Hub Pages has certainly changed!

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   ahorsebackposted 19 months ago

   Having been a part of Hub-Pages for about six years , I can say I miss the way it used to be  .  There was a 'closeness '  to our participatory involvement then , writers  both  creative and instructional  , used to have a  clearer ,closer involvement ,  a better interaction .   The views and  hits  for the overall sight seem to have become more important than the smaller  family- like role of it's members . Not that I care much about score ,as a creative writer this doesn't matter , I do miss the better part of that ,once  "human" interaction , rather than the "sell it " sight that Hubs has become .Has it changed to for the better to you ?
   
   Any  thoughts ?.

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      KoffeeKlatch Galsposted 19 months ago in reply to this

      ahorseback,
      I too have been watching the change here.  I also started 6 years ago.  I believe the change happened when Squidoo articles came into HubPages.  I do understand what you are saying and I do miss the closeness we seem to have back then but I do know as you grow bigger the closeness is harder to continue.  I think there are still some that strive to be close with those they know the best here.

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         ahorsebackposted 18 months ago in reply to this

         I have joined and un-joined other sights  but there just isn't the closeness that there used to be here  ,   and poetry  and story writing ; might as well not be a part of hub pages at all  ! Oh well That's what I do so ..........

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         Marisa Wrightposted 18 months ago in reply to this

         I don't think the Squidoo transfer made any difference - the change happened long before that.
         
         A few years ago - when HubPages was struggling to get traffic even more than now - a huge fight emerged in the forums between the creative writers and the factual writers.   I still don't know who started it, but fundamentally, the creative writers accused the factual writers of being philistine hacks with no soul, and the factual writers accused the creative writers of dragging down the site by writing Hubs that weren't Google-friendly. 
         
         The upshot was that several good writers left HubPages at the time, and the forums never really recovered IMO.

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            ahorsebackposted 18 months ago in reply to this

            I often wonder how many hubs about   making cup  cakes ,  how to enter a hot dog eating contest  or some such thing can be more  popular  than creative story telling ?

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               Marisa Wrightposted 18 months ago in reply to this

               It has nothing to do with popularity and everything to do with how people find articles and stories on the internet.   The active HubPages community is very small (much smaller than it used to be), and it's made up of writers not readers - we do read each other's work if we have time, but it's not the main reason we're here. 
               
               So, to get readers, they need to come from outside HubPages - and how do people find articles on the internet?   Apart from the odd link on social media, most people still rely on Google.
               
               If you want to read a wonderful, creative story, or a terrific poem, what do you type into Google to find it? Try a few alternatives - chances are the results you get will be sites that specialise in short stories or poetry.  No one knows what the titles of your stories are, so no one is using those to search.  That means no one is finding creative stories on HubPages because they don't come up in search results. 
               
               Whereas people are searching on Google all the time for topics like "how to make cup cakes" or "how to enter a hot dog eating contest", and if that's the title of a Hub, there's a good chance Google will include it in the results.

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                  ahorsebackposted 18 months ago in reply to this

                  Marisa , thank you , you certainly understand the web better than I  ,  what I miss though is the smaller , closer community  that was hub-pages ,   maybe it is as simple as life itself though ,  we all miss what seemed  better then  than what is the now ?   In truth though , I have joined other smaller writing sights  where you could hear the crickets  chirping !

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                     Rodeonposted 18 months ago in reply to this

                     Would you like to share with us what those sites are? Thank you.

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      daydreamer13posted 18 months ago in reply to this

      Hubpages has definitely changed and not for the better. I must say, I'm about done here. I feel like I have been holding on for a long time but now my grip is finally loosening.

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   Kathryn L Hillposted 19 months ago

   The human element will always reign. Have no fear.
   Actually, I think people have become more serious in general as there are important issues on the horizon. We have to know more, be more and work harder to stay afloat on so many levels. Life is harder. We are more serious in a quest to become more conscious. Or drown in ignorance.
   So I observe.

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      ahorsebackposted 18 months ago in reply to this

      You always have had such great insight Kathryn!   I agree.

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         Rodeonposted 18 months ago in reply to this

         

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   WillStarrposted 19 months ago

   For me (and others agree), it's the almost total lack of writer support from management. I lost my adsense account (and all my earnings!) after about a year of writing, but management simply ignored my request for help.
   
   It also seems that there ought to be some sort of extra support for writers who earn it. For instance, I've been voted best fiction writer twice by my fellow writers, but other than a t-shirt or coffee cup, management simply ignores it. Why not promote exceptional work and authors, instead of relying solely on key words and search engine traffic?
   
   But I've said all this before only to be ignored, and I suppose that accounts for the reason so many others have abandoned HubPages.

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      ahorsebackposted 18 months ago in reply to this

      Will , you should be a published author , if you aren't already !   I too have considered leaving .

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      Rodeonposted 18 months ago in reply to this

      Thank you for your honest and most sincere feedback.

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   paradigmsearchposted 18 months ago

   The messing around, fun days certainly seem to be gone. Pretty much all I see now is either seriousness and/or unhappiness.

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