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.