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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
So even you agree that such a tool would have helped you fix that warning that much faster?
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.
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.
As I understand it, you can have 100 unique links to other hubs (great hubKarma) without tripping the filter. They don't count.
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).
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...
How is helping hubbers becoming compliant be detrimental to Hubpages?
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.
by kschang 13 years ago
Dear Hubpages...Seems ANOTHER of my "roundup" app comparisons got flagged "overly promotional", AND "pixelated/watermarked pix/video" to boot. I don't get this "overly promo" flag, as all the links are to Appbrain, known Android software index. And yes, I...
by Conflagrant 15 years ago
Hi,Let me just say first of all I love hubpages and have enjoyed my time here. This isn't a moan, I just need a clarification.I recently had a hub unpublished as it was "overly promotional" as I had included two links to a site I admit that I own and also an RSS feed to the same...
by tangoshoes 13 years ago
So today I got a hub flagged as overly promotional. The warning said it contained too many affiliate links. The crazy thing about this is that I do have hubs which contain affiliate links but I happend to make this hub for a friend. She runs an art studio in AZ and she started a blog to help her...
by Kate Swanson 14 years ago
Whether I agree with HP's new policies or not, I respect the site's right to set their own rules. However, I think one of the reasons Hubbers are getting upset isthey're getting warnings based on rules they don't know existExamples:1. I have "overly promotional" warnings on several...
by mike-tells-all 13 years ago
Last week I found out about this site called SocialMonkee. If you are looking for more backlinks for your HubPages this is a good place to get them. You can get 25 of them a day so you can use a different hub each day.This is the first time I have posted in any of the forums here, but I thought...
by BenjaminB 14 years ago
I find it hilarious that Hubpages pushes the concept of helping new Hubbers yet my Hub which has had very good reception by the community has been flagged for being both overly promotional and substandard.I had 5 social bookmarking links,and 2 other links to free tools absolutely related to the...
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