REMINDER of Upcoming Changes to HubPages Sites

1. STAFF

   Haley Davisposted 3 months ago

   As a reminder, on April 14th, 2025, The Arena Group will no longer be able to share revenue on content that remains on Delishably, Hobbylark, Owlcation, WanderWisdom, LetterPile, and WeHaveKids. Content that lives on Discover.HubPages will continue to earn revenue through your HubPages account.
   
   If you want to request that your content move back to Discover.HubPages, please email hdavis@thearenagroup.net by April 11th, 2025, to ensure a smooth transition.

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      Justine Guiaoposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      I have sent a email of request. Thank you!

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         Robert Sacchiposted 3 months agoin reply to this

         Did the same even though I don't know if I have anything on these sites.  Odd, they don't give a reason why someone shouldn't send them the letter.

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      Shiaacademyposted 2 months agoin reply to this

      can any onyone help ,e with posting Questions in the community?
      I want to ask if you are writing an article wich some anchor text to another website, will it get published or trashed?

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         theraggededgeposted 2 months agoin reply to this

         If you are promoting a business or organisation, it may be unpublished. Writers are not permitted to engage in promotion unless they are linking to a relevant Amazon product.

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            UGMTOTOposted 7 weeks agoin reply to this

            Deleted
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         PaulGoodman67posted 2 months agoin reply to this

         If you are posting questions, then you should do that in the religion section of the forums (if that's your topic).
         
         There isn't really an article community, except maybe a small poetry one. Articles are generally aimed at the broader public who are searching with Google.
         
         And, like Bev says, linking can often get you banned for being over-promotional.

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         Kenna McHughposted 2 months agoin reply to this

         I don't think HP will help you promote to the desired public. If you are trying to find like-minded folks, I suggest a Facebook page to reach a broader audience.

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            PaulGoodman67posted 2 months agoin reply to this

            Yes, there's not much point setting it up here.
            
            Finding any readers here is almost impossible nowadays. More than half my articles have zero daily views on any given day, and these are articles that were specifically written to be Google-friendly and once received tens or even hundreds of views.

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               Robert Sacchiposted 2 months agoin reply to this

               It seems the big hit getters are the most affected by HubPages moves.

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                  PaulGoodman67posted 2 months agoin reply to this

                  The decline has happened over a period of years. It happened in stages. The latest move didn’t affect views greatly but I lost 2/3 of my earnings.

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      Jools99posted 2 months agoin reply to this

      Went to my Spam folder and just found it this morning; hoping there's still time to move mine back to Discover. Such a shame this is happening but they're running a business I s'pose.

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   psycheskinnerposted 3 months ago

   Honestly, we all signed up for revenue share, the material should be migrated whether the hubber requests it or not. It seems like the request is only here on a forum that you know 99% of hubbers never check.

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      WryLiltposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      I received an email about this, which is the only reason I came back to check the forums. So they have attempted to contact hubbers through other avenues.

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   Venkatachari Mposted 3 months ago

   They intimated everybody through separate emails. I did receive it a week back and requested to move back my articles to Discover.
   
   My LetterPile articles are still pending to be moved back.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 3 months ago

   They emailed, too. However, it's perfectly possible that it went to spam or "other" folder for some people.

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   theraggededgeposted 3 months ago

   Looks like this is the only place to post, given the current spam attack.

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      chef-de-jourposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      Unprecedented spam - could mean that Matt Wells is no longer guardian slayer of spam? The forums will eventually become nothing but spam? Nightmare spam. Spam forum. Spam ad infinitum.

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      viryaboposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      I was just thinking about that you know?
      I pictured us all huddled together, under one umbrella, just to keep safe from mice-like alien attackers, raining from above!

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   PaulGoodman67posted 3 months ago

   I don't think the forums matter much anymore, aside from the official announcements, but still... 52 pages of spam! That's kind of crazy!

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      theraggededgeposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      73 now. Do they do it for the backlinks or something? It's not like anyone is going to read it, let alone act on it.

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         PaulGoodman67posted 3 months agoin reply to this

         Yes, it's nearly always for the backlinks. Sometimes it's the site themselves that are spamming, but other times it's people getting paid to build backlinks for sites. There may even be bots doing it now, I don't know.

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      Shesabutterflyposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      88 and climbing! I've had trouble getting this page to load yesterday and today. I wonder if this is part of the problem?
      
      With few sincere posts it would be nice if staff changed how/who could post in the forums. Simply requiring approval would be the same amount of work for staff. They still have to come and remove all the posts and ban these "users". Although an unnecessary pain for long time users or anyone posting after hours/weekends.
      
      There are other options based off other forums I've interacted with over the years. If only someone cared enough to make HP better. I know spam was always around, but I can honestly say I've never seen it this aggressively.

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         Kenna McHughposted 3 months agoin reply to this

         If Matt is still around, he needs to step in and handle this. I suspect this is HP's last act.
         
         Bev, you have an excellent question. Backlinks?
         
         Or, it could be the scavengers, the vultures are circling.

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            Shesabutterflyposted 3 months agoin reply to this

            He's still around. I received a reply from him this morning about a different topic.
            
            30ish pages were removed, but with how quickly this new round is being spewed out, I imagine it is going to take some time to clean up. For every page removed, a new one is popping back up.

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         theraggededgeposted 3 months agoin reply to this

         I love the way you refer to staff in the plural

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   Polly Cposted 3 months ago

   I've only just learned about this, I opened the email just now but didn't open any of the previous ones.
   
   I'm going to email to have my articles moved back, but what actually happens to them if I don't? I didn't really understand from the email - will I not be able to get them back after the date has passed? And presumably those sites will be earning from anything on there, so why won't it be shared?

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      Kenna McHughposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      Polly,
      
      Here is the forum link to the explanation. I don't think it's fair; I'm just saying.
      
      https://hubpages.com/community/forum/36 … ages-sites

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         Polly Cposted 3 months agoin reply to this

         Thank you

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            Kenna McHughposted 3 months agoin reply to this

            You're welcome.

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   Venkatachari Mposted 3 months ago

   Hi, Friends. How to download your images from HubPages?
   
   I tried many times to download or "save as" options. It saves the image in the format of a web page.
   
   So, I opened that image with Paint and cropped the image to save as a jpg file. I think it is the only option left for us.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 3 months agoin reply to this

      Venkatachari M - I think the easiest and quickest way is to view the page in author mode, click on the image to open, then do a save as. It will save as an image that way.

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      theraggededgeposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      Right click on the image (in any view). You'll see a list.
      
      Left click 'save image as'.
      
      Choose the location where you want to save it. Make sure the file is saved as a jpg.
      
      Note: In my browser, I have to move onto 'image' in the list, then on 'save image as'. It depends on what yours says.

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      Glenn Stokposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      You can download the original full-size image of all your photos from your photo gallery.  https://hubpages.com/my/photos/gallery
      
      Choose any photo from your gallery and then click “here” as shown in this example:
      
      

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   Anne Ryefieldposted 3 months ago

   I am now operating under the theory that one day soon, we will all try to visit HP to log in and the site will be down, never to return. I've never seen the spam posts up this long. The complete lack of communication is extremely concerning. Staff have just repeated the same mantra over and over - "you'll still make money on Discover." We are rats on a sinking ship. It's so disappointing that we are losing the ship without questions being seriously answered. We helped build HP. Without writers, this site would have failed at the beginning.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 3 months agoin reply to this

      The bottom line is that from TAG's perspective, they no longer need us. They've declared they no longer believe in the user-generated, income-sharing model.
      
      TAG has moved on.
      
      How long Discover/HP lasts after they've completed this latest article move, I wouldn't like to guess.

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         Kenna McHughposted 3 months agoin reply to this

         As I have posted, I wouldn't be surprised if they sold it.

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            eugbugposted 3 months agoin reply to this

            It's not really much use as a content farm though. Individual sites would have to be rebuilt, but maybe just the lucrative ones. The political forum still seems to be very active.

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      eugbugposted 3 months agoin reply to this

      That's what happened with Webanswers 10 years ago.

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         Kenna McHughposted 3 months agoin reply to this

         I hear you, Eugene. TAG doesn't even include HP on its platform. So, something will happen, whether it gets shut down or sold.

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            SerenityHaloposted 3 months agoin reply to this

            Preferably sold… because maybe somehow then things can rebound.

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               Kenna McHughposted 3 months agoin reply to this

               Andrea, that would be nice. Shutting HP down would not benefit anyone.

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                  JerryFisherposted 3 months agoin reply to this

                  Off topic here - but I wonder if all this crazy spam might ironically be helping ranking. Last week someone posted some stats on how high HP was ranking in the last six months (unbeknown to us) but one of the reasons was the forum. Google's alga might be interpreting it as a small Reddit.

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                     chef-de-jourposted 3 months agoin reply to this

                     The optimist has nailed it! Who knows, perhaps a crawling spider algorithmical AI powered analytical evaluator thingy can be totally fooled by nothing but backlink gobbledegook? Quantity beats quality - there's a bright future for meaningless nonsense after all!

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                     PaulGoodman67posted 3 months agoin reply to this

                     That's a misunderstanding of the article, backlinks, and SEO.
                     
                     The forums create opportunities for backlinks, and backlinks help SEO. Whenever we post here in a thread, there's a link to our profile page.
                     
                     The backlinks SEO is one of the main reasons that HP has forums.
                     
                     Only the spammer is helped by spam.

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               That Grrlposted 3 months agoin reply to this

               From my experience, writing online for various sites more than 20 years, if it gets sold it gets abandoned or shut down suddenly. Most likely it is bought for the domain name and traffic stats. It will be left as a parked domain, available to be sold again and probably left that way for years. So grab your articles, if you want them. Like Suite101 and so many others, they won't be saved to Internet Archives, they will just disappear. Good luck to all of you.

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                  Robert Sacchiposted 3 months agoin reply to this

                  Thank you.  Is HubPages the last of the writing farms?

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                     PaulGoodman67posted 3 months agoin reply to this

                     I'm not sure what you mean by "writing farm" but HP is the last of its type. Squidoo was the biggest rival and they bit the dust years ago.
                     
                     HP did well to survive longer but their inability to recover from the last round of Google algo changes meant they finally lost interest.

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    theraggededgeposted 3 months ago

    The spammers have now discovered the Topical forums.

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    Venkatachari Mposted 3 months ago

    Thanks, Glenn, for your smart reply. Now, I can save them in the jpg. format.

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    Robert Sacchiposted 3 months ago

    Too bad.

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    That Grrlposted 3 months ago

    It might be. I can't think of any which cover the same range of topics and are not written by AIs for sure. Not easy to tell which are AI written when they don't have to put up notices about it.

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    GwennyOhposted 2 months ago

    Thank you to the team for letting me know, or it would have gone beyond my radar for some time.

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    Abby Slutskyposted 2 months ago

    How about you tell us which categories you still plan to pay for, and we will adjust our writing articles accordingly. Thank you.

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       eugbugposted 2 months agoin reply to this

       You mean sell our articles back to them?

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    Nell Roseposted 2 months ago

    I asked them to move mine. Not sure if they have, but only earned five dollars this month so far!

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    TimArendsposted 2 months ago

    How do I determine, which, if any, of my hubs are affected? That's the one thing these notifications leave out.

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       Robert Sacchiposted 2 months agoin reply to this

       The letter doesn't say much of anything.  They made no attempt to convince writers to stay with The Arena Group.

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       theraggededgeposted 2 months agoin reply to this

       The best thing to do is to request that all your hubs be moved to Discover.

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    eugbugposted 2 months ago

    What's with the decrease in CPM? Is this because in the automatic process, there's little interest in the site, so the bid finishes with a low buy price for ads served?

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       PaulGoodman67posted 2 months agoin reply to this

       I believe the system nowadays is that they pay us as much or as little as they like. You can’t really interpret the figures in this situation. The figures for Amazon seem low too.

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