Smells Like HubPages

I published this article on Qondio on March 16, 2011. After fixing 24 of my hubs in order for them to not be deleted by the editors according to the new rules for articles. The warning was that there were to many Amazon products on these hubs. The new rule is one Amazon or eBay product per 50 words. As in the brag as much as you want with your Zazzle products on Squidoo, the Amazon and eBay products seemed unlimited on HubPages. Well this is not the case any more! These are all fixed (took all day), except one which is a recipe hub and will be a new recipe lens on Squidoo soon. You can leave a comment and rate this on Qondio Here!

Bellow is the article I published.

Smells Like HubPages

By Sandy Mertens

New rules on Hubpages have made me love Squidoo even more!
Having never really understood HubPages and their point system, I have asked for help with some of the masters there. I followed their advice with getting more involved with the forums, groups, contest, commenting voting up hubs, keywords, adding more content, staying active on HubPages and promoting as much as I can. My score remains in the low 80s.

For a very short time, my hubscore was in the low 90s. If your score is not 100 or near that, no one will find you from the main page.

I can't help but feel that HubPages is a good old boys club, if you are not in it, too bad for you.

I know people with a few hubs and a high score on their main page. These people are not as active on HubPages either.

Scoring does not mean you don't have well written content. I have seen many hubs from popular hubbers with near perfect scores that were short and substandard. Yet the score on their hub was high. Now I am not trying to take apart any particular hubber. There are many talented writers there. However, the scoring does not add up. I have been following one hubber who happens to be a doctor. She writes about all different medical problems in terms a layperson can understand. Her hubs are always well written and informative. At the time that I am writing this, her score is 1. That is right! A single digest number score. Maybe she hasn't participated as much as I have or added as many pretty pictures in her hub. But does she deserve a 1 in her main profile page?

New rules added to HubPages will make it harder to enjoy this social network site.

1. All duplicate content hubs will be eliminated from their site. Fair enough, I believe in originality and not duplicate content. Out of my 80 hubs, one is label duplicate. It is a recipe hub. The article links the editors sent me where not even close to my recipe. There were similarities, but all recipes will have this. I love this recipe and I am sure the people on Squidoo will too!

2. There is now a limit to how many Amazon and eBay products that one can have listed in your hubs. These also reflex on the word content verses products in your hub. Nothing wrong with that unless your article is about those products and Squidoo recently enforced a limit to Amazon and eBay products as well. But Squidoo is more flexible if your main purpose is to have a product lens. In fact, selling Amazon products is encouraged.

I have many gift hubs that now have this warning. If I don't fix it by March 25, 2011, these hubs of mine may not be in existence.

Not a new change but something you should know, HubPages only allowed two links to an outside site, unless you were able to RSS it. While Squidoo, it is nine. If you are a Zazzler it is hard to promote your shop on HubPages. On Squidoo the link limit does not apply to Zazzle products. You can promote and brag away.

It looks like a lot of overhauling on HubPages or moving my hubs to friendlier places.

Here are some Kindle and paperback books on Hubpages, Squidoo and social networking.