Hub Pages
It is our unfortunate duty to inform Tumbler uses and especially those who float between here and hub - Hub Pages is no longer a viable option for serious Internet marketers.
This is indeed heartbreaking because search engine algorithms have been put in place on Hubpages to replace the old Hubber 'snitch' system.
There was a time when direct marketers could effectively use Hub Pages to drive traffic to their products and services. One of our Social Media SEO classes focused on striking a balance between the needs of the hub (great content - no direct salesmanship) and the need of our students at iMarkedy (producing great content - balancing salesmanship with community contribution).
Excuse our candor with calling those who reported direct sellers snitches. We do so because having used Hub pages over the years, we'd found those most likely to report erroneous accusations against a hub were competitors.
It has gotten so difficult for small business that just like the Google Adwords model which bans advertisers, never putting forth causes just saying "You've violated our terms of service", hub pages offers just as vague 'possible violations'.
Over the course of several days we wrote hubs which were never published and told that this content violated their policies. We reworked them (keeping in mind the balance needed for success) yet it was never enough to receive a published article.
That turned into a boom for Tumblr! We took our great content and started a few blogs here. After reviewing competitors and their contributions which were successfully published on Hub Pages, we came to this conclusion - those creating their best content and then giving it away were gambling that those who read would eventually visit their profile (where back links to their website are allowed).
As of this writing, it seems no back links are allowed within Hub body text regardless of quality of links. Be it known to hub users - market research indicates that out of all who view content on such platforms as these, only 6 to 7% will actually visit your profile and 1/10 of 1% of those will actually click through to your website.
Put more plainly - your content in these situations will reap absolutely no benefit to your business. The question becomes - "why contribute content to a platform which doesn't assist in any way in furthering my business goals?"
For those relying on wishful thinking, Hub pages will gladly take your content and allow you to wish traffic shows up at your website. I guess we don't have to tell you that sort of wishful thinking never equals hard, measurable results!
We are not here to bash Hub pages! This is a mega-popular website and we certainly respect their need to control spam. We put in measures on our own website to control those who hope to only take from our community and never give back.
We are simply saying to those hoping the hub will reap some benefit from a traffic generation standpoint to your website, it won't so save your content for more worthy platforms of which Tumblr is one.
This is indeed a sad day for us as we were forced to pull our video tutorial class on Hub pages and replace it with another curriculum. Always remember this - social media websites are about being a part of the community but also, inviting those in that community to be a part of yours'!
Hub pages should no present themselves as social media site because it appears as if they are all about 'taking' and avoidance of any kind of 'giving'. What a sad day for us all.