Suggestions to HubPages to Improve Quality

1. 72

   tritrainposted 13 years ago

   I've been looking at the Latest Hubbers and doing a lot of HubHopping lately and noticed a pattern.  Based upon some of what I have seen I am making some suggestions.  I'm sure HubPages staff and moderators see all sorts of patterns to spam and poorer quality Hubs.
   
   Here's some suggestions
   
   HubPages Newer People
   -Require a minimum number of Quality Hubs before being able to use Amazon/Ebay capsules.
   -Slow down the ease of Publishing with automated checks for number of capsules (minimum), number of words before publishing, etc.
   -Based upon IP address, all future HubPages-signups from non-English speaking parts of the world would require approval of the first few Hubs. 
   
   General Quality
   -Require at least 6 capsules for all future Hubs (more?), not including RSS, News, picture, or video capsules.
   -Implement a Captcha into more parts of HubPages to try to stop the automated tools out there.
   -Require a minimum of 300 (non-duplicate content) words for each Hub
   -Increase the HubScore and HubKarma scores to be higher before nofollow is removed. Or, make all external links nofollow.
   
   
   Any other suggestions?

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   1. 80

      thisisoliposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      -Increase the HubScore and HubKarma scores to be higher before nofollow is removed. Or, make all external links nofollow.
      
      If this was implemented you would suddenly see a large number of my hubs being moved elsewhere.

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2. 72

   tritrainposted 13 years ago

   More Suggestions
   -Make HubHopping better by giving us an easier link to find, provide reports or a HubHopping status bar.
   -Provide Share options on all Hubs, such as AddThis.
   -Advertise on Facebook to bring in more, quality Hubbing.
   -Fasttrack becoming a Hubber by providing a tutorial and quiz.  Maybe a HubAcademy.
   -Put a hold on new HubPages signups until we can all get the spam/garbage off of HubPages.
   -Put a hold on new Hubs by people that have a low HubKarma score. They will need to HubHop, take part in the forum, comment to bring the HubKarma score back up.  Give everyone a gauge of progress.
   -Make more posts to the HubPages blog and forums to keep us all informed.
   -Offer a charity option and try to get in the good graces of high profile charities, etc.

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   1. 89

      mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Hub Hopping won't bring up HubKarma score though, only linking to other people's Hubs in your own using the 'suggest links' tool after a hub is completed will raise HubKarma score, and this can be self defeating unless you use it to link to your own hubs, as you can take people away from your own hubs by linking to other people's. See help section for this info to be confirmed at:
      
      http://hubpages.com/faq/#hubkarma

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      1. 76

         Eaglekiwiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         My Hubkarma score was 91 ,but Ive slowly been removing many links.
         
         So far my karma is still ok.
         
         Trying to please Mr Google and get some cents ,lol.

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         1. 89

            mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Mine was 92, but is now 87 as I am not only deleting certain links to other hubs, but am also only linking to one or two of my own hubs in each new one I write. No regrets though, just mildly annoyed that a lower HubKarma score does have 'a slight impact' on our overall Hubscore as an author.

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            1. 68

               Michael Willisposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Well, I tried the linking a while back and all my hubkarma did was drop!!! So it does not work as it is said to work. Do away with it is my vote.

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               1. 89

                  mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes, I agree with you although my HubKarma score did rise when I used it. It appears to serve no useful purpose to the individual though, and can actually cost us in viewings and potential clicks.

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            2. 61

               Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I'm not so sure about that that, Misty!  My hub karma( what a silly name) has never been above 68 as far as I know and I still get my 100 every few days.  I don't think it means anything at all other than trying to keep visitors on HP longer! 

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               1. 89

                  mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  That is interesting Randy, can't explain it as my HubKarma score definitely went up and then dropped, (mind you, I did go a bit mad on it at first thinking it would add to my income, so some Hubs had twenty plus links within the text to other hubs based on the suggestions I 'chose' from the options), but as your experience has been so different I am lost as to why this would be. I guess the Hubpages Team should explain how this could happen.

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               2. 89

                  mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  PS. This potential 'impact on Hubber score' is a quote from Hubpages staff, so I am going on what they say, not my own experience of its impact on Hubber score. I guess like many I thought not using it could drop my score, so it was best to use the HubKarma tool.

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                  1. 61

                     Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     Staff smaff!  They said they wanted quality original content too, and look where we are now!  Content sites are notorious for talking the talk.  But walking the walk?  Not so much! 

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                     1. 61

                        Tom The Catposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Suggestions to HubPages to Improve Quality:
                        
                        
                        

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                     2. 61

                        recommend1posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        I am beginning to think that all this pressure on hubbers is considerably over doing it and a much slower longer and more useful manner would have been preferable.  Pretty much everyone has been upset in some way and it seems totally unnecessary in the long haul and big decisions taken with little firm knowledge of thought.
                        
                        I also think that more attention to protecting their clientelle might be more importantalng with more advice, help shops, FAQ's etc etc.

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                        1. 61

                           Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           I believe this site got hit hard because bad content, however you want to classify it, was knowingly allowed to remain posted because it made money for HP.  Now, until someone from staff with more than one gut tells me differently, I will keep on thinking this way.
                           
                           Any bets on if this will happen or not? 

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3. 95

   melbelposted 13 years ago

   I like a lot of your ideas. I agree a LOT with these ideas you've presented:
   
   Fasttrack becoming a Hubber by providing a tutorial and quiz.  Maybe a HubAcademy.
   
   Put a hold on new Hubs by people that have a low HubKarma score. They will need to HubHop, take part in the forum, comment to bring the HubKarma score back up.
   
   Make more posts to the HubPages blog and forums to keep us all informed.
   
   Offer a charity option and try to get in the good graces of high profile charities, etc.
   
   Increase the HubScore and HubKarma scores to be higher before nofollow is removed.
   
   -----
   
   A captcha for the first few posts in the forums would be great. There is a lot of forum spam (which quickly gets cleaned up) that appears to be something that could be prevented with a captcha... bot type stuff I see.
   
   
   
   Ooh, you know that REALLY annoying paperclip in Word (or at least was in word.)... maybe something like that... not a animation, just like a tip at the top of each hub like:
   
   "If you put so much junk in this hub, it would suck less."
   HAHA! Not THAT cruel, but things like:
   
   "This hub may perform better with more great content to support your ideas."
   
   "This hub may perform better if it had a photo to represent your ideas."
   
   It wouldn't even have to be a feature that's modded, it could be done with some scripts.

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   1. 72

      tritrainposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I like your suggestions of the automated "suggestions".  Especially the photo one.
      
      Another could be; "You only have one long paragraph.  It is easier on the reader if you break it up into several."
      
      
      I would really like to see a minimum number of capsules required.  It should not take a mere 2 minutes to publish a Hub.  Hmmm, maybe a timer is needed...

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   2. 68

      Michael Willisposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I would take away the HubKarma feature. I see no real relevance to it anyways. And I know there are others that feel the same on this one. I do interlink to another hub when it is relevant to my hub and of a high quality, but will not link just to link and raise hubkarma.
      
      I have asked for word count guidelines, but what would HP do with Poetry hubs? I can see their reasoning there. Maybe if there was a way to exempt the poetry category.
      
      New members required to hub Hopping may not be the best idea since they may not understand all the rules yet. They would not know how to properly report violations or know which Hub there are the best one to learn from.

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      1. 72

         tritrainposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         All currently existing poetry Hubs could be left alone, but going forward , we should not allow short Hubs.
         
         The poetry writers could continue to write, but they could instead do a compendium or theme of poetry into one Hub.  That way, they could add to existing Hubs the poetry that falls under a certain theme.
         
         HubKarma works for some, not for others.  We need to remove the reason for making Hubs "just as a way of promoting my {enter text here}" or "I need some quick and easy backlinks...HubPages!" which only adds to the poor quality Hubs.

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         1. 68

            Michael Willisposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I would suggest a commentary for poetry. I agree with that. Telling the reasons or how the poem came to be would make it more appealing to someone like me.
            
            There are those who try to use HP like the sites that are short blurbs and backlink only as well as an Ad for their company or site. Wish it was easy to rid those out.

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      2. 89

         mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I totally agree re-HubKarma point. I started off using it, then realised it actually took people away from my Hubs, which is of no benefit to me, and I earn no extra income from doing this. Now I only use it to link to my own hubs to save me trying to find relevant ones using the drop down feature after highlighting the relevant text within a text capsule.

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   3. 68

      Michael Willisposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      There are a lot of writers that do not take part in the forums. And they write quality hubs. Forcing people to take part in a forum, hub hopping, commenting has nothing to do with quality writing.
      
      edit: If anything it sounds more like social interaction than upgrading the writing.

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   4. 68

      relacheposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Your suggestion makes no sense, and it's clear you have no idea what HubKarma is or how it works.  None of the actions you mention have anything to do with HubKarma.
      
      http://hubpages.com/faq/#hubkarma

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      1. 72

         tritrainposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Apparently not.
         
         HubberScore then.

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         1. 60

            Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Gets my vote.
            
            Until I drop back down again.

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            1. 68

               lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Ooooh... Mr. Ewbie has a shiny new number! It looks good on you.

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               1. 60

                  Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Apparently I have been "helping out on the forums" or something.
                  
                  My Google ranking is slightly less than one.

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                  1. 72

                     tritrainposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     I declare your score to be 101, unofficially.

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                     1. 68

                        lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        I like that idea!
                        
                        

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                        1. 60

                           Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           That's neat!
                           
                           Of course I'm not that shallow to worry about score and stuff.

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                           1. 72

                              tritrainposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                              Oh of course.

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                              1. 60

                                 Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                 I mean, I don't spend every waking minute on here - answering dumb questions, leaving comments on spammy hubs and trying to be polite and helpful to people I can't stand.
                                 
                                 No I can only think (and sorry for going on it about but I AM JUST ANSWERING A QUESTION RIGHT) - I can only think it is for my challenging series of articles on the best three types of pointless fluff.

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      2. 89

         mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Thank goodness, someone else who actually checked out how HubKarma is calculated

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   5. 89

      mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Ditto my last comment, HubKarma is not affected by hub hopping or participating in forums, it is only affected by using the 'suggest links' feature when you have published a hub. It seems a common misconception that HubKarma is based on general interaction on Hubpages, which is completely incorrect if you check out 'HubKarma' in the Help section of Hubpages.

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4. 68

   lrohnerposted 13 years ago

   If HP were to adopt most or all of these suggestions, I would tell prospective hubbers to head over to Squidoo, or anywhere else for that matter. My head was spinning just reading this stuff, and I'm not a newbie.
   
   If they really want to clean up the existing cr*p and make sure no new cr*p comes in, they need to hire a bevy of full-time and/or freelance professional content editors (not brand new 'moderators') who review each and every hub before it is published. Full stop.
   
   And I agree with Michael on the HubKarma. It's a totally irrelevant and meaningless number that no one on HP should be held to.

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   1. 72

      tritrainposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah, well I'm pretty sure Squidoo isn't facing the problems that HubPages is now...
      
      I'm not seeing ANY negative traffic on Squidoo.
      There is not any discussion that I could find on SquidU, regarding the Google Florida/Panda "upgrade".
      
      I'm trying to suggest positive changes that HubPages could make to improve our standing.

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      1. 68

         Michael Willisposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Suggestions to improve the quality of HubPages is a great thing.  There are things that can be done, just whether or not they will be done or are feasible to HP.  Some of the fixes may be very time consuming.
         And discussions as this post can be good to at least put the ideas out there.

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         1. 72

            tritrainposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I agree.  And thank you.
            
            Some are doable, but may not be worth the time/energy, in the short term.
            
            Others would be fundamental shifts away from how things are being done currently.
            
            I'd like to see positive suggestions to HubPages and see what direction they want to go.
            
            I love the platform and qualities of HubPages.  It's sad that it's been abused and misused, and I'm not excluding myself with the use of backlinking.
            
            I wish I could buy the platform script and put it on my own site, and have a percentage kickback to HubPages....

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   2. 80

      Sufidreamerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I have to agree:
      
      When I signed up to HP, if I had been faced with having my work pre-approved due to my geographical location, or I had been forced to participate in the forums or Hub-Hop, I wouldn't have bothered.
      
      There is already too much going on too quickly - implementing sweeping reforms creates far too many variables, and it becomes impossible to see what changes are actually having a positive effect.

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      1. 72

         tritrainposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Very good point.

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      2. 87

         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with this. If it is made too difficult for folk to join and participate, then people simply won't join.
         The greatest attraction of Hubpages is its simplicity, and it being a platform for inexperienced as well as experienced users.
         I didn't join Brighthub because they sent me details of classes I had to undertake first, after accepting an article I wrote for them.
         You get to a stage in life when too much info is overload and it's easier to back off.
         On HP, you can learn as you are going along.
         There is a problem with spam hubs being published, but that is why the Hopper is there, to let us help staff weed out the substandard stuff.

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5. 95

   melbelposted 13 years ago

   I read hubkarma as general hubs ore and that users with low hubscores should have to review things on the site. when writing my response I was going to expand on what I thought was a good idea regarding that but I must have forgotten. but agree with the others about hopping being the right 'punishment' as 9 times out of 10, stuff I find when hopping is spam and offers no learning experience for hubbers with low scores. I'll expand later. I'm on my phone right now which is a pain to type on.

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6. 78

   LuisEGonzalezposted 13 years ago

   Of all of the suggestions that I've read, the one that sticks out as a very good one is the one about creating an academy. Here is a twist; assign some hubbers as experts in their field:poetry, finances,writing, Hubs,health,technology..and Oh yea photography etc.
   This designation might help new hubbers seek these expert's advice before publishing hubs that fall outside of their area of expertise and fall within the expert's realm of knowledge. This could aid in the production of more quality hubs. Another possibility is that some hubs would have to be read by one of these experts for factual information etc. before its posting. For example, I recently read a hub on photography that contained some advice that was totally incorrect besides being impossible to do the way that the author proclaimed. As it turned out,  a few hubbers emailed me asking if this was possible, which is what made me seek this particular hub.
   
   Off course the logistics would have to be set up by HP staff, but of one thing I'm sure is that it would be a way of assuring more quality hubs at least to some extent. As a photographer of over twenty years nothing makes me leave a page faster than incorrect information.
   
   This theme can have many variations, such as the fast track suggestion posted in this forum or other incentives, but I hope that some of you see a possible benefit from its inception.
   
   Thanks for reading.

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7. 71

   LeanManposted 13 years ago

   Academies and such like are fine for the dedicated writers that want to improve and interact within the site, however a lot of the crap on here is from out and out spammers who would not enroll or give a t0ss about them.
   The only way to get rid of them is identify them and block their IP or maybe ask the US navy to send in one of their smart bombs as a deterrent to others!
   However people can change their IP so easily that determined spammers will keep coming back!
   
   Maybe the way forward IS to manually review all new Hubbers first few hubs, maybe a limit of say 5 hubs max until they have had all 5 first attempts hopped and passed. How many new hubbers sign up per day and how many people hub hop? But is there enough hopping to filter out the potential spammers?

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8. 78

   LuisEGonzalezposted 13 years ago

   Leanman offers a good suggestion. Have new hubbers submit their first 5 hubs for review by a Hubber chosen by HP staff. Good idea Leanman

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   1. 58

      Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Sure. I will create accounts with 5 pages on and then sell them once they are approved.

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      1. 71

         LeanManposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Good idea Mark.. may make up the slack left by google.. lol

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