Major Change

1. 57

   CMOEposted 17 years ago

   I can't believe how much my hubscore changes.  It was up at an 80 yesterday and has dipped all the way down to 73.  I have not been getting as much traffic lately.  Do you think that is the problem or should I add more content?

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2. 61

   Jason Menayanposted 17 years ago

   Whenever HubPages a pattern of linking to the same site across most or all of your Hubs, then a penalty starts being applied to your Hubs.
   
   Many of your Hubs link to cmoe.com, so that could be one of the causes.
   
   If a site is not really related to the Hub's topic, you should take it out of the hub, and put the link instead in your profile/bio.

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   1. 64

      darksideposted 17 years agoin reply to this

      Would the same happen if we have a lot of hubs linking to Wikipedia.org?

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3. 61

   Jason Menayanposted 17 years ago

   No, darkside; domains like that are safe. Linking to them will have no negative impact on your HubScore.

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4. STAFF

   pauldeedsposted 17 years ago

   Slight correction -- linking excessively or exclusively to any single domain has the potential to hurt your HubScore and your Hubber score.  The magnitude of the effect will be different for different domains.  However, affiliate links, disguised links (ie. tinyurl.com, etc.), and links where the objective is obviously to enhance that site in search engines are the most likely to cause significant damage (ie. drive your Hubber score below 75, and cause your links to be nofollowed).

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   1. 64

      darksideposted 17 years agoin reply to this

      A question... if I had only one link to tinyurl.com out of all my lenses, would I be penalized in any way because there are others who have used it a lot?

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5. 66

   relacheposted 17 years ago

   What if someone builds Hubs that have one to two dozen links to Wikipedia per Hub?  (or sometimes more) 
   
   That doesn't seem fair that they should not be penalized for excessive linking to that one site.

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   1. 64

      darksideposted 17 years agoin reply to this

      That's what I'm curious about.
      
      It wouldn't take me long before I racked up a LOT of links to Wikipedia on the basis that I trust the site, and while I may not be using the content I was thinking of having extra links for readers to see related information.

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      1. 82

         kerrygposted 17 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, I'm in the same position. I would love to make really thorough use of the benefits of hypertext on some of my historical hubs in particular, but I've been holding back in the hopes of not getting a penalty.
         
         I'm also curious, is any kind of penalty applied to frequent linking to HubPages, i.e. the "hubographies" a lot of us have been doing?

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6. STAFF

   pauldeedsposted 17 years ago

   That was my point Relache.   They are penalized -- just not as much as if they were linking to a more a dubious site.

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7. 66

   relacheposted 17 years ago

   And my point was, if each hub has a few dozen links to the same site, even a "good one", and there are hundreds of Hubs that do that from one person, doesn't that turn into spam at that point?

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8. 57

   CMOEposted 17 years ago

   The thing is I thought Hubpages said we could have two links to the same domain.  I hold to this in all my Hubs.  Maybe I need to go back into the content and make some changes.

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9. 61

   Jason Menayanposted 17 years ago

   I'll try to answer these most recent questions, but Paul Deeds is out this week, and, as the owner of the HubScore algorithm, he is the only one who can authoritatively and definitively answer these questions.
   
   But I can provide some guidance according to what he's told me and in the Forums:
   
   1. One link or two to domains that have been heavily "abused" by other Hubbers (like tinyurl.com), in the context of plenty of other "good" links, will not have an effect. However, repeatedly using tinyurl across your Hubs, again and again, will.
   
   2. Links to hubpages.com will not hurt your HubScore.
   
   3. You are allowed to publish Hubs with up to 2 links to the same domain. However, you might get a penalty applied to your (published) Hubs if you repeatedly link to that domain across many/all of your Hubs. So: allowed, but HubScore penalized.

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10. 61

    stefeebposted 17 years ago

    What is tinyurl.com? sorry new here just learning.

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11. 47

    johnr54posted 17 years ago

    Tinyurl is a service that allows you to create a tiny (or short url) to replace a longer one.  Originally it was designed to avoid problems like long URL's  (say longer than 80 characters) getting wrapped and butchered by email programs, or simply being difficult to remember.
    
    More recently it has become a favorite of affiliate marketers everywhere because many affiliate links get fairly long, and in addition it's often best to keep your competitors from knowing who owns the link, so not only does tiny url create a short, easy to remember link, but it cloaks it as well.
    
    Because you can't tell where it directs to, HubPages just makes the worst case assumption that it's a duplicate of one of the other links on the page.  Can't say that I blame them.

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