Is it still profitable to write hubs, after the changes at Google

1. 68

   hathibelagalposted 13 years ago

   I see that hubs are getting ranked a little lower on the search results. Do you guys too see a drop in traffic?
   
   This is my first post in the forums, so please excuse me if I am posting this in the wrong forum.

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      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      My traffic has also declined, but not by much because I have continued to publish new ones though not at the same rate as before.
      Yeah the site is ranked lower, but it is still ranked, and that makes it worth fighting for.

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      bgamallposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      It can be profitable, or it can be used for ebook content. Smashwords is where Amanda Hocking started. In her first year using Smashwords and Createspace she sold 1 million ebooks and made 4 million dollars. Two million was profit and 2 million was from the book deal she signed.

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   WryLiltposted 13 years ago

   My traffic dropped 50% post panda. A lot of my hubs stopped getting views - so all those hubs (over 100) have been moved elsewhere. The trafficked hubs stayed.

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      kiwitomposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      WryLilt, have you re-posted your non-ranking hubs to another 2.0 site, or used them to form niche sites? I have a heap of hubs that are reciving zero views post-panda, however they cover a range of topics and aren't necessarily suited to a niche site so I'm looking for somewhere worthwhile to publish them. My understanding is that most 2.0 sites suffered a similar fate to hubpages when the algo changed?

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         WryLiltposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Actually a lot of "content farms" did fine - for example Squidoo. I think Hubpages got slapped because of the huge amount of spam.
         
         You could try sites like xobba, thisisfreelance or excerptz to republish your articles.

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            kiwitomposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks, i didnt know about xobba. I have a couple of articles on excerptz to see how they go... and to help give Ryan a bit of volume. I'll be intrigued to see how he goes.

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            IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I would not pull hubs from here to republish on another site. If the hubs gets unpublished then that is another matter.
            
            The sites you mention are new and do not have the authority HP hold, even now. I am surprised at an  'Elite' even suggesting unpublishing content from here to use elsewhere.

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               WryLiltposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Actually I'm getting more views there on those articles than here.

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                  habeeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  So am I.

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               Dorsiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I agree. I am holding tight. I feel this will pass and HubPages will revive.
               Patience, and more patience!

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         3. 68

            hathibelagalposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, Hubpages has a sharp dip in Alexa rankings, so very unlike Squidoo. I was wondering if this is the right time to start our own websites instead of relying on these community websites.

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               IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Yes if you know what you are doing and you are in this to make money, now is as good a time as any to start your own websites, but Hubpages has given a lot of us breaks, started us out on the road and for that I will be forever grateful.
               
               As Marissa said, hubs still make money and a lot more than they did two or three years ago. I reckon Panda has only knocked us back six months.
               
               I am continuing to publish but do not discount the possibility of moving non-performing hubs elsewhere, although to be honest as writers it is just as easy for us to re-write new articles for other sites or even our own.
               
               I think HP will recover, though I don't know when, but until then keep publishing both here and other places.

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            DMyhillposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            You could also try infobarrel and howto-guidebook.  I have found them both pretty good alternatives for the sort of articles I want to write.

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            viryaboposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Thisisfreelance is great and seems to have growing potential.
            
            I write there and have page views that seem to grow steadily.

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               mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I agree, and I am now also publishing on Thisisfreelance, Excerptz and Xobba. Considering how short the time is I have been on these sites, and how few articles I have moved to them, I am amazed that I am already earning from these newer sites, and getting good viewings. Certain Hubs do well here on Hubpages, and I shall no doubt leave them here until that changes. The best part is Xobba, Excerptz and Thisisfreelance were all unaffected by the Panda update. As everyone keeps saying, don't rely on one site, diversify and therefore spread your risk. Putting all 'your eggs in one basket' is rarely a good idea!

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   thisisoliposted 13 years ago

   I think judging by the fact that most of the profitable hubbers have left...

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      hathibelagalposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      wow, so is Hubpages a dying community?

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4. 68

   Ladybird33posted 13 years ago

   I have to say that I am HUGELY concerned as well, my hubs are slow and the money has dropped on google and not making it up here at hubpages either....great concern.  Plus, with many leaving, I am not liking that either.  Any help?

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5. 78

   LuisEGonzalezposted 13 years ago

   My hubs or rather my views have increased about 15% overall from about a month ago, however this may be because I have kept publishing a hub per day. My Adsense has declined by 9% and my Hubpages Ads have increased by about 11% for the same time period.

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   earnestshubposted 13 years ago

   Hubpages has dropped from 74th to 247th in Alexa.

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7. 59

   jasoncox83posted 13 years ago

   To give it a straight forward answer, no it is no longer profitable to write for any 2.0 site (AC,Suite,HP,Bright Hub,Helium etc. Every single one got slapped hard by Google, the only one who seemed to survive was Squidoo but good luck making any money with them lol. Any decent money that is, if it's not within the top 10,000 lens then you will never make money unless it's outside of the site.

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      kiwitomposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Hmm, thats what i thought. Do you have an opinion on the relative value of backlinks from these 2.0 sites? Are they much the same? Or are links from 2.0 sites only really good for traffic generation?

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      WryLiltposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      The way to make money from Squidoo is through Amazon.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         It didn't work for me

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            viryaboposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Me neither.
            
            In 2 years, i think i've made $10 from 3 or so from amazon sales. That was all.
            
            Otherwise, Nada!!
            
            I don't particularly like squidoo.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      That's true, to a point. However I think it's worth mentioning that although my Hubs aren't earning as much, they're still earning.
      
      Three years ago, when I started, I would've been delighted with my current income. I had no idea I could earn so much money on my articles!  I'm still earning far more here than at Helium, or any other revenue-sharing site for that matter - so it's all a matter of keeping it in perspective.

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   downpourofwordsposted 13 years ago

   There seems to be a general consensus that the Panda change has done more harm than benefit the hubbers. It is true also since 90% of bloggers reported a drop in earnings/page views. Now one thing to be understood is that this change was made by google in order to enable core businesses to prosper. Till now, everyone including bloggers, individual enterprises, ecommerce websites were benefited by Google web crawling and ranking techniques. Now google has harmed us bloggers by coming up with an algorithm which ranks individual enterprises, proprietary businesses above content marketing. This will ensure that they streamline relevant consumers to the right set of producers waiting to sell their products/services. However come what may, there will be scope for improvising the way in which we hubbers/bloggers can try to sneak through the algorithm. I am trying to figure this out with some of my buddies and I will post a hub on this soon. No software code is perfect and bereft of fallacies. There is definitely a reduction in earnings but it hasn't stopped. So lets keep our fingers crossed and wait. I will try to post my hub with some tips pretty soon.

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9. 80

   sunforgedposted 13 years ago

   That isnt even close to being true.
   
   What is true is that some sites suffered and some sites rose. For years many sites ran by individuals in smaller niches were easily overtaken by large web 2.0 powerhouses, with the Hubpages, eHows and other farms suffering from sort of domain wide devaluation many of the smaller sites have worked there way up the ladder.
   
   This also includes scraper sites, autoblogs and other crap sites that you would expect to be hurt by this "quality" focused algorithm.
   
   It would seem many really big sites arent part of googles vision anymore as previously when they were awarded high trust the searchers became annoyed at the "quality" of search results. Google isnt likely to return that trust anytime soon
   
   One should never move well performing content or unpublish for any reason - if something is unpublished then in many cases you are starting over anyway so its an opportunity to move to your own site or to the sites listed (full disclosure-one of which I am a part of)..any of the high profile article sites of yesteryear are probably pointless and you could do equally well ranking with a brand new site, a little seo knowledge and a lot of hard work - the bonus of course is 100% of the earnings (or 70-90% at the sites listed) and full ability to test different forms of advertising and reader engagement. But poor performing content, hell - spread it around as much as you can to see if it jibes better at other locations.
   
   It may be worth your time to look into guest blog posts also, even though you wont directly earn, if your content is engaging (a much better word then "quality" IMO) then you may attract readers to your own site and gain some link juice along the way.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Just what I was thinking.

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10. 79

    Sunnyglitterposted 13 years ago

    The Google changes killed my earnings.  I think I've made around $25 or $26 total for the last 2 months.  That's $13 a month, not $26 a month.  My Adsense earnings are practically nonexistent and most of my earnings are coming from HubPages AdProgram.  I'm going to stick around, though.  I have other sites where I write for profit.  HubPages is more of a creative outlet for me.  I'm still sad about my earnings, though.

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    jasoncox83posted 13 years ago

    The best way to earn money now is to just start your own website.

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    melporposted 13 years ago

    Being on Hubpage is like being in the Stock Market. Your earnings are going to fluctuate up and down based on demands from the users of Google and other search engines. Just like in the Stock Market you have to be in it for the long haul unless you get lucky and to be profitable in Hubpages you must be in it for a while. This is not a get rich quick site. I am writing on Hubpages just to make a little extra, passive income on the side. A few extra dollars can go a long ways when you need it.

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    Dolores Monetposted 13 years ago

    While I was pretty depressed over the whole Panda slap, and my traffic was way down, it is picking up slowly.
    I think that HP has a lot more work to do on getting rid of the rubbish, the 2 sentence long hubs, and spun articles.
    I also think that Google was once a democratic thing, with anyone who is willing to work, create quality articles and links able to succeed. It's a shame to penalize the little guys in favor of businesses and corporations. Just another example of the money people stepping our toes. Robbing from the poor and giving to the rich.

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    wychicposted 13 years ago

    Hubpages traffic is down about 45%, earnings for Adsense completely bottomed out before I got the HP ad program, but that is now at about 60% what I was getting in Adsense. Amazon was my big earner here, completely bottomed out for two months and now is coming back a bit, maybe I just need to be patient . Ebay earns small, but relatively steady.
    
    As for other 2.0 sites...
    
    Epinions (shockingly) up about 30%
    Helium remains steady (I've been writing there for four years, did not see a significant difference with Panda)
    AC dropped by about 40%
    
    And for my own sites, traffic up about 20% but the earnings are right about the same. Working on implementing a new monetization strategy now.

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15. 83

    Whitney05posted 13 years ago

    HUGE DRASTIC SADDENING drop in income!
    
    I have seen an increase for my blogs though...

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16. 0

    Helpful Hannaposted 13 years ago

    I sure hope HubPages recovers.  I really enjoy writing hubs, but also hope to make a bit of income.  Just have to wait it out I guess.

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17. 68

    Glenn Stokposted 13 years ago

    I use my Google AdSense account for HubPages and also for my own business site. I've noticed less income from HubPages after the Panda changes. But the traffic and income from my own site has not changed. I can understand why. I have a site dedicated to one thing and every page on it relates to that same subject. Whereas HubPages (or any content farm) has many unrelated subjects, some well written and some offering nothing of value. The latter effects all of us. Even though HP staff is hard at work to fix that problem, I still see spam hubs and spam comments in Hubs as they keep coming. It's up to all of us to help fight this by flagging these when we see them.

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    Dame Scribeposted 13 years ago

    I am going to jus sit tight n leave my Hubs where they be. I been busy offline but still getting views but we should also keep in mind - Panda won't be the 1st algorithm change that will occur - next one may zoom us back up patience is all I can say for now.

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