So I receive a comment wondering if I was planning on writing a sort of intro to the joys of Hubpages. To be honest I wasn’t planning on it. But then I started responding to the comment and I ended up with enough material to create a post. Seeing as how I am mentally challenged to come up with stuff to write about I figured I’d go ahead and make it a fluffy post. Let the ramble proceed.
I don’t like Hubpages near as much as Squidoo, but they do tend to get traffic and the extra link is kinda nice for 10 minutes of work. I do not think that hubs look as nice as lens. But the fact is you can build a shitty looking hub and get a PR3 or 4 in no time. It’s insane. I pulled up one hub: VH1′s 100 Greatest Songs of the 90′s. This hub is the definition of duplicate content. Yet the damn thing has a PR4. What gives? I have a very similar lens on 90′s Grunge. All original content. I’m on the first page for numerous keywords in Google yet I have a PR2. I kinda doubt this hubmaster has more links to her hub than I do to my lens. I could be wrong but who is getting the most Google spooge?
Google likes hubs better than lens right now. At least that’s how it seems to me. Your mileage may vary. Despite the inferior platform of the hubs, I would take note and build some hubs. I am. I want some PR2-4 hubs so I can use them to link to my other sites. Maybe I’ll link them to my lens. I think one thing that is in Hubpages favor is that the hub management may be more picky about the content. Squidoo sort of encourages you to use the lens for marketing. Hubpages, not so much. Therefore the guberus have invaded Squidoo with affiliate sales pages. It’s good business but jeez, I think they’ve pretty much covered all the marketing tools and Crapbank products. I did a quick check for Jamorama on Squidoo and there were like 100 lens on that topic. I didn’t click past the first page of search results, but it was nothing but affiliate programs. You know, the bogus review pages and salespage regurgitation.
I haven’t done nearly as much with hubs as I have with lens. I don’t think it’s wise to ignore either one but if I had to choose I’d do Squidoo in a second over Hubpages. As a matter of fact I’ve decided I want to try to create 100 lens in three months. Can I do it? I dunno. Should I do it? I dunno. But it’s quick and easy to get them built and if you keep them relatively fresh they will start getting indexed and ranked and then they will be very useful for your websites. I just have to make sure the content is worthwhile so my goal is to use Court’s keyword sniping to discover topics I want to build on…assuming they have products I can pimp.
I will also try to do the same thing with hubs. It might be cool to have 100 of them by the end of the year. All those hubs and lens…if done right…will be nice to have for promotion of other sites and for making some affiliate sales. I’ve also discovered something very interesting with both. I have lens and hubs that aren’t indexed by Google yet. Just laziness on my part, but interestingly I get some OK traffic to them. Seems as though when people get inside of Squidoo and Hubpages they sort of stick around. They start searching within the platforms. They find your lens or hub and want to see what else you are doing. It’s a curiosity thing. Google is circumvented, which is fantastic.
I wouldn’t think in terms of Squidoo or Hubpages. You gotta do both. And after seeing some of the Hubpages filled with crap and getting PR, just build. Don’t over think this shit. It would be to your advantage to do some keyword research and target the traffic. Though if you are spending more than 30 minutes on building a lens or hub, you are over thinking it. Believe me, I know all about over thinking shit.
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Hi Splork,
I found that if I put more than a link or two within the article on the hub, some do-gooder reported it as spammy.
I don’t spend too much time reading T&C’s so it’s probably my fault – but as this is the only helpful thing I can add about hubpages I thought I would – don’t pepper your articles with too many links or they’ll disable it and make you remove them.
I had started building a few hubs a number of months ago but really didn’t do much about it. I didn’t even ad my adsense details until relatively recently because I only thought of hubpages as a source of links.
Anyway, I was looking at the stats for my adsense from last month and see that the average click for my own blogs are about 30c whilst for hubpages it’s about 60c! I know it’s not very scientific but I get the feeling that google is paying more for clicks coming from hubs.
I just rewrote some of the articles form my own sites so it’s not as though I have been targeting higher paying niches on hubpages.
Hey Splork, Just read your post on HubPages. I started making hubpages along with Squidoo lenses last August after participating in the 30 day challenge. I haven’t done much with them, except for putting up an article with a link to either one of my pages or an affiliate product. They do show up in the Sarch engines though, so I continue to make them.
Splork,
Found you off of grizz’s blog. Nice articles. Do you suggest leaving the link to your website off the hubpage until it is indexed or doesn’t it matter?
Thanks.
Hey Medicman. Thanks for visiting. I don’t think it matters that much. Just don’t overdo it. One maybe two is about all you want to put on there in the beginning.
Hubpages is too picky for my tastes. I want to promote my articles on other sites, apparently they don’t like that. I cannot rewrite just for them!
Yea they are a pain in the ass. But in a good way. The quality is high and if you are able to play by their rules then you more than likely will be rewarded with some good back links. You just can’t be overly aggressive in linking out to your sites and you definitely don’t want to link to a spammy site.
I was reading Justin’s comments at SEOZombie on HubPages and he said that more than 10 Hubs linking to one niche site would be a waste of time as far as the Google juice they will give you. Which got me to thinking and here are some questions I wanted to put out there for anyone who cares to ponder them or has some experience that would enlighten us:
1. Would it be a good idea to set up separate identities in HubPages, all promoting the same niche site?
2. Please forgive the newbieness of this question: If you set up separate identities would you need to set up the identity using a different ISP? And if so, would you need to access that identity only thru the alternate ISP?
3. Would it be wise to use one identity to promote several different niches? In other words wouldn’t you be leaving tracks to your network? Maybe this would be ok to do with several sites if they were related. That would seem “natural” wouldn’t it?
4. Would it be wise to use one identity to send back links to several of your support blogs as well as your money site? It seems like it would be ok as long as it seems like a natural linking pattern, but then again it can reveal your network for that niche.
I know, I know, I’m probably way overthinking this, but while we’re out there building Hubs I thought it might be nice to make them work as efficiently as possible.
You’re right. You’re over thinking this.
These responses are my opinion only. I don’t want to do more work than I have to. Others will revel in creating all kinds of madness.
1. No. Too much effort and work. They are just Hubpages.
2. If you have that kind of time, to build multiple profiles and fill it with Hubs, then I would suggest you expend that energy on building real sites with value that you own. Anyway, Google wouldn’t know if you were building from one ISP/IP. Hubpages might but they wouldn’t care as long as the Hub is good. They WANT you build a ton of Hubs.
3. I use one profile with tons of Hubs to promote, to link out to, tons of shit. Unless you are spam linking to your money sites then you are fine. 10 hubs with 10 links to a site is probably enough. I only do a few. I have a few profiles but I doubt it matters.
4. I wouldn’t link to both a money site and satellites. In my “network” Hubpages are in the last line before money sites.
I send free blogs, free sites, some comments, etc., up to Hubpages and Squidoo. Hubs and Lens gets linked up to money sites. Hubs and Lens are not linked. Links travel up not down. Free blogs are linked, no reciprocals though, i.e. A to B, B to A. I may link 5 free blogs together and then send the last one with the juice up to a Hubpage. I never expose a money site with a ton of “spammy” links. At least I try not to be obvious about it and get links from way more sources.
Why is Hubs and Lens the last line before money? Because they have authority in Bing and G. And they make money. And visitors like them.
Mileage variables engaged. Everybody drives differently.
Splork you’re a dear. Thanks so much for such a quick and detailed response. LOL re: “mileage” comment.
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