're just getting to a point where they simply don't care about the people that publish articles and rake in the money for them.

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      1. 78

         Kyler J Falkposted 2 months agoin reply to this

         I'm shadow banned for any political content, and can't get views without manually advertising it myself, so I don't even dabble in that realm outside of my pseudonyms anymore.
         
         As for the lack of communication from HubPages, they downsized their staff heavily. I'd imagine they keep operations bare bones. Matt often addresses things that are egregious, even for just an individual author, but if it isn't absolutely pressing they tend to let it slide without addressing it.
         
         I wonder what their overhead costs for running the site are.

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            TheShadowSpecterposted 2 months agoin reply to this

            I've dealt with Matt.  He tries to be fair, but sometimes Google makes a mountain out of a molehill and gives everyone a tough time.

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   Jodahposted 5 months ago

   If your earnings haven’t dropped much and your articles are still being read, I don’t see any urgency to move them elsewhere. Though HubPages seems a slippery slope for most of us, some say they are still doing okay here. I find Medium a lot more beneficial for my type of content like poetry, short fiction, and articles about writing. Plus the ability to comment there is enticing.

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   1. 78

      Kyler J Falkposted 5 months agoin reply to this

      As our in-house, what I would label master poet, how are the earnings on poetry content over at Medium? My poetry is all dead here unless it's the immediate views I get from a new piece and the odd sporadic impressions every month.

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         Jodahposted 5 months agoin reply to this

         I am averaging about $200 per month on Medium from mainly poetry and short fiction, but you need to post something at least  four times a week, more if possible and engage with others.  Like the old days here when we would read each others articles and comment.

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         1. 78

            Kyler J Falkposted 5 months agoin reply to this

            That's a pretty good sum. I'll have to ponder moving all of my poetry over to Medium. Their social structure is hard on my brain, though. I have an pseudonym account over there that earns well for sociopolitical commentary, and if I added poetry to the repertoire it'd increase the burden. Ugh, decisions.

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            1. 69

               PaulGoodman67posted 5 months agoin reply to this

               When I started at Medium four years ago or whenever it was, it wasn’t hard to earn $200/month just publishing three articles/month.
               
               Earnings have declined such that, as Jodah says, I’d need to publish four or five times as much to make the equivalent, plus put in a LOT of social engagement.
               
               I don’t feel terribly optimistic about Medium either tbh although its decline has been slower than HP. HP feels increasingly moribund.

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3. 78

   Kyler J Falkposted 5 months ago

   Also, any good suggestions for alternatives outside of self-publishing to my own site? I don't have the time to invest in managing a low passive three-figures.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 5 months agoin reply to this

      It's been discussed multiple times here over the past few years and I've not seen a good alternative. (Almost) all of us are looking for what you're looking for and if anyone's found it, they're not saying.
      
      Most of the tech media companies are now more focused on publishing short videos and utilizing AI.
      
      Substack is maybe the only major alternative to HP I've seen but it's a very different animal.

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4. 81

   Ben716posted 5 months ago

   Hubpages has been my passive-revenue content home for more than 15 years. As such, the only thing I'm left with is my fingers crossed. Even though I haven't published new content for awhile, I'll still remain a contributor, and edit articles that need editing.
   I was a content writer for Helium and also Suite101. I was contributing articles till the last day they shut off their website. And that's how it'll be with Hubpages - till the last day. This is despite reaching the withdrawal threshold over three months.
   My articles have always done well here than on any other platform. For now, though lazily, and hopelessly, I'm working on a personal website that I have postponed for more than 10 years:)

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      PaulGoodman67posted 5 months agoin reply to this

      I can live with that sort of end as long as HP don't do something heinous, like suddenly taking possession of our best articles.
      
      What happened with PetHelpful and Dengarden still concerns me.

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         Ben716posted 5 months agoin reply to this

         I hope it won't happen again.

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5. 66

   daydreamsposted 5 months ago

   I reckon the sort of site that Hubpages is has had its day - especially with the rise of AI etc.
   I'm still receiving some pocket money here from stuff I wrote years and years ago and don't even have that many articles but probably not a good use of time to write more.

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   1. 69

      PaulGoodman67posted 5 months agoin reply to this

      It now looks like we spent the past fifteen years creating content/data for AI to exploit, we just didn't know it at the time!

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6. 79

   Cheryl E Prestonposted 5 months ago

   How do you make money on X?

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7. 79

   Cheryl E Prestonposted 5 months ago

   To answer your question, all platforms have issues. I don't know what is going to happen with HP but I have a few articles that are doing well.

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