We have been keeping you updated on various tests with new Hub designs, but Hubs aren’t the only parts of HubPages that are getting new looks. In addition to refining Hub designs, Micki Seibel has been working for several weeks on creating a new and improved Profile Page.
The product of her work is something significantly more professional, functional, polished, and refined! Check it out:
Curious about the changes? We’ll walk you through the Profile Page’s updates and new features.
More Author Prominence
One of our primary objectives with the new design is to give Hubbers and their personal brands more prominence. This is why we moved Hubbers’ names and profile images to the top left of the page in a bold header that extends across the entire width of the Profile.
Additional Identity
You’ll notice that below Maddie Ruud’s real name is listed below HubPages username (and special status). We know that not all of you are able to choose your real name as your username on HubPages, so we’re giving you the option to share your real name on your profile page, just as you can on Twitter.
If you prefer to write under a pen name or just use your witty online handle, you are free to leave this section of your profile blank. That said, showing your real name can add professional polish to your online profile and demonstrates that there is a real, passionate writer behind your wonderful Hubs.
Social Media Connections
To transform Profile Pages into functional online portfolios, we are adding the ability to list links to a personal website and external social media accounts at the top of the page. This will make it easier for your readers and followers to find you on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, as well as your own personal website.
Maintaining an active presence across multiple platforms plays an important role in online success, so we encourage Hubbers to connect your HubPages profile with as many sites as they please!
A Streamlined Bio
The bio is one of the most important aspects of one’s Profile, so we’re leaving it front and center. That said, we also want these pages to adequately showcase Hubbers’ wonderful work, so to save real estate we are truncating Hubber bios after a certain number of words. These bios will not be cut off; visitors can continue to read them in an overlay should they please.
Are you concerned about the lack of bio space? Don’t be! When Hubbers have long bios, they typically fill them with two things:
- Links to external sites: These are now featured in their own dedicated section at the top of the page, so they need not be reiterated here.
- Links to Hubs one wants to feature: Under the My Content section of your Profile, which will display by default in what is now the blank section of the image we’ve shared, you will be able to select several Hubs to feature in a carousel.
Because we now offer these more attractive linking alternatives and encourage Hubbers to keep the bio strictly bio-focused, we are additionally disabling links in this section of the page.
Similar Hubbers
To help you both discover and be discovered on HubPages, we are showcasing similar Hubbers on each Hubber’s Profile. This feature will help fans of your work find more Hubbers like you and this will also promote your own Profile on others’ pages.
More Functional Use of Space
There is so much interesting information about Hubbers that it would be impossible to display it all at once on one page. We’re addressing this problem by offering a dynamic center of the page that displays your content by default, but can also display Hubtivity, Hubbers you follow and who follow you, Fan Mail, and recent images you have posted.
My Content
This is the section of your Profile where your Hubs and Videos will be featured. At the top, you have the option to display a specially curated collection of your best work.
Hubtivity
Currently, Hubtivity (which displays status updates, comments, Hubs published, Questions asked and answered, etc.) is displayed on your Profile below your Hubs. Almost nobody gets that far along in your profile to actually view it (there are too many interesting Hubs to look at along the way!), so we’re giving this stream of activity its own section.
Following
Hubbers do much more on HubPages than simply publish Hubs. We’re a supportive community of writers who enjoy, comment on, and discover each other’s work. The Hubbers we follow do much to reveal our involvement with the HubPages community, and can also help our own followers discover new writers, so we’re making the Hubbers you follow easier to see.
Followers
On HubPages, followers are earned, and you should be proud of the Hubbers who have decided to get regular updates on your work! With this section of your profile, you can display them proudly.
Fan Mail
On LinkedIn, professionals display endorsements from present and past colleagues. Kind words from earnest Hubbers are well worth displaying, so we’re giving Fan Mail a dedicated section (instead of a truncated summary that leads to a separate page listing followers and Fan Mail). It is also to this section that we are moving the “Contact [Username]” option through which Hubbers can email you directly.
Recent Images
Good images are a big deal on HubPages, and play a huge role in a Hub’s success. We’ll be featuring images that you have recently published in Hubs in this new section of your Profile to give your cool photos, illustrations, charts, and graphs the attention they deserve. These images will include a link to their location on HubPages, as well as your source, URL, and caption, so you don’t have to worry about copyright issues if you use Creative Commons images.
All in all, we have done our best to make your profile page work for you as a Hubber, writer, and creative individual. We hope you like it!
HubPages Blog 
Sounds great! Exciting new changes!
Wow! Great new look!
HubPages is changing positively. I’m sue it will lure guest readers to formally join and experience a very exciting hubbing experience. 😀
This sounds excellent and I am looking forward to the changes especially since I am looking into creating my own facebook page separate from my profile.
I have on other question or suggestion. Is there a plan to eventually also redesign the overall look of the account page in particular the Statistics page. I have 50+ hubs, but only 38 published. This can make navigating and actually finding hubs that I might want to look over for possible editing purposes and other matters really difficult, I can only imagine what it is like for people with over 200 hubs.
Is there any plans to help with this mess in trying to make it easier on us to streamline, or categorize hubs somehow, to make it easier to find our own hubs with in the statistics section and everything. I am happy that the outward appearance of everything to the public is getting to be better, but the behind the scenes part I think should get looked at as well. I hope that this is a matter that is getting looked at.
Thanks, Stephanie.
We sure hope it does, travel_man1971. That’s part of the objective. Or at least, give you Hubbers the tools to close the deal on those guest readers.
When is this new profile layout scheduled to go live?
looks cool!!!
Looks good and I like the Similar Hubbers Feature a lot.
This profile page looks so much clearer and modern. I am looking forward to it changing.
Will there still be an RSS feed?
maybe hub will un-publish themselves for a “duplicate content” violation, as the proposed “accolades” section is suspiciously similar to the trophies on squidoo
Wow! Simone Smith finally got new hubpage look. Really it is just awesome. I really love it.
It seems to be very professional and elegant. Look forward for the pleasure of going with the latest trend. Congrats.
I like the new look. There are just a few questions and comments.
1. With putting our names on there, will that help us with Google authorship?
2. Some people may complain about the following section, but I will leave it up to them to do the complaining. I just hope that people don’t take it too personally if they aren’t being followed. Hopefully they will just tell me that I missed them.
3. Can we change the title to the “Similar to XX” section. I tend to view myself as unique. My library does the “If you like XX, you may like YY” which sounds better to me. I look forward to seeing who I am similar to!
Hey everyone! Thank you for your comments and feedback.
To address some of your specific questions:
Keith, we do eventually hope to tackle that. One thing at a time! In the meantime, I recommend making use of the filters on the stats page- they can be very useful (I have over 300 Hubs and it makes finding what I’m looking for easy).
Relache, this will not go out until late this summer. We’re just very excited about it, so we wanted to give everyone a sneak peek.
Angie, the RSS option will be removed from the page itself but still be available through browsers.
Chris, we didn’t actually change the way our Accolades are displayed with this design update. The way rewards are displayed on profiles is somewhat of a common convention online.
Shasta:
1. I don’t think so, but adding your Google+ account to those social media links to the top left should.
2. If that’s enough to insult people, they have bigger problems to deal with, may haps? I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
3. Thanks for the suggestion- unfortunately, we don’t have room for that many words!! But it shall indeed be fun to see which Hubbers we are all “similar” to 😀
Why are you trying to hide the Author’s Bio? Why limit our visible words in such a critically important area as this? Why are you trying to draw attention away from the authors experience or level of expertise?
I understand the format will presumably allow an individual to “Click On” and reveal the balance of a publishers personal info, but how many visitors will actually locate and engage the feature?
Some of us who take the time to share a portion of our works here at HP have extensive, broad range experience & expertise in several diverse & dynamic areas, highlights in which we prefer to disclose and share with a universal audience “Prior” to visitors engaging our articles. This is achieved of course via a bio in a concerted effort to ensure they understand important pertinent facts about exactly who we are, our qualifications, and the direction we will be following in the future. All this information should be easily VISIBLE and available in its entirety, not partially concealed.
If it only takes an individual a few brief sentences or paragraphs to “Identify & Describe” themselves via a bio, lack of experience is presumably a prevailing detriment and writing is probably not a strong suit.
I would strongly recommend HP keep the unlimited space available for us to “Personalize” our message to the universe via our “Bios”, and ease up on all of these unnecessary “Controlling” aspects which will inevitably cost everyone in the long run. Genuine Writers & Artists require maximum flexibility and virtual space to perform at maximum potential. If this is not provided, HP will ultimately end up with what it inevitably attracts.
HP should concentrate on vitally important, pressing issues which have the potential to severely de-value the site like Patrolling & Cleaning up sub-par articles and the droves of grammatically incorrect questions, re-modeling the “Promo Page” to ensure “Truth in Advertising” etc., and not try to conceal our Bios of all things, a component which is unquestionably an essential element that distinguishes us as individual “Authoritative, Expert Authors” –
– A. Prime –
1—When this does go live, will we have to write out our profile bio again or will it transfer to the new design?
2—Will we have to add the ‘links’ to our social media sites or webpages again?
3—For those who have chose to keep the accolades hidden, will this capsule in the new design close/disappear if hidden, or will accolades showing be automatic now?
–
The new design looks good. I am looking forward to seeing it.
Very, very nice. I am so impressed! I have always felt that anyone who doesn’t take advantage of having a HubPages profile page and avatars should seriously look into putting one together for the benefit of readers and marketing. If I had my way, I would make it a avatars and a profile a requirement. I still would like to hide my accolades because I like it that way. Will accolades be required in this new profile layout? Just tell me, and I will go with it. Thank you for your efforts. It is simply a fabulous, professional layout!
Everything looks amazing on this update. But, I wonder about the similar to feature. Simone you already replied to Shasta’s question about it. But, it surely would be interesting to see how this works out. Any special category checks or something that would decide who we’er similar to 🙂 ?
Looks nice and clean. Can’t wait to see it live! 🙂
Nice work guys. I like it!
This is exciting news. You’re bringing a more professional looking “edge” to HubPages. I’m looking forward to these new changes. Thanks so much for all your hard work!
I’m so excited with this new lay-out from MickiS 🙂
Kudos!
I look forward to seeing this live later this summer. What criteria are being used to determine what Hubbers we are similar to?
Simone,
Thank you for your response, in some cases I feel like an idiot as I didn’t even bother thinking of using the filters, and since I make extensive use of grouping my hubs that will make it a bit easier.
I guess though what I mean is perhaps just a more overall functionality. I like the ability of being able to see what is going up and down all at once in some cases, but I guess what I mean is just more overall functionality.
What I picture so to speak, and if it is possible, is have a way of being able to view your hubs according the category. So for each large category that you may write in, say the Games Toys and Hobbies, it will list each hub written under this larger category in a large box. At the top of the box it will give you total number of views for that particular category, and so on and so forth for other categories. It could be away to help which categories are “hot” and which ones might be “cool” so it can give you a better idea as to which category you may want to focus some more of your writing on. Even if the particular hubs aren’t listed, a feature like this could prove to be very useful as part of the user account.
One more question – Does the content space default to fill in with “my content” and then change based on user selection from the right sidebar or is it blank until something is selected?
And one concern – Is the contact link only going to be in the fan mail section? If so, I don’t think a non-Hubber (maybe someone wanting to hire us for our stellar writing skills or ask permission to use a photo) would ever find the link there.
I like the new changes, but I want to know what criteria is used to determine similar hubbers. On the sample you have three hubbers with very high scores, am I to assume that the scores will be a factor in this? How many hubbers will be listed? Assuming that I am right and a criterion is hubberscore, will the persons on the page change when score changes?
I like the look fo the new look. I am concerned that my ubs are popular with other hubbers but do not seem to be getting many readers from outside hub pages – some people have reported they don’t wish to sign up and become a member of hub pages. Please make it simpler for guests and casual visitors.
Looks and sounds quite interesting! Look forward to it!
The new profiles look great. I look forward to the update this Summer… which is actually right around the corner, awesome! I love HubPages.
Very exciting, Simone. The social connections will encourage transport among our various venues, thereby giving us three dimensions. Rather than causing readers to leave our pages, it will create a series of ping-backs and other lines to draw in more readers with eclectic interests. So nice to have an active, creative staff to lead us forward! Thanks
What’s great about this social community is that it’s learning and always updating. This makes it a trending and refreshing spot for participants. Thanks HubPages staff! So glad I’m here!
Great! Bring it on.
Once again, thanks for your comments everyone!
Alternative Prime, I appreciate your feedback. We want to give an adequate amount of space to *all* the important aspects of someone’s profile. The most important aspects of a bio can most certainly be covered in the visible portion, and the rest is just a click away- you’ll see that option is available via the “read more” link.
We are most definitely working on more pressing issues than profile redesign first, which is why this new design will not be rolling out until late this summer. 🙂
Michael Willis:
1. It will go live late this summer; you will not need to re-write your bio.
2. Because the field does not even exist now, you will need to insert links to the social media sites you would like to feature on your profile.
3. I believe so, yes.
Glad you like the new look!
Arlene V. Poma- I think Accolades will still be able to be hidden.
Brandon- I do not know quite how the “similar to” feature will work. We’ll probably be explaining that later on 🙂
Kristin Trapp- My Content is shown by default.
Cardisa- HubScore, as well as other factors, will no doubt play a role. The people on the page will definitely change over time. I do not know how many Hubbers will be listed.
I think this looks great! I look forward to the upcoming changes!
I really like the new look – streamlined and polished. As a former sign business owner, I can say visuals make alot of difference in business. This is a great step forward. Thank-you HubPages for always staying cutting edge!
I’m loving it! After being on Hubpages for a while, I wished I had used my real name. Finally I can add that and I like the other changes as well. Great job!!!
This is awesome! I am so impressed! Thank you.
Cool, I like this idea. Integrating across platforms is good for us all. I look forward to seeing it in action. I also look forward to generating lots of angry emails for you guys when topics I’ve spoofed, mocked and satirized land me on the profiles of people who take those same topics seriously. Muahahahahaha!
Change is here. I do like many of the features and it will be nice to see it live. I’m not sure how much I like the Similar to section. Similar in what way? Sure, it’s a link to our profile, but it’s also links away from our profile. I would prefer our profile page to simply be our page alone. Otherwise, it looks nice, hopefully our bio will still be read! It’s the only place we can talk about who we are and what we enjoy, etc. Will the links stay in place in our bios? Thanks!
Awesome! No need for facebook any more (if there ever was), as long as we can convert our friends to HubPages.
My profile page is the one page where there are no links losing me traffic to other people and their writing. It is ‘my’ page. I am not impressed by the similar author feature. It has no value to me.
I don’t like it.
The “similar” feature is ghastly! I assume I will be given no control over who is featured there. If the list happens to include any of the many illiterate and uneducated morons who pollute Hubpages, my profile page and hence my reputation will be tarnished.
I also do not want stuff like Hubtivity, Following/Followers, Accolades and Recent Pictures splattered all over my profile at the expense of the words with which I choose to present myself. All of those items are absolutely irrelevant to the content I publish.
As one who generally doesn’t like change (because so often change seems to be done just for the sake of change), this comes as a really pleasant surprise. On the face of it the new look definitely appears to be an improvement on the current profile.
My main concerns would have been that a good selection of the hubber’s own hubs should be very easily and clearly seen, and that links to the hubber’s e-mail address should be very easy to find, particularly for non-members of HubPages. From what I can see, these concerns have been met with the new design.
I do wonder how the ‘recent images’ selection will be decided. Will the hubber have any control over this, or will it merely contain the most recent images regardless of quality or relevence to the overall hub content of the writer?
I’m not keen on the ‘Similar Hubber’ feature. It takes up space which could be used for further selections of the work of the hubber whose profile it is, and it seems that the hubber has no control over who is included here. I’m not clear as to how similarity of other hubbers will be decided upon, and the feature may take visitors away from the work of the hubber whose profile page it is. I would be happier if I could at least choose which other hubbers’ pages I wanted to advertise on my profile.
However, that reservation aside, the new design overall looks rather better and easier to navigate than the current design, and hopefully will prove to be a big improvement.
Super love!
nice work …really i like it..:)
I have one quick question about social media links or suggestion. If i link my facebook page I understand that it will show up on my profile, but will then a similar link say show up underneath my image in my hub with a similar follow on facebook?
Good question Keith Engel. That link would only show up on your profile.
Than would there.be any plans including it as suggste to the possbly the hub portion some how, perhaps even a social network capsule where such matters could be added. I have added a a text capsule trying to promote my facebook page,.but it seems obtrusive.
Sorry for my previous comment, it was written using my nookcolor.
Are the links to social media reciprocal in that we can see out links via linked in, twitter and Facebook. I am asking because I may not want my linked in page observers to see my my hubs. I want control over that.
Perhaps we should be limited to posting just 3 links on the profile page as teasers?
I am all for improvements of any sorts.
Will HP have reciprocity with other sites of choice?
I’m not quite sure if I understand your question, alphagirl, but I can say with confidence that adding a link to a social media profile on HubPages will not make your Hubs show up on that profile.
Keith, we have no plans on adding social media capsules to Hubs, since social media sharing options are already built in to the page’s design, but that’s an interesting idea!
Yes to share our work through liking, but not for people to possibly follow the writer the author through a page. I separated my personal facebook profile and created a seperat page. I share all of my work throgh this. Yet if somebody who isn’t a memeber of hubpages comes a cross my work and wants to follow me how can they then do that. They can’t and that is why I bring this up as a possible functionality to be built into the overall apsect of the hub part.
Ah, I understand Keith. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hey, will there be an option to upgrade to the new site now, or do we have to wait till the new design is mass released? id really like to go ahead and upgrade my account, so i can interlink other social media sites with my hubpages. Thanks! Silvershark