A Few Questions on Hubpages Moderation - Important

1. 70

   Inspiration88posted 12 years ago

   Hello,
   
   Hubpages is a good place to publish informative short articles and product reviews, while having the option to leave affiliate links to these products.
   
   I recently published a few hubs on different topics (Yeast infection, UTIs, CMS and others) and gave 4-5 links on each to useful products (many of which I have tried myself) related to the specific health issue.
   
   Yesterday I saw the 4 hubs were highlighted in red "needing revision because of being overly promotional" and that it was allowed for up to 2 links per hub. Since the products I was sharing were carefully selected for the specific issue, not simply put there in order to hit more clicks, and I do want to share them with the readers, I decided only to remove the links.
   
   So that the product titles remained as plain text in bold. These are technically not links. And I left two links on each hub - one linked product title and one link to the online store itself. (all products I refer to are from one online store to which I also give my affiliate discount code - in plain text - and ask that if anyone should buy any of the suggested products to use this code at check out)
   
   The hubs went green "waiting for administrator revision". Now I just saw they were back in red again. I checked and the warning messages now stated: for the Candida hub (rating 77) that it was still overly promotional:
   
   "This Hub has been identified as excessively promoting another site or sites. It may contain too many links, links on short or “teaser” content, too many Amazon/eBay capsules for the amount of text, or appears solely designed to procure back links. In order to have it republished, you will need to remove some or all of the links and/or revise or add to the content."
   
   Ok, so the hub does not has too many links now, just two, the rest are product titles in plain text. No product capsules or any other capsule other than comments below. The content is neither "short" nor "teaser" it is as long as the length of most hubs around and it cannot be said that the information is of low quality. On the contrary, based on its high rating - which went high quite fast. Finally, the hub, as the other hubs of mine, give quality information and are useful reviews, even though they all end with suggestion to buy the products from XXXX vendor and use the discount code. If they want, if not they had read good and useful info with guides on the concerned topic.
   
   Practically, the hubs in question are not sub-standard in their content nor do they have more than 2  links. They do promote certain products, but also quality products, not just any products for promotion's sake. After all, "writing quality, informative hubs and making money" is the point of hubpages or am I missing the point? Or is there an angry administrator on me who is taking me on personally? Which would be highly unprofessional. Don't know if there are such intrigues around here.
   
   On my UTIs hub (rating 74) the warning has changed to "Unrelated Links or Products" .. excuse me? Can the administrator give any argument on why they decided that the links (to 1 product and XXXX web store) are unrelated? There is one link to d-mannose and d-mannose IS used for urinary tract infections. Unrelated? There are no other *links*, just product titles to supplements that boost the immune system. The reason why the immune sys. needs to be boosted for UTIs (and all other infections) I have argumented in the article itself. What is this unjustified moderation here?
   
   My CMS hub (rating 68, published 3 days ago) is now marked as "substandard". Which is definitely not the case, as I said above, it is as good as many other hubs around. The grammar and spelling is normal, I guess 1 or 2 spelling mistakes can not cause a "substandard" label, could it?
   
   I recently had a small argument with user "aslanlight" in the comments section. She said that the supplements I was referring to were useless for CMS. Then I argued that she is not correct and that I did researched before recommending anything and also there were user reviews to the products themselves. Could she be a hubpages administrator, I wonder ?
   
   And the last hub from 2 days ago (62) is again marked as "substrandard", to which I also cannot agree.
   
   ... So, what is going on in hubpages? Am I missing the point? Please, comment and clarify me the situation.
   
   Thank you in advance for your responses all fellow hubbers and moderators alike who may happen to stumble upon this forums post!

   replyreport
   1. 79

      Greekgeekposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I had a similar situation a while back. I wrote a series of hubs that were essentially review seminars for college freshmen. I have TAed or taught art history and Greek mythology at the graduate level, so I thought I'd try my hand at teaching online, starting with my favorite topics: ancient Greek art and mythology. I chose Hubpages to publish them.
      
      10,000+ readers later, my Hubs were unpublished due to being "overly promotional." I had linked to a website I'd written about a trip I made to Greece, in which I included a lot more information on ancient Greek art, history, and archaeology. I deleted all the links but one on each Hub, because I wanted to retain a photo credit proving the illustrations really were my own photos of Greek art and archaeological sites. tried publishing again. They were still blocked by moderators as "overly promotional." I gave up and moved them to my own blog or other websites, where they do very well.
      
      Moral of the story: Hubpages is very, very strict on outbound links. The quality of the content is irrelevant. The relevance of the site to which you are linking also seems to be irrelevant. I'm sure HP is being even more picky since the Panda update.
      
      I'm not sure how you can work around that if you're actually promoting products: I have no idea how you could do affiliate marketing on HP under the new system.
      
      My solution has been to stop writing articles in the fields for which I've got graduate degrees -- I've been creating educational webpages for nearly 20 years, and I refuse to tiptoe around linking to things that might be useful to students, even if they're mine. So I've been writing on areas outside my major (ironically enough) which I can research, but for which I don't have a lot of work already published on the web.
      
      Good luck. Every site must find its own ways to maintain quality, and if we don't like house rules, we've simply got to publish elsewhere.

      replyreport
      1. 0

         Norah Caseyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Your hubs were duplicated, and at that time duplicate content was permitted as long as it was not accompanied by outbound, promotional links. We emailed you personally on this issue. I apologize if you did not receive this email.

         replyreport
      2. 70

         Inspiration88posted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you, Greekgeek, I actually thought  about making a blog or two on health topics and herbal supplements. Since these are increasingly developing as another interest of mine and I read a lot about it, so I will have plenty of info to share and want to give as much links as I please.
         
         Hubpages i not bad in the part of easy publishing and ready traffic. Of course, with web 2.0 and blogs SEO optimization, vizibility can be easily eacheived with good and plentiful content.
         
         Thanks for the answers! I will go sleep for today.

         replyreport
   2. 0

      Norah Caseyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Since the readers on the site cannot see your hubs, they cannot provide feedback as to why your hubs were moderated.
      
      The hub that was moderated as "overly-promotional" actually contained unrelated links. I apologize for the confusion. I have sent the correct violation email to you.
      
      One hub is promoting libido enhancing content, which we consider to be too adult for publication on HubPages.
      
      For more information on your poorly structured hubs, contact us directly by responding to your violation email(s).

      replyreport
      1. 70

         Inspiration88posted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I will, tomorrow. Thank you, Norah.

         replyreport
2. 70

   Inspiration88posted 12 years ago

   The hubs in question are similar to information and writing quality, as well as formatting to this one <link snipped>
   
   Only that two of them are longer with more info, especially the one about Candida. The only difference is that the hub on the link above refers to only one specific product with no similar product titles (in plain text) suggested in addition. Please, guide me in the rules around hubpages. Should I make a separate hub for every single product that is related to certain health condition?

   replyreport