Ack. I tried writing on Hubpages 3 years ago and had a bunch of highly-successful educational hubs, but eventually they got taken down as "overly promotional" because I'd linked to some of my educational materials posted elsewhere.
Irked (and, quite frankly, confused about the term "promotional" -- I thought, "hey, I'm not selling anything!"), I wandered off and figured it was easier to publish on my own blog and/or slightly more flexible platforms.
The recent hullaballoo over Panda brought me back for an odd reason. I've been a student of SEO for some years, and the contrast between Hubpages and the publishing platform I wound up using vis a vis Panda piqued my curiosity: they're not all that different, so why did Panda treat them differently? To answer that question, I've been lurking on Hubpages for about two weeks, re-familiarizing myself with the site.
In the process, I thought I might give Hubpages another try. I understand different sites have different rules, so obviously, I just need to get used to a different system.
But I just got tripped up AGAIN. I have bad habit of tinkering, polishing, and tweaking my prose after publishing it, because I'll always find something I could word just a little better (or more briefly). Today I tightened up my prose in a few spots, saved, and the hub got unpublished until a moderator looks at it again. I feel bad for the moderator who just approved it this morning, and concerned that I may not be able to work well within this system.
So, is this standard for all changes made to all Hubs? Or is this a precaution taken with newbies who haven't published much?
I'm guessing and hoping it's the latter. Editorial controls will help Hubpages' standings in Google, but there's a catch; the Google algorithm gives bonus points, so to speak, to content that is periodically updated and changed. I think update frequency is less important to Google than the quality (or other more important) factors, but still, it's something to consider.
Welcome back, Greekgeek.
Usually overly promotional means either:
1. More than two links pointing to one external domain or
2. Too many RSS feeds or
3. Overly promoting another site (such as a "This site is great, click through and visit".)
Usually your hub should only be posted as needing moderation IF:
1. It's previously been manually approved a moderator or
2. It has something which the automatic filter thinks is against ToS.
As far as I know, (and from the amount of spam still being published by newbies), there is not automatic editorial on newly submitted articles, generally.
I believe it is a “precaution” taken for anyone who is on “probation”. Getting put on probation seems to be the new fad here.
White Teeth (I envy your username): Thanks very much for the detailed reply.
I think I must be on probation for linking to my related work at the end of those articles I posted a few years ago. It was one link per Hub, but it was essentially a signature on all my Hubs, so I guess that was overly promotional. I hope the probation may be removed at some point.
Or I'll get burned out on Hubpages. Losing the ability to edit and polish prose, for me, is like typing without thumbs!
You're right, having the same link on every single Hub is classed as overly promotional.
I suggest you write to HubPages, explaining that you regarded the link as a signature and didn't realise it was prohibited at the time. Ask if your probation can be lifted.
And do pop back and let us know the outcome. The team is frantically busy right now so response may be slow, but I'd have thought it perfectly reasonable to lift your probation in the circumstances.
There's a lot of fuss going on about this very subject right now, with several Hubbers being put on probation. I'm trying to keep an open mind, because I don't know what "offences" these Hubbers committed - yours would be an interesting test case to see whether the HP moderation team really is being unreasonable!
Unfortunately, I'm failing to juggle publishing on multiple platforms -- a blog, Hubpages, and, er... not Hubpages -- so it's not that pressing. I'll let the uproar die down a little; once they've got things settled down to a more normal pace I may send a query. Possibly after I've written a few more articles to show that I do honestly have something to offer the site.
And thank you!
hey greekgeek. hope you get it all sorted out, I remember you from a while back (in one of my previous hub-lives) Good luck. Sorry I can't offer much for technical assistance, just wanted to say hi.
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