What affects Hubscore, Hubber Score and Search Ranking

By keeping a record of my own activity on HubPages and monitoring the results with the tools that HubPages provides, as well as scrutinizing my Google Analytics reports, I am noticing certain patterns.

I can clearly see that there is a difference between the workings of your Hub Scores, your Hubber Score and even your Search Engine Ranking. This discussion explains the difference and what affects each.

Before I begin, let me give a brief explanation of the three items.

1. Hub Score is the score HP gives each of your hubs.
2. Hubber Score is the single score you get on yourself and it’s noted in your profile.
3. Search Ranking is how the search engines rank you. A higher ranking will bring more search engine traffic.

Hubber Score

To start with, I think your Hubber score is a reflection on how much you donate to the community, not just publishing hubs.

I noticed a while back that after my Hub Score climbed over 90, I had become more relaxed and spent more time away from HubPages.

I know, I know, please accept my humble apologies. Does it help any to say I needed the time to work on my own web site? Okay, I won’t let it happen again. I’m here.

Well, in a matter of days I saw my Hubber Score drop to 87 from 93. After a few days of sharing my two-cents in various forums, my Hubber Score climbed back up. Now this is no scientific study. There were too many other variables involved.

I had published other hubs along the way, people were clicking thumbs up and thumbs down (well hopefully not), and people were leaving comments and I was replying to comments with questions.

I don’t think your individual Hub Scores have any reflection on your Hubber Score. I’ll tell you why. It’s only logical that Hub Scores relate to the articles you write. It’s the strength of the subject and the quality of the writing. That includes spelling, grammar, and originality. I’m guessing at the first two because there must be a reason why HP does not accept non-English Hubs.

Okay then, so what does your Hubber Score relate to? All the other things you do on HP. So what do you suppose might happen if someone does everything right except they never publish any Hubs? What an interesting idea to consider, just for research if nothing else.

What if someone signs up and never publishes any Hubs? But they become very active in the HP community, posting to the forums, answering requests, voting up and down (oh no!), and posting comments. Do they get a high Hubber Score anyway? Let’s find out, shall we?

Based on the above survey after 1 1/2 years since I published this hub, over 50% of Hubbers who don't write hubs have a Hubber Score over 90 as long as they are active in the community in other ways. Wow!

Posting frequently (but meaningfully) in the forums generates more traffic to your hubs because if people like what you say and you seem like you have something to offer, they may click to your profile and check to see what hubs you may have.

Asking questions under the “Answers” tab may prompt other people to publish hubs. Answering Requests also adds more informational posts or hubs that brings Google traffic, mostly if you answer by creating a hub.

I am sure all this is built into that HP algorithm because HP wants to generate more hub creation. After all, they make 40% of the profit. (Note: You can see other Hubber’s questions by clicking “View Questions” under “Answers Tab”)

Leaving comments in Hubs automatically leaves a link to your profile with each comment. This can generate more traffic to your hubs. But I think the fact that you are actively commenting in hubs may be part of the Hubber Score Algorithm. It’s for the same reason, HP wants you to be doing things that bring traffic around because it means more profit for HP too.

Bottom line, the more you do in the HP community that can generate more traffic that eventually generate some paid clicks, the more HP rewards you with a higher Hubber Score.

It’s harder to get your individual Hub Scores higher. Hub Scores fluctuate over time, even minute to minute. I realize that anything can happen to make Hub Scores temporarily go down. It’s a little frustrating but I became accustomed to it. The rest of this discussion focuses on Hub Scores and Search Engine Ranking, as they are closely related.

All Thumbs

HubScores fluctuate for many reasons...one of which might be because some people read hubs and they either click to vote up or down (HP used to call this thumbs up and thumbs down) or they may forget to click at all. I am only guessing, but if I were programming the algorithm for Hub Score, I’d include a "no vote" in some way as it indicates a level of uncertainty.

Outside Links

The HP terms of service indicates that if we have more than two outside links in any hub, it affects our hub score. But they don’t say how. I have to assume that links in comments are counted towards that limit. I started noticing more and more spam comments with kinks to outside websites. I see a lot of talk about this problem in the forums. I noticed some Hubs with external links in comments had lowering Hub Scores over time. So I deleted those comments and changed the setting in all my comment capsules to only allow comments from registered Hubbers.

Length of Visit Indicates Quality of Your Hub

Another thing that affects the Hub Score is how long people stay on the page (Hub) and how many return visitors you get to the Hub. I see that Google is recording the traffic and the length of stay on the hub in the Google Analytics reports. Google definitely keeps track of that and uses the results to rank your hubs accordingly. I discuss that in detail in my hub How To Keep Your Reader's Attention.

I imagine that this eventually turns into outside traffic from Google searches. One thing that every Hubber should understand is that these things take time. I have read other hubs where it was mentioned that many people give up too quick. All I can say is “don’t give up.” Just keep learning, keep working on your writing skills, and keep writing quality content.

Be careful with the kind of backlinks you get. If we get too much traffic from unreliable sources that are not certain they want the subject of our hub, they click away real quick. That hurts both our Hub Score with HP as well as our Search Engine Ranking. As I said above, Google for sure is using length-of-visit as part of their ranking algorithm.

Generate Traffic With The Right Categories

There are hundreds of categories and once in a while HubPages adds new ones. Placing your Hub in the proper category will help generate more traffic from people who are looking for that particular subject. These are the readers you want. They stay longer, they’ll possibly bookmark and re-visit and maybe even give you a thumbs up.

All this is reflected in a higher Hub Score. It makes Google happy because they see an interest in your Hub, and it makes HP happy because it increases the chance of ad clicks. Happy Google gives you a better Ranking. Happy HP gives your Hub a better Hub Score.

Assigning Your Hubs To Groups

You can take advantage of arranging your hubs in groups to funnel in the right traffic. What do I mean by the right traffic? I mean readers who are interested in your topic.

If you leave all your unrelated hubs in a default group, known as the orphan hubs group, then readers who see the links at the bottom of your hubs will ignore them if they don’t spark an interest. But if you create groups and organize your hubs accordingly, then a reader who found a specific subject interesting will most likely click on a link to another of your Hubs in the same group because it pertains to the same subject (assuming you grouped them meaningfully).

Proper Use of Tags

The tags we Hubbers specify are only used by HP. Not by the search engines. I know this because I examined the HTML code of various Hubs and I see that HP does not place keyword meta tags in the hubs. This makes perfect sense because HP is very much up with the latest technology and Search Engines just simply don’t use keyword meta tags anymore. They were abused too much by keyword spammers. Their algorithm is much more complex now with using the actual body of text.

What I found is that Tags help assign your Hub to a list with other people's Hubs using the same tag. If someone reading any of these Hubs wants more information on the subject, they may click on one of the tags that relate to their interest. This brings them to a listing of Hubs which also use that tag. If that tag is in your Hub then a link to you're Hub will be included in that list.

So when you work on a new Hub, or update an old one, do some research on various tags and see what other type of Hubs match up. If they are related to your topic then include the same tags they used in your Hub.

Just as important, if you find a tag brings up unrelated Hubs, don't use that tag. If you bring in traffic that doesn't match what the person is looking for, then you will have a lot of quick exits. This will hurt your ranking.

Write a Good Summary

HP places your summary in the HTML description meta tag for search engines to use. This is important. The summary text is also used when another Hubber refers to your Hub in a link list.

When you are in Edit Mode you will see a box on the right side with tabs for tags, settings, summary, and the group for your Hub. I just discussed the tags and groups above.

The image to the right shows an example with the summary tab selected and the summary I typed in for this Hub. Make sure you check all the tabs of this box and complete the information. Otherwise these things default to something that may not work as well for you.

Conclusion

In conclusion, remember that your success is up to you. HubPages gives you the tools you need to publish a great Hub that will attract readers and possibly make you a little money. Maybe more than a little. But it's up to you to make use of these tools.

I see a lot of Hubs where people leave things to chance with the default settings. Or they crowd all their text into long paragraphs that lose the reader. White space between paragraphs is another important thing to help a reader stay with you. Eye candy helps too. That means a few images that relate the the subject will enhance the topic.

Writers who don't consider the reader and make it easy to follow along have not done a complete job and it shows. Don't be one of them. You are are good writer, so complete your Hubs with all the additional requirements for your own success. Good luck.

Copyright © 2010 Glenn Stok

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