The End of Hub Hopping; Finally!

For those who do not know much about Hubpages, a little dance through history.

Ten Years ago…

Hubpages got Twelve Million Hits a Month.    Think of it.   That’s a lot of views.  And your articles were out there for the eyes to catch.

You were paid by views.  So, shrug, a thousand a month.   No biggie.  Standard.  A thousand.

Now, all good things… yeah, that’s right.  They end.

Hubpages had help.

Hubpages had ‘help’ dying from three different sources.

Evil Google

The first was Evil Google which called it a Content Farm, and slapped down everything posted on Hubpages. If someone entered a search; “The History of South Carolina,”   and there was an item on Hubpages called “The History of South Carolina,”  which, as it matched all the words be on the front page, it would be found waaaay at the back, with all sorts of items which didn’t have all the words in front of it.

The month after the Panda, Hubpages went to Six Million Hits a month.   Then to Three Million.  Then down to half a Million.

Just like that.

Crap Writers

Hubpages was full of Crap Writers.   These are the people who created the Content Farm.   A crap writer is a person who can write one thousand words and say nothing.

For Example:

“All over the world people write.   They write for their newspapers, books, and on line publishing sites.  There are many on line publishing sites.  Publishing sites are sites which publish the writing of writers.    The publishing sites are different.   There are some which pay upfront for the item, some which pay by hits…..”

This item, titled, “On Line Publishing Sites”   repeats the information in the above paragraphs over and over again.  It names no site, it gives no particulars.  There are no facts.   No list.  Just on and on and on saying nothing.

This kind of Crap Writing was the ostensible reason why Google slapped down Hubpages, but there is another fact; Google intended to introduce a site called KNOL, which would NOT pay writers.  It was a site where you wrote for nothing.

Who would go there if they could go to a site that paid them?

Exactly;  Evil Google went to close all on line paying sites.   It used the Crap Writer on Hubpages as their reason.

The featuring of Crap Writers, giving them 100 points and putting them on the Front Page is wholly the fault of Hubpages.

Then, there is the Third Reason

Hub Hopping

Hubpages in a burst of abysmal stupidity gave writers the opportunity to judge other writers.  Gave them the chance to go from one item to another and vote it down.

This allowed  Plagiarists to have a field day.

Here’s what happens.

Non-Featured

When a Hub is flagged, it becomes ‘non-featured.’   That is, it doesn’t exist.  You won’t find it on a search.   This down slap of non-feature, is because another member of Hubpages flagged your item.

So  a Hub Hopper sees a great item, s/he/it copies it to their computer, flags the great item, and then publishes the great item, under their name, somewhere else.    If the somewhere else runs a plag checker, it won’t find the item on Hubpages.  That is because it is ‘non-featured’.

The writer, seeing that his/her item is ‘non-featured’ now pops over to ‘fix it’.   The point is, there is nothing wrong with it.  Nothing.   But he or she makes an attempt, thinking, well, perhaps I should have another sentence, or a paragraph.   It doesn’t matter.

Whatever the writer does, his/her Hub will come back up and be flagged again by the plagiarist.

I, myself, found an item that I had written on Hubpages, which was now, ‘unfeatured’ which had been published elsewhere under some one else’s name.

The reality became clear, people would ‘hop the hubs’ find your item,  slap it down, it would be unfeatured, that is, non-existent.   You would ‘fix it’ republish and it would be slapped down again.

This has gone on FOR YEARS.

Every one who used to write for Hubpages has had the ‘non-featured’ experience.   This is why they used to write for Hubpages.

Recently, in a discussion on Mylot, we went into this situation and a lot of information was out there.  Today, Hubpages has discontinued Hub Hopping.

It has taken the Administration of the Site over Seven Years to understand what happened.  That their best writers were not merely chased by Evil Google, they were chased away by other users of the site who slapped their work down.

Finally, today, there will be no Hub Hopping by Plagiarists.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the Administration will go over your work and restore the items to visibility. Meaning, that non-featured items are simply in Storage, waiting to be published on a site that will appreciate them.

And Hubpages?  Not recommended.