Unfeatured articles and advice on hubs

1. 85

   NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years ago

   I have finally published a hub that has been deemed unfeatured. I can only direct my attention to a table I inserted which was long when viewed on the mobile platform. Grammar is checked, titles tweaked, content is solid as its in the same vein as my other articles. Do you think this could be it? Ive not got more than 3 Amazon links (to relatable sources within the hub) and no external links. My initial email was to proofread, but Id fone that even before getting the email as I had spotted some words my grammar checker had passed. I unpublished it, then published it again and its still giving me a heads up.
   Also when listed in my account, it shows all (but this one) is featured. When clicking on my profile though (without being logged in) a box comes up showing featured articles and only three are listed. Is that the norm?
   Ps, ill post it if I have to but Im too annoyed right now... perhaps its an automated response as a flagged article?

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   1. 95

      theraggededgeposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Three Amazon links might be too many. Can you reduce it to one? More links/capsules doesn't necessarily mean more sales - your reader only has to click through once and you will get the commission whatever they purchase over the next 24 hours.

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2. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 6 years ago

   It's really quite rare to see Hubs with more than two Amazon links these days.
   
   Was each link directly related to the title of the Hub, and did you give your personal review of each product?

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3. 72

   Marie Flintposted 6 years ago

   You might try breaking up that table a bit. See if there's a way to create two or more separate tables. Ideas: alphabetically, chronologically, or by theme. Good luck!

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4. 85

   NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years ago

   @ragged, yes and yes. The links are fine. They each have more than enough info to be infinately about the product. I appreciate your advice though.
   @marie yes, ive decided that ill separate the table. It must be that. I know HP doesnt like large blocks of text because its an ad free space. Ill do that asap i think and it shouldhe good to go. Fingers crossed

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I find it very hard to believe the table is the culprit.
      
      If you post in the "Improving your Hub" section, you're allowed to post a link to your Hub, which would make life easier for all of us.

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5. 0

   pen promulgatesposted 6 years ago

   I agree with Marisa, it should not be the table. If you have corrected the grammar issue (as stated), it must get featured.
   
   I agree with theraggededge too. Issue may be the links, but then quality hasn't mentioned in the feedback that it's spammy or over promotional.
   
   Posting the article in the forum will give the clear picture.

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6. 85

   NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years ago

   Its just weird as its a part two of a series, my part one has more links. Not over the top but still 4 over the 3 in this one. Table amendment didnt work. Ive been amending, unpublishng and republishing. The only actual point that has been raised is proof read - which ive done. Read aloud, run through grammar check etc. so annoying. There is a style tip on it about the bold but part one has similar style and no alert. Heres the link
   https://hubpages.com/entertainment/More … ot-a-Ghost

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I think I see why.   You're thinking of this as the second instalment of a series and writing it as if the reader has read the introduction of part 1.  I hate to break it to you, but no one is going to do that - and HP knows it.  Read as a standalone Hub, which is how 99% of readers will see it, there's no explanation why these films belong together. It reads as though you wrote a Hub about Manson films and then tacked on something else as an afterthought.  I think that may be the problem. 
      
      I know you're fairly new, so I'm not sure if you're aware of how HubPages works.  Although we all have our own account and a profile etc, most readers don't even notice who we are, or look at any of our other Hubs.   90% of  HubPages' visitors arrive at one specific Hub, having searched for the answer to a question on Google.  They probably won't even notice they're on HubPages, and they may never come back again. 
      
      That has major implications for what you choose to write.   If someone is searching for a specific movie review, Google is always going to rank Rotten Tomatoes and the other movie sites higher than your Hub, so you have Buckleys of competing.   That may be why you're choosing to group films together, but you need to choose titles that includes phrases people are searching for, to have any chance of being ranked.
      
      A couple of little things:
      
      You've got an extra line of white space between every section.   I assume each section is a separate text capsule - go into each text capsule, put your cursor at the end of the capsule and hit the Delete button a few times.  That should get rid of any excess lines.   
      
      Your images are mainly illegal.  In practice, some of the websites wouldn't mind, IF you actually linked to the website instead of linking to the image file.  But do be careful, we have had Hubbers sued for thousands of dollars for using images they didn't have the right to.

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7. 85

   NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years ago

   First thanks for taking the time to look at my hub.
   Ive thought about your comments before responding.
   Ive taken out the white spaces.
   Ive added the word movies to the title so that the title explains the article.
   This is not the first two part hub ive written, my other two are about series and are featured and gets tonnes of traffic. I decided to do another listed version as ive been researching the niche site for my chosen area and along with single reviews which I do also, most hubs there are listed articles w little info. I add additional info that I find myself searching for when I read them.
   Funny thing is I decided not to put an intro based on your hub which you directed me to, perhaps ill think about adding more to the summary at the end however for now ive added additional info to the conpresses summary section here.
   Im v. Careful with copyright, ive read through a few pieces on the net, on here and looked at other hubs.
   I noticed you hardly have any pictures : i dabble in photography, the link to my page is on my profile, id be happy to take some for you. I assume the photos i do see, you took youself? As i dont see any sources.
   I didnt however realise i was linking to the photo and had thought i was linking to the site so i will get about amending that. From what i understand linking to sites puts the blame on them however these types of images are generally covered by common use due to the photo use not detracting from the entity.
   I know Im new, but im educated.
   My title was decided on hesitantly, i dont actually like it. Its too long according to Hub standards which specify recommending no longer than 11 words. I can title is similarly to others I saw as they provide little info in the articles i saw on google, just pictures with the name of the movie. I was hoping HP would snip it and do the work for me but alas.
   I didnt want to put the hub up, i find alot of advice is beside the point. I explained the only note i had recieved was : proofread, then the standard generic email covering things to look for - which id done prior to resub.
   I think ill try deleting sections and resubmitting each time as im sure its something minor.
   Again i appreciate your time marisa. I wish one could write a quick note to them for more specific info.

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      My bad, I know I said "don't waste time on introductions" but in this case, I think you've gone a bit too far.  On the first Hub, you have a sentence or two that explains why those films belong together.  On the second Hub, you don't provide that explanation, so it looks a bit random. 
      
      I'm not sure I get what you mean by "putting the blame" on the website you get the image from? If the photo is legal to use, then you're not putting them at risk of anything - and I always feel, if you're going to take advantage of what they've provided, the least you can do is give them a backlink as a thank-you.
      
      Thanks for the offer of photos, that's kind of you.  I use Pixabay mostly, and they don't require any credit.   I have never used a lot of photos - I rarely include a photo just because it looks pretty.  It has to make a positive contribution to the Hub.

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8. 62

   qeylerposted 6 years ago

   I have found that going back over a non-featured hub is a waste of time in about 70% of the cases.  Sure, if you take out Amazon ads, bold words, links, you could squeak by but few things are more disheartening than fixing a hub and it is non-featured again for no reason.

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9. 92

   Kenna McHughposted 6 years ago

   I am in the same boat. My article was featured for a long time. I adjusted the photos, and it became unfeatured. I have tried to figure out what is up and usually it isn't a problem and easy to correct. But, not this time...4 tries and still not feature. Unbelievable.  https://hubpages.com/education/Solar-Energy-and-Kids

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Kenna, the rules and standards have changed a lot recently - but HubPages doesn't go back and check old Hubs to see if they comply.  So it's common to have old Hubs that are Featured, simply because moderators haven't looked at them for a long time. 
      
      When you edit an old Hub, that sends it through the system again and it's judged by the new standards. 
      
      I took a look at your Hub and can't see what the problem is.   The only thing that caught my eye was your bio.   We're not allowed to promote ourselves or our employers here, and I'm wondering if someone skimmed your bio and read it as though you're still employed by that company and writing to promote them.  Try changing it.

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   2. 85

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I see your problem.  Your title is poorly written and does not really match your topic.  Your story line does not stick to one subject.
      
      If you are writing about solar for kids, then that's what you should stick to.  Forget about what parents can do, resources, etc.
      
      You need to narrow your topic.  Why is solar fun for kids?  or  What kids need to know about Solar?, etc.  Then list and discuss each thing in the capsules.
      
      Are you talking about your kids or all kids?  If you're talking about your kids, nobody will really care.  If you're talking about all kids, that will perk interest.
      
      Keep yourself out of the conversation...otherwise what you're writing seems like a blog rather than a magazine type article...which is what we write here at HP.
      
      This hub has a chance at being good, but it really needs a lot of work and reorganization.

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   3. 62

      qeylerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      When you deal with A.I. or trash Mods, this is exactly what happens.

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      1. 86

         Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         If I recall correctly, qeyler, most of your Hubs are UnFeatured for lack of traffic.  That decision is not made by trash mods or AI.   It's a simple traffic counter that counts your traffic from Google.   If you don't get enough traffic, the Hub is unFeatured.
         
         The system was introduced because HubPages can't afford to scrutinise every single old Hub.  There are thousands of them.  So it was decided to use traffic as a measure - the rationale is that if Google doesn't like a Hub, there's a good chance it's poor quality and therefore it's safer to hide it. 
         
         At the time the system was introduced, HubPages acknowledged there would be "collateral damage" - it would catch a lot of good quality Hubs that weren't search-engine-friendly.  But the site's future was hanging in the balance and they felt it was a price that had to be paid.  After all, there was nothing to stop Hubbers learning how to make their Hubs search-engine-friendly, and fixing them.

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10. 85

    NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years ago

    @kenna, yeah its weird right?
    I can guess as to why for your article but as its not an exact science, i would only be speculating not actually knowing if i was solving the problem or adding to it.
    I have discovered an email address for HP but unsure if Id be wasting my time.
    I think ill ignore it for a second, move on and then come back to it.
    @quyler - i would take out the bold but my part ine is the same and its featured so im not going to waste my time. I already went through and un-italic'ed all my movie titles with no benefit.
    
    My guess after reading through some backlogged questions regarding similar is its flagged. Hopefully i was thinking of deleting it and rewriting it.
    
    I do need a new title though - its irritating me.
    I chose that because all the ither titles regarding these types of films are
    5 movies with home invasions and mixes of those words and i wanted an unused title.
    Maria seems to be quite knowledgable on the whole google search engine thing and i was trying to be unique after reading her hubs.
    
    Any one care to give it a new title so i can delete them and rewrite the two as a whole?

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    1. 86

       Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       I'm sorry if I gave the impression your Hub title has to be unique.  I'll have to go back and fix that part of the Hub, obviously I've done a bad job of explaining that bit!  There's no point in having a unique title if it's something no one would ever type into Google.
       
       The important thing for your title is that it MUST include a phrase that people are searching for.  You can work that out by asking yourself, "what would I type into Google if I was searching for this type of movie?".   Then try typing that into Google.  Once you've got the results, look at the bottom of the page and see what the "related searches" are.  Those are phrases that people are actually typing into Google, so they are worth considering. 
       
       Once you've got a list of searched phrases, then you can look and see whether those phrases are already "taken" by other articles.  If there are already several articles using that exact match phrase in their title, check them out - is yours better?  If so, use the same title and be damned. If not, then you need to try to find another angle - BUT it still needs to be a phrase that's searched for, otherwise you're wasting your time.
       
       Unfortunately, I just tried "home invasion movies" and ALL the search terms are variations on the words "home invasion".  The only other one I found was "movie where family is held hostage in their house", which is a bit of a mouthful.  So I'd say you need to have the words "home invasion" in the title, there's no getting around it if you want to get traffic.

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11. 86

    Marisa Wrightposted 6 years ago

    Oh, and the email address to write to is team @ hubpages.com

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12. 85

    NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years ago

    Pfft I dont know what happened but after re-edit and re-rewrite and pain, pain, pain.. I got the same email for the millionth time and decided to drop it. Boom, its featured. Lol I think Ive entered the twilight zone.

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    1. 62

       qeylerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       Yup. That's why this site is so crappy.

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       1. 85

          NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years agoin reply to this

          Actually qeyler, I love the site and Ive since received an email from HP acknowleding my query. They would need to use an automated service with the amount of hubs they would generate. However the thing that irks me is the amount of incorrect advice given on what constitutes a Non Quality hubs. People can argue all they want about stuff raised above but none of it mattered in my previous hubs. What i needed was proofreading... i had a few small typos and some sentences that were not flowing. They were the issue.

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          1. 86

             Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

             You will always get good advice, bad advice and irrelevant advice when you post on the forums for help.  We are not staff, and we are not the Mechanical Turkers who chose to unFeature your article, so we are just giving our best guesses.  You're going to get advice from experienced, long-standing Hubbers, from relative newcomers, and from people who've been here for ages but actually don't know much.  It's up to you to choose which advice to follow.
             
             I think you put us all off-track when you said the grammar was all checked.  I know that doesn't mean spelling and punctuation but in my head, I took that to mean it was proof-read so i didn't even consider that possibility.
             
             My advice wasn't necessary to get the Hub featured but I do believe that following it would result in better traffic and better income.

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             1. 85

                NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                It had been checked. Many times by two separate tools. Sometimes though its just re-reading with a second set of eyes catches it. I pointed out that my email had said proofread as the clue. Seeing as it was featured without further amendments from my original publish, I would hazzard a guess like everyone else seems to do and narrow it down to those few sentences going over their allowable mistake counter.
                I understand putting it to forum garners variable advice, I prefer not to, however that was a suggested measure in the generic email section and I was ensuring I had ticked all the boxes. Here's hoping I get the same result with the last remaining unfeatured hub then it will be 100% featured again.
                I understand the google title search thing, I had only changed my tack after reading your hub so Ive gone back to checking out similar articles within google, doing it better and tweaking the title to a catchier tune.

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                1. 95

                   theraggededgeposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                   You can't rely on software to catch all grammatical and spelling errors. My favourite trick is to read the text out loud. Apparently it uses a different part of the brain. Also printing it out, so that you are seeing it in a different format and context, can help. As a last option, get someone else to proofread for you.

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                   1. 85

                      NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                      My new app has a feature that reads it out loud which is pretty cool and Ive since published a new hub which went straight to featured and took less time to write than normal. So here's to spitting out tonnes of perfect hubs from here on in

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                      1. 86

                         Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                         Yup, a lot of it is just getting the knack.  Sounds like you've got it!

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                2. 86

                   Marisa Wrightposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                   ...and thank you for pointing out that my Hub obviously wasn't clear, otherwise it wouldn't have sent you off on such a wrong strategy.   I'm going to have a go at rewording it to make it clearer.

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       2. 82

          jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

          I have an off the wall theory. I recently experienced the same thing... a hub just would not be featured after 10s of edits...while other less worked article got featured on the first try...?
          
          My theory is that HubPages is experimenting with new software that governs the QAP process...
          This new software has elements of AI in the technology though very primitive.
          It is in the learning stage...
          It does not have a good understanding of what should be featured or not...
          It has some basic criteria such as formatting, spelling and grammar and punctuations...
          It can check for poor quality images or whether it is appropriate on a smart phone device for viewing....
          However, it lacks the basic human touch of seeing and reading a piece of work with context.
          Therefore, any article that falls out of this normal arbitrary criteria will not be featured. A good example is poetry.
          Most poems will not be featured here because it is too short.
          Hubpages like articles that are at minimum 300 words...
          Just an off the wall theory...

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          1. 85

             NessMovieReviewsposted 6 years agoin reply to this

             I agree.

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13. 0

    pen promulgatesposted 6 years ago

    The QAP also includes the clearance of an article through mechanical turk workers. They read the article in person and decide whether the piece qualifies featuring or not.
    That's how you get the message a moderator made a following comment/suggestion for your hub. What about that?

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    1. 82

       jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       That is only a small number of selected articles.There are thousands of articles created each day in HubPages. I assure you, they don't have the manpower to review each article...in fact, I made a test a while back and it proofed beyond a reasonable doubt that the QAP process is done without human intervention....for 95% of the articles in my estimation.

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14. 0

    pen promulgatesposted 6 years ago

    Wow. That's something new to know. I have 15 featured articles so far. When I see their stats, all of them have views from Mturk. That too minutes before getting featured. I believe that's reviewing by them. (You also check if you have that).
    Another suggestion I can give is, see if the grammar and punctuation are correct. If yes, unpublish the rejected hub and create a new hub. See, if that works.

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