Amid Content Farm Wars, HubPages Starts Paying Writers More

HubPages, a freelance content site, appeared to be one of the biggest losers in last week’s Google search algorithm change, dropping 87 percent of its visibility in search results according to one early measure. It comes at a time when the company is trying to change the incentive equation for writers to make high-quality contributions.

HubPages CEO Paul Edmondson (pictured) said he was highly concerned about and disappointed by the Google algorithm changes, because so far ranking increases and decreases have not correlated with his own perceptions of high-quality HubPages content. But he said he’s waiting for the changes to stabilize, as they commonly do after such shifts.

(See our previous stories on reactions to the Google changes from Associated Content and Demand Media.)

Meanwhile, this week HubPages made a significant upgrade to its payments, bringing on ad networks including Tribal Fusion, AOL’s Advertising.com, Microsoft pubCenter, ValueClick and Glam Media. Previously the site had used Google AdSense and Amazon and eBay affiliate links. The company is also hiring its own ad sales team.

HubPages is treating its whole site as a publication with 46 million uniques, and sharing the higher revenue with its writers.

That means an effective average CPM of $2 to $3, up from CPCs usually in the cents, Edmondson said. In early tests, HubPages authors are reportedly making 60 percent more than their previous average daily earnings.

Historically, HubPages has had a more writer-friendly setup than competitors, giving contributors 60 percent of revenues, letting them choose their topics and even delete stories, and offering content management and optimization tools to maintain their topics on an ongoing basis.

The premium ad program is in invite-only beta for now, but Edmondson said he wanted to roll it out site-wide by June. With more writers and topics involved, Edmondson said he expected CPMs to be between $1 and $12.

HubPages, which has raised about $8 million in funding, last year grew traffic 120 percent to 46 million uniques and brought in revenues of $10 million. It has more than 1.2 million articles from 220,000 writers.

http://www.LLsocial.com Josh Davis

It seems like this Google algorithm update might actually lead to more innovation. If Google makes these sites work for their rankings, they are going to have to improve in some area, hopefully content.

Paying select writers more might lead to writers having more of a stake and using their social networks to promote their content on these sites. In addition to higher quality writing, that seems to be an undercurrent of HubPages’ new plan.

This only works long term, if the quality of the writing is at such a level that it actually provides value to readers.

It will be interesting to watch.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=612294782 Jason Menayan

Good point, Josh. I work for HubPages (I was their first employee, and have been here for 4 1/2 years) and we are constantly trying to move the quality bar upward. We do that in 2 ways: 1) remove the egregiously bad stuff posted by spammers and the like, and 2) help genuine writers publish better quality, more useful articles (“Hubs”). We have an extensive Learning Center, regular contests that reward the best content, and have even taken our instructional program on the road in something we call HubCamp. Our community is also heavily involved, with volunteer-headed programs like HubMob and HubNuggets that encourage writers to publish their best.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Tony-Locicero/100000085329425 Tony Locicero

I can attest to this, yesterday had one of my hubs rejected as too similar to another I wrote!! I didn’t agree but was probably wrong!! I merged the rejected content into the other similar hub. One was Mac, the other Windows oriented. It did improve the quality and quantity of the original hub’s content.
http://kindlecase.org Jamie

It seems like the recent ‘Farmer Update’ is a good thing after all as most “content library” are making their own changes i.e. giving more incentives to the writers. So all is good, is it not?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Dorsi-Lynn-Diaz/702368533 Dorsi Lynn Diaz

I have been writing at HubPages for over 2 years now – and put alot of time, research and thought into my hubs (articles) I have seen some of the most gifted and creative writers in the world writing over at HubPages. I really believe that with the backing of the great HubPages staff and CEO there, that HubPages will not only grow but thrive. I have written at many other sites but found HubPages to be the most encouraging, cutting edge and supportive environment for us writers. The cream will always rise to the top – and readers are not just looking for content to read – they are looking for that human connection which the majority of hub writers provide. Where else can you get a writer to have a conversation with you and actually care that you read their article? Where else can you read real life experiences from people who have been there and done that? And write to tell you about it? What better way to get content than from someone who has lived the experience, used the product or traveled to that far away destination?
HubPages is a unique site – I look forward to the future with them!
Anonymous

It is a shocking stuff from Google, but in one way its good because it eradicate the farmers. I read many articles on how the new algorithm would be and found in many articles that hub pages works big time in link wheeling.
Anonymous

It is a shocking stuff from Google, but in one way its good because it eradicate the farmers. I read many articles on how the new algorithm would be and found in many articles that hub pages works big time in link wheeling.
Anonymous

This was long overdue.

Amid Content Farm Wars, HubPages Starts Paying Writers More

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