I have published two hubs, and both of them have lost points for not having summaries. I'm not against writing a summary, if I can do it without simply being redundant. Would you be willing to critique these and give concrete examples of what good summaries would look like?
Another little problem--I don't know how to copy and paste the link to the hubs into this box. Here are the links as best as I know how to give them to you:
http://johannaanderson.hubpages.com/hub … undraising
http://johannaanderson.hubpages.com/hub … my-Seating
Thanks,
Johanna
"The adoption process can be a financial drain for many families. Learn how fundraising for adoption can help alleviate some of the financial burden during the adoption process. Find 'how to' tips and solutions in (your name)'s informative article from a family (or say from the '____' family) who has successfully used fund raising for adoption."
I've use the keywords 'fund raising' twice and used the space between the words on one occasion, allowing for the way people search.
I've used the keyword 'adoption' and/or 'adoption process' three times.
I've used your name. (I almost always use my name because it gets it circulating more for my book promotion).
I've inserted the words 'how to' because this is a big search word.
Instead of a real summary, I'd give a "teaser".
"Ever tried to sleep on long flights in economy class? Not exactly your bed at home. Here are 4 tips to get your forty winks so you can arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to explore strange and exotic lands! "
You don't "lose points" for not having a summary - HP only recently bought in having to write your own summary. Before that they'd take your first few sentences. Sometimes summaries aren't even what show up in searches, depending what keywords are used to find your articles.
Just write a few sentences summing up your article. For instance in one about dogs "There are many dog breeds. This article looks at some of the most popular."
To find out how to make the links, click on "formatting" at the bottom right when you're creating a new post.
A good word picture for the summary is "movie trailer." Think of how the trailer gives you tantalizing little peeks of the movie; do the same with your summary. Give the reader a few morsels to make them want to click on your article rather than a competitor's.
Yup. A long list of options is presented to a possible reader by the search engines.
That summary is very important in giving them an idea as the whetehr your page is worth the effort of clicking into.
What's it about? What would make YOU read it? Two or three sentences.
Maybe, subtly, include your main title keyword, although I don't know if that is essential.
If I wrote "Grand Page About Toys" my summary might say "This is a page about toys and how grand they are... etc."
Caveat. My traffic is laughable. I am a failure.
I DETEST writing summaries. Most of my hubs have that text lazily copied from some part of the hub and the rest contain a few sentences that embarrass me every time I read them.
Had I the financial ability, I would farm that odious task out to someone else.
The "Summary" on HubPages is more commonly known as the Description Meta Tag. This description is usually used on the search engine results pages underneath the page title of a website. Do a search on Google for any query, and you'll see a description given for every link on the results. Google will use your description when it is relevant to the search query. If not, Google will pull content from your webpage and display that instead. The purpose of the description tag is to get the web searcher to click thru to your webpage. Therefore, it must be written like sales copy, which it really is. To learn more about the description meta tag and how to write one, go to this link http://tinyurl.com/7d6ut5a and scroll down just a bit until you see "SEO Description Tag." It's an important part of the on page optimization of every Hub you write.
Thanks for all the great answers. I really had no idea what the summary even was until I read your replies. I thought the summary part of the hub was the conclusion.
Now that I know what a summary is, where do I place it in the hub? I haven't seen any spot in the capsules that is earmarked for the summary.
Thanks, Johanna
On the right hand side when editing, under the Add More Capsules section.
If I have an intro that I think really draws people in, I will either not write a summary or just copy and paste that intro as the summary.
by Jamie Brock 9 years ago
Is anyone else afraid of adding summaries to their hubs?In general, my hubs that have a summary do not do as well as my hubs that do not have a summary. All of my best hubs do not have summaries. I know it is suggested to add a summary to every hub but this makes me afraid...
by Rosemary Amrhein 13 years ago
I have 53 left out of 177!I never knew we were to write summaries!
by Geri McClymont 6 years ago
The character limit for our article summary is 300 characters, yet only a portion of those characters show up beside our article on our profile page. Does anyone know if it is advantageous --in terms of generating more views--to leave our article summary at 300 characters (and not worry about a...
by Samantha Cubbison 4 years ago
Check out our latest video to find out how to craft a good summary/meta description. We'll cover the best ways to hook your readers and give the impression of professionalism without sacrificing intrigue, and finish up by providing good and bad examples of author summaries. Watch it now on our ...
by Loraine Brummer 4 years ago
Which is the most important for search engine searches: the Hub summary or the first paragraph of the Hub? I thought the summary was most important, but I notice that sometimes searches show the first sentences in the hub. Are both equally important?
by Raye 10 years ago
Please do something to the filters so that Hub summaries as graphically-cluttered as the below can be found. This can't be helping.
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |