REQ: Can there be some sort of a "link inspector"?

1. 90

   kschangposted 7 years ago

   When one gets the message "overly promotional", one often does NOT see the links that are pointing to the same place.
   
   Is there some way to pop up the "offending links" similar to the way a dead link is highlighted in PINK? Or is that giving too much of a tool to abusers?
   
   Or perhaps, just display ALL of the links in a table and let the user figure it out where they are?

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   1. 87

      relacheposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Links are added manually by authors.  They don't get there by themselves.  For someone to claim ignorance of the links they're putting in their own Hubs is ridiculous.

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      1. 90

         kschangposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         If the article gets to several THOUSAND words, and have DOZENS of links, and keeps getting revised, then inspecting the links becomes tedious and next to impossible.
         
         While in principle I agree that it is author's responsibility, I disagree that Hubpages have absolutely NO duty to HELP author's meet that responsibility.

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         1. 87

            relacheposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            If you've having such a problem, my suggestion is that you rethink how you are building Hubs (too bloated or not broken into more useful parts) and perhaps consider that you are over-linking.  I only offer my readers truly relevant and useful links, which automatically keeps them to a lean amount.

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   2. 97

      Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      This may sound dumb because, as Relache says, you control how many links you put in a Hub, so you should know already!  After all, the rule is very clear - you can have only two links, or one RSS feed, to the same domain.
      
      However I'm guessing you've had the same experience I had recently. I had to update a few of my Hubs.  On each one, when I hit "done editing", I suddenly got an "overly promotional" message.
      
      I scanned the Hubs for ages, trying to find the offending links.  In the end, I discovered I could make the message go away by deleting the RSS feed to one of my blogs - but that didn't make sense, because I had no other links to it in the text. 
      
      So in the end, I put the RSS feeds back in and decided to wait for HP to unpublish it or contact me - which they never have, so I'm wondering if the message was a glitch.

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         kschangposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         So even you agree that such a tool would have helped you fix that warning that much faster?

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         1. 97

            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            That's what I was saying.  There's absolutely no need for such a feature while you're writing the original article - but when you're revising, it is possible to trip the filter by accident and then it's tedious to go back and find the problem.
            
            It doesn't happen all that often, though, so I'd say it's a low priority change. 
            
            If you have dozens of links in a Hub (other than in a links capsule), perhaps you should be asking yourself whether you're overlinking - too many links in the text can really annoy readers.

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            1. 90

               kschangposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Then why is there a HubKarma, which is about linking to others (esp. hubs) within the article?
               
               At Hubcamp they said they prefer inline linking instead of link module. I think that rates higher or something.
               
               More food for thought.

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               1. 98

                  wildernessposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  As I understand it, you can have 100 unique links to other hubs (great hubKarma) without tripping the filter.  They don't count.

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               2. 97

                  Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  HubKarma is meant to encourage interlinking with other Hubs, and it will give you lots of suggestions on possible links.  However, you are supposed to look at each suggestion, and link ONLY to those Hubs that add genuine value.
                  
                  "Inline" or contextual links are more valuable than a links module (to the site being linked to).

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2. 81

   lrohnerposted 7 years ago

   Just a thought, but if you didn't point too many links toward the same domain to begin with, this whole thing would be a moot point, no? Not sure why HP would want to go and do extra programming to help hubbers who got into hot water by abusing the system.
   
   But like I said, just a thought...

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   1. 90

      kschangposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      How is helping hubbers becoming compliant be detrimental to Hubpages?

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      1. 81

         lrohnerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         They have helped. They've very clearly laid out the rules in both the FAQs and the Learning Center. And then they even took the extra step to tell you when you violated them instead of just deleting the hub.

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3. 70

   recommend1posted 7 years ago

   There are a few instances where the links are not so obvious, especially to anyone new to this game.  The links you manually put in you are obviously aware of - but as KSChang says, in a long hub that has depth and many links it can be an issue during later revisions.
   
   The other, not so obvious, issue are the images that might included - if you accredit properly by using them from the linked site each picture becomes a link ??  Then there is the RSS feed as has been pointed out.
   
   If the over-promotional banner pops up automatically then links hae been counted automatically - and so at least the number could be included with the message - I would say ?
   
   The line is quite clear I would say, Hubpages exists first as a shared advertising revenue site, and a writers platform second, they must protect their revenue percentage and any commercial links are competition for the shared advertising.
   
   I would say that the way to deal with this is to very carefully limit yourself to the two links allowed and take the best advantage of that allowance by putting them in the best position and the most visible way possible - a better setup than many links anyway.

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