What Hubpages is NOT
69What do you think Hubpages is for?
See results without votingHubpages is a website focusing on a vast knowledge base which is user-created. Creators of content on Hubpages are called Hubbers, or Hub Authors. There are many opportunities to earn money, and have a lot of fun at the same time, but we all need to remember a few things about Hubpages as a site.
Read on to find out what Hubpages is not, meaning the things you shouldn't do on Hubpages. Please be aware as you read that these are observations made in my tenure here thus far, and are not the official words of Hubpages Staff.
A Marketing Strategy
Hubpages is not a place for people to launch or perpetuate MLM, Affiliate Program, or IM (Internet Marketing) schemes. For one, your particular flavor of marketing ploy is not considered evergreen content because it may fold, fail or cease operation based on any number of factors. Secondarily, writing a Hub about your program and linking to it may sound fine, but it is self-promotion and these types of Hubs rarely do well for one simple reason: Your goal is to build a huge downline, which means that there are potentially thousands of people trying to put out the same information as you, diluting your Hub's worth to the average reader.
A Blog
First and foremost, Hubpages is not a blogging service. If you want to write a post about your day, things that make you angry, current events in your backwater hometown, or ask how we're doing, use the Hubber's Hangout to chat with other people.
Let me repeat:
HUBPAGES.COM IS NOT A WEBSITE TO POST YOUR BLOG ON! IT'S NOT A DIARY, A PERSONAL JOURNAL, OR ANYTHING OF THAT SORT.
When you hit that publish key, make sure you're writing an informative article, not talkinga bout what you had for dinner or where you're going on summer vacation.
If you want to write a blog, start at one of these sites below:
A Storefront
While many of us came to Hubpages to make money for writing, this doesn't mean that the writing you do should be a full page advertisement for your product or service. This goes back to the Marketing ploy topic, and is just as much of a no-no as blogging or marketing ploys.
A word of advice: If you want to promote a clickbank product or something like that, write a comprehensive review about the item for people to read and get an idea of whether it is useful for them. Include videos showing the item being used, a picture or two of it, and don't spam your clickbank link, just put the link somewhere in the middle. Likewise, if you want to add a relevant clickbank product to your Hub, link it somewhere in your text and go on about your business.
A Place for Spam
Dear Spammers,
Don't think we don't know who you are. You there, the guy who posts a dozen messages, one in each category, to tell us about a website that sells Nike shoes at 50% off.. go away! That's not what Hubpages is about, buddy.
You, the request spammer - don't know why you think you have to put the same request in 184 times, when once is just fine.
Hubbers are SMART. We won't take this kind of behavior, and neither will Maddie Rudd, the community Moderator. Post your question once and only once in the request section. If you want to advertise a product, see the topic above.
If you play your cards right on Hubpages, you stand to gain quite a bit from your time here. Pay close attention to what Hubpages is not, and if you are still confused, try reading the FAQ!
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Most Important
First, before I reveal the last "What Hubpages is NOT" point, I'd like to thank Hoodala for reminding me of it. This is something I've been known to be guilty of in the past, and I fully admit it.
Hubpages is NOT a site to post your paraniod theories, hate mail, negative rants or flame wars on. Hubpages is NOT a site to come to when you want to insult, belittle, badger, fight with, troll, harrass and/or try to abuse people.
Part of the reason why Hubpages works so well is that the users self-moderate. Watch the forums someday, when someone posts a message that is spammy, it's gone really fast because of the great Moderator we have in Maddie, and the prompt assistance of Hubbers just like you or someone you know. If we don't watch out for ourselves, and our newfound friends here on Hubpages, that means we're not taking responsibility for our actions, and we're letting our friends falter.
Be Kind, Be Considerate, disagree if you must but try and remember that we're all human beings (except for the comment bots and snake oil salesmen!)
Tell me, what are some positive things about Hubpages everyone needs to know?Loading...
It sure is nice of you to make yourself the self appointed hub police. Where are the rules written that say I cannot write about what I had for dinner? Just because you disagree with what other people write doesn't mean you have the right to dictate to them what they can and can't write. I find it hilarious that a "hubber" or user of any site feels they have the right to dictate what can and can't be done on a site they don't own. I am sure you will delete this comment because you know that once you step back and take a look at this article you really have no right to write it.
Hoodala, I'm writing a new section to this hub just for you. Thank you for reminding us all of another thing Hubpages is NOT for.
well, great hub, though I believe that everyone here is just because we love this site and this community. People that create a hub for spamming or promoting inappropriate things are not coming back and I've never seen such hubs were given any good score...Any way, thanks again for summarizing everything!
Good reminder to all..and if they take offense well so be it..it is their right. I agree that this is a place for writers and not for self promotions, but for self admitting...self pride....self saving...self expression...self help...God Bless and care...G-Ma :o) hugs
Good thoughts and ideas. However, I think it would be a mistake to define HubPages quite so narrowly or rigidly. The site represents different things to different Hubbers. It's not ever going to be a Paris review, publishing poetry and fiction by the likes of Ernest Hemmingway or T.S. Eliot, but it can be a vehicle for good poetry and fiction, a source of useful information and a place to share humorous mashups of cartoons videos, picrtures, and comments on issues of the day.
I think most humor is evergreen, Ralph. Most of the things you mention are very tight niches, but having a small number of readers doesn't mean they aren't evergreen content. Nothing in this Hub rules out creative writing - but a "dear diary" Hub about what your boyfriend should be saying to you and isn't has a very, very tiny chance of being of interest to anyone but the writer. I suspect even the boyfriend wouldn't be interested in reading it!
Diary-worthy incidents can be made evergreen by drawing out the elements of broader relevance - modern relationships, or differences between men and women, or some statistics about how widespread the issue might be.
Hubbers who apply that sort of thought to their Hubs can get away with very personal and diary-like content, because the content is illustrating a point. I have seen some truly excellent examples of this genre.
Without a well-developed point, though, a "dear diary" Hub is relatively low-value.
Great hub. A great reminder.
Thank you all for your comments! Jenny, you hit the nail on the head of my thoughts on the matter of sharing something personal but in so doing making the Hub something more meaningful.
I tried, in writing this (and believe me when I say this Hub URL has been sitting unpublished and in the works for a bit now) to explain things that a prospective Hubber should avoid, and taking out these topics or types of Hubs still leaves a wide and innumerable range of things a Hubber CAN do. We're all here to present something different, which is wonderful and welcome, however at the same time we could all be mindful of things not to do in our time here. Myself, I've got to work on the last point I made. :D
Well said Charlotte. Thumbs up.
regards Zsuzsy
Well done, I think you have covered most of it. I believe we are all still learning so much more about hubpages itself from each other.
We make mistakes sure, but as you said, someone will usually come in explain what we have done wrong. That is good. The day you are born you start learning and the only time you stop learning is the day you die. We are never tooooo old to learn something new.
gamer girl
i find you too rude to dictate terms and conditions to your hub readers
you can advocate diplomacy
also can you do anything to stop people from giving a vivd account of scantily clad celebrities
you are making hub pages too serious
take things lightly or call yourself a moral police of hub pages
Thanks for the hub. The purists ...the hippies...the hubnazis....Must not be making dime from hubpages...Its cool. I heard this phrase one time and I believe it to be true and tends to cleanse every network over time. "Give a man enough rope and he will hang himself." A hub about hub content I think that is somewhere on the site already. I applaud you for delicately picking up the subject again.
Hi Gamer, just a side note lol, I remember a while back that Paul Edmondson issued an invitation in a hub that he published for people to blog on hubpages, it has taken me a while but I found it here http://hubpages.com/hub/Whats_a_Blog_Anyways
so I guess it must be ok to blog here even if the information is trivial.....jimmy
Heh. Thanks for showing me that, Jimmy. I still believe that a Hub written like most of the blogs I read (personal blogs, not business "blogs") would be considered either substandard, or too personal. But that is interesting.
Many of my best writings come from personal musings. Many hubs here are personal...but I don't find them annoying as people are sharing and learning about writing and how to express themselves and surely we can be tolerant of new writers as they are "hatching out."
However, I do agree that the blatant attempts at selling are annoying but I think when they get little or no response they move on.
Most of us are self promoting to what I hope is an acceptable and dignified level.
Obvious rule breakers will move on with rejection...but I try to be tolerant as I might accidentally break a rule myself. eeeek
=)
Some of the more interesting hubs that I have found involved personal information. So it becomes somewhat subjective as to how trivial and blog oriented the information is, and how appropriate it is for Hub Pages.
Involved, yes, but in part not in whole. I implore you to note Jenny's comment above (Inspirepub.)
I agree that there is a very thin line between a blog which technically it can mean many things these days! but there is some really good words of wisdom to help, present and future Hubbers and spammers alike!
What's interesting is that Paul published that hub about blogs (see Jimmy's comments above) two years ago, and it has 0 comments.
I think HubPages is an ongoing experiment, like just about everything related to the Internet, social networking, and Web 2.0. It is all evolving. And it is all evolving because it is based on grass-roots participation (unlike the evolution of a corporation, for example, which does not necessarily change because of an employee's opinion or suggestion; employees' inputs are more often than not squashed where they originate).
I guess it took until today for someone to look at Paul's hub and give it consideration.
marisue, from what I've seen of your writing...it's exactly the personal event that you have the talent to draw out, as Inspirepub noted...don't think your hubs are what gamergirl discussing here. I like danielpyle's comment...so much space for so many types of hubbers here....but the low quality ones, I hope, do leave this place quickly.
I joined Hubpages in search of an audience. (Ok, and a little extra cash...but that's secondary). I think my writing is decent and can find that niche cult I'm looking for, but I'm not going to do it with marketing articles and sexy picture galleries. It's very frustrating to me when I think I have a great article I'd like people to read and I see it in the Latest section for about 5 seconds because the next 10 articles coming in are galleries and marketing articles. But I have to live with it and hope that my writing will trump the low quality articles I see on here every hour. I think I am writing content that is high-quality and I hope that other people read it that way. If not, I trust the community to tell me that hey, you've sold out by posting that gallery of sexy Mrs. Obama pics. :)
Hopefully good writing will just stand on its own two feet without having to be defined or lumped into categories.
Shadesbreath....thanks for cutting to the chase. I love bottomline comments!!! very succinct and TO THE POINT. =) I'm a smilin' at ya. Marisue
That's my hope too. :D
Wow. As someone who admittedly dances on the line of self-promotion, I have to agree with gamergirl on a lot of this. I read it with one eye half shut just waiting for the line about something that I blatantly do, ya know.
Reading such thoughtful comments, you should be proud, either way.
Some ideas / hubs I see from when I started I just delete. It takes a while to get the hang of things. I hate the idea of being policed but Charlotte and Maddie sure don't make me feel that way.
Jenny, jimmy, marisue, daniel, good stuff.
I implore you all to note that this hub is gamergirl's personal opinion and is not a list of hubpages terms and conditions.
Thank you all for your comments thus far. :)
DJ, I think that you do a good job of being entertaining, and doing what you do best. Being a goofball, mostly.
Very well written. You hit every angle. I am pretty new at all of this, even instant messaging, and these were vital tips for me. Thank you!
I agree with most of what you say gamergirl, but I do think that as writers here many of us are all doing a little self-promotion. I'm sure there aren't too many here who wouldn't accept a paid writing assignment from someone who saw our hubs and liked our writing. Many also do some self-promotion on their profiles - I'm guilty of that. As long as the hubs are true articles that help to enrich the site I don't see anything wrong with a little self-promotion. Thanks for giving us a hub to ponder and re-evaluate what we are doing here.
Gamergirl, this is quite useful and illustrative to help new people to the site and to tell them about what is expected and tolerated in many instances at HubPages. I hope that the administration considers adding this to their FAQ on the sticky page in the forums. New Day
Some great information, especially for new or aspiring hubbers. About-The-Home - of course these are gamegirl's personal opinions but she is a well-established and respected figure in this community, so her hubs always carry a certain authority.
Aw, don't go making me blush now. I think there are a lot of respected and respectable writers on Hubpages, pjdscott. :D
Very well written Gamergirl except for one tiny little detail. You failed to mention the fact that SirDent is here. I'll still give you a thumbs up you know. :P
A good reminder of always trying to provide good information to your readers.
Thanks for the writing guidlines. I am new at Hubpage writing and am still searching for my voice and want to provide meaningful, helpful content.
Nice explanation
So it is okay to rant about hub pages but not about anything else? I love the finger pointing on here. It is great to see creative people being exclusionists. Watching a bunch of you try to cast nets on other people without catching yourselves is very entertaining.
Maybe you should form a union and you can get together and write a hub about " what HUB pages is to us" and then send me the memo from the meeting so I can write a hub on it.
A rant is more blog-worthy than anything, unless you provide something other than "I hate tomatoes because they're fruity and squishy!!!one11eleven!" For an example of what I mean, go look at Hubber somelikeitscott.
so ultimately gamer girl has invited traffic by a useless hub or was it useful?
As I'm sure you'll all notice, I've left the negative comments displayed, because I feel everyone should be able to say their piece. I will not, however, engage in insults or flaming.
To those of you who have left me positive comments or sent me positive mail, I appreciate it greatly, and hope that I have not offended too many people with my view of some of the things Hubbers should not do here. If we all contribute positively, then we all win!
Very beneficial hub for us newbies. Thanks for sharing.
Very useful hub for beginners. Can you write a hub about spamming?
Perhaps the sentiments expressed in this hub are shared by many here. Who likes blatant promotion of an affiliate product? But in the end, they are just the opinions of gamegirl, and that's it.
I have affiliate links in some of my hubs and HPs TOS say I can do that. My hubs with affiliate links also have some great content, if I may say so myself.
I'm not sure what prompted you to write this GG but it does have a little rub to it. It's not only the message, but how its delivered. I see your message, but had to bite my tongue at times while reading.
Just some honest feedback presented with only the best of intentions.
Jonathan
First off, I'm so glad to see you around on my Hubs, Jonathan! I've missed your commentary. :)
There are hubbers out there who are fantastic, who follow the rules and who approach their Hubs with the intent of providing quality information that is of value to people, rather than just trying to promote themselves and their own bank accounts without any benefit to anyone other than their customer base. This hub was not an attack on anyone. It wasn't about overall negativity - it was written with the intention and hope to express what I've seen happen on Hubpages that strikes against the grain of the community.
Excellent hub!
I can't believe that I'm not your fan already.
I've linked to this hub from my About collection of must read hubs.
Way to go, GG! You've said it all! Being here on HP is a learning experience, I'll agree with DJ about that. I too have deleted some things in past Hubs and re-written them to bring them up to what I can now see HubPages is trying to be.
This is a special community of writers who approach subjects from hundreds of different angles to produce items worth reading. The good ones stay, the bad ones fall by the wayside. If you're good enough, even talking about what you had for dinner tonight can be an interesting, timeless article. And that "being good enough" is what the majority of us here are striving for.
The most important thing I learned in comp & esay 201 (101 looked too pedestrian) was the off-topic comment that it's ok to disagree as long as one is not disagreeable in doing so.
As a newbie here, some of the first pages I read and printed out are Shailini's "How to make $100/day with AdSense:12 tips for Hubbers" and Mark Knowlton's "How I got my hub to be on google's first page", because my thing is SEO, and that is a universal need on this site if you read between the lines.
Shailini specifically mentions using swimsuit galleries to increase her traffic, not her income, at least directly. She also mentions that it took her around 100 hubs to make $100/day. That's probably what it takes the average Hubber to learn how to target clicks that pay a lot more than ten cents and to get more than 100 viewers- not clicks- per day. Personally (please forgive me, gg) I have no use for such crude traffic methods.
What does Paul want? Same thing we all do- Traffic. He even mentions it right up front where no newbie or Hubber can miss it- our jobs here are to be search engine bait. "Want more traffic?" just happens to be next to the start a blog button, lol.
Hope this doesn't sound too much like a rant, because I bootstrapped and ran my own sign painting business for 13 years, despite all the reasons I shouldn't have been able to.
The upshot is that I don't see anything noble about a starving artist. Sign art sells something else while fine art sells itself is echoed around here in spades.
If you read Forbes you'll be keenly aware that the money in art is made by the dealers, not the artists. And this is an outstanding time to be selling fine art from dead artists.
I must admit that I agree with vreccc and the likes. On the whole I agree to the point you try to make, but the tone of it comes across as a bit aggressive. You may want to make it sound less as if your truth is the only truth. Just a thought.
We can all agree to disagree. :D
I apologize for the tone. The fine art/commercial art debate is something that I am very passionate about.
btw- on the way over here today I saw a blurb about a Monet going for 80M$.
whatever you have written here is true but you could do it with using soft skills.
Very true. I apologize again for ruffling feathers.
Nice post! Hubpages looks to be a great community that is growing nicely. I agree with keeping all the affiliate scheme posts off here.
I guess the downside of reading a hub this far removed from publication is that all the great points have already been covered. My only thought is that as a proponent of free speech, if a hub is in good taste, it should be up to the author to decide what they wish to write. I agree with your sentiment about people signing up for hubpages simply to sell a product. I signed up for this service when I was nearing completion of my novel, and I posted a few chapters here on hubpages. After a while, I began writing on other topics, so now I have a diverse array of material, ranging from Antiquity Calais to the present conflict in Georgia, and who Obama should choose as his running mate (glad I didn't say Edwards!)
Any way, you are entitled to your opinions and to publish them. Thanks for giving us something to think about.
That's all I ever wanted, crash - people to think. These words, and the words present in any other Hub I write, are the product of thought, research, or experience - or even a combination of those things! I love this site, the community within it (for the most part) and want us all to succeed in all ways. :)
I added a poll, as I'm curious what others think on the nature and purpose of Hubpages. Go vote!
gamergirl, I liked how you talked about the things you need to work on. For me that made this article more interesting and also easier to relate to. So I think this hub is a good example of using personal information in a way that works.
Straight and to the point, gamergirl. I think a lot of people could benefit from this Hub. (I particularly "love" the questions like, "How does this all work?"
Please, don't call me a hubber. I am a free lance artist and writer. I have nothing but high quality articles. They culd be shorter for this venue.
I have a friend who just got laid off from NASA. He thinks he can make a lot of money on hub pages without writing a word of meaningful content. It's all about slinging words and clicks cliques.
Call yourself whatever you'd like, but everywhere on the site the people who write on it are called Hubbers. ;-)
I can think of a number of other things that Hubpages is NOT, for example, it isn't a bowl of ice cream, it isn't a vacation to Hawaii, it isn't a fractured elbow and it most certainly isn't a well used glue-stick.
Voted up and useful!
robie2 Level 6 Commenter 3 years ago
Well said,gg!
Whats positive around here??? well for starters:
Hubpages offers: a wide variety of information, some great writing, and a fabulous community of people--what more could a girl want???? oh yeah--there's money too:-)