Your Thoughts on HubPages...

If they are anything like similar sites, they are run by probably no more than a small group of people (2? 3? 4?)....yet, by virtue of what they do, they are charged with HUGE responsibility to tailor their platform to best meet the needs of 100,000+ users, that all have varying ideas and opinions.

It's a monumental task to run a site like that. Hiring someone else brings along PROs and CONs which is why, honestly, I think the best employees (had they had to hire anyone) would be the leading contributors on the site...lol

"My opinion - its run by a bunch of heavy handed admins that are quick to disable your account for the slightest rule violation."

I know that they may be short staffed for the work load, and they may have a ton of people trying to game the system, however, this goes back to fundamental customer service. Every user/customer, IMHO, deserves feedback, and/or real-life, non-generic responses to their emails. If they have to hire someone or outsource, so be it. If people aren't treated right, they WILL leave a site and never come back.

....they could spend years building a multi-million online business, but, one unhappy customer, with the power of social media, could tarnish that reputation in an instant (or begin a thread on the most popular IM forum online...lol)

thanks for your opinion, i'll practice for this..last time I have good experience with hubpages...

I think there links or no follow know my friend.
In fact I have had experience with Google penalizing leaks from the pages
Tonio Smith

kev,

Whether you have your own blog, or you host your content on a site like HubPages, there will be Pros- and Cons-. You make a strong case, however, there is a reason why sites like HubPages are so popular:

1) Writers can easily achieve pre-established search engine authority that may be difficult (for some) to achieve on their own. This is achieved by virtue of the collective effort of 100,000+ users all providing content. Of course, when you have so many varied users, you also will encounter alot of other issues (not necessarily 'problems' that need to be addressed, such as quality of content.

2) Of course, you relinquish a % of revenue share, when you could get 100% revenue from your own site. Sites like HubPages ultimately do what they can to maximize YOUR revenue, because it is ultimately in their own best interest to maximize everyone's revenue.

3) They provide numerous methods for monetization. Of course, you can do this with your own site....but, then, again, we go back to the search engine authority.

Now, we can get into issues of how sites can/could improve by addressing certain elements of functionality and improving offerings.

Have you visited Warrior Forum when it went 'down'. This website, itself, is generally reliable, however, there have been times when it has just gone down, leaving those (who relied on the income, which you shouldn't do, but that's another thread altogether) with entire days of lost profits. The same can occur if you have hosting/domain issues. Anything online is subject to that.

The BEST approach, IMHO, is to use a site like HubPages to catapult and reinforce your own website and personal brand, off of it's tremendous pre-established search engine authority. I recommend that people use it to easily suck in traffic, and monetize every avenue, the minute someone lands on your Hub (or Lens, or Article, or Barrel, etc). Their revenue share is a given, but structure your articles so you can divert people to your own monetized website. Place Adsense, Chitika, Amazon, CJ, Linkshare, Clickbank product, etc.....

Web 2.0 sites, like HubPages are serious magnets, especially if your articles have aged and matured alongside the growth of the site. To deny or neglect that, and focus JUST on your own site is unwise (is that a word?) IMHO.

"If you are going to invest time into something, invest that time in yourself."

If you do it in the right way, your investing in Web 2.0 sites CAN be investing in yourself significantly.

Just because they have 5-6 adsense blocks doesn't necessarily mean that they just want to publish garbage and spam....in fact, it is actually in the best interest of the site to control for quality and NOT post garbage...unfortunately, like I said, with sites like HubPages, you oftetimes find a very small group of individuals who run the entire show.

They do want adsense clicks, and they do want to maximize revenue, but, that means nothing...and, Google won't look upon they favorably and they won't maintain search engine authority if they just allow any garbage to posted there....

Oh, boy, we have to just agree to disagree here, DrGUID If nothing else, this thread could provide some entertainment value...lol...

With that said:

I'll respond in full when I wake up.