We’ve just rolled out a new Hub design in 3 categories – Fashion & Beauty, Food, and Technology – that builds upon the previous design that Simone announced a few weeks ago. Here are the changes (click to see a full-sized version):
- The breadcrumb now displays the total number of published Hubs in each of the categories, to demonstrate the wealth of coverage in each of those areas.
- The author attribution has been moved to the right, has added a profile picture, and number of followers.
- Below that, we inform readers how many times a Hub has been viewed since the date it was published, which is also displayed. (UPDATE: This feature is going to be removed)
- In the floating share box to the right, we mention that over 50 million visits that the site as a whole enjoys monthly. The popularity of HubPages is one that tends to impress readers and conveys authority.
- Near the bottom before the comments, we repeat the number of views since publication, and the date the Hub has been updated.
- We’ve reintroduced the “previous” and “next” Hubs in a Group, along with a thumbnail of the first picture, to encourage readers to read more in a series.
- Related Hubs have a similar graphical treatment, with photo thumbnails.
- Comments reintroduce commenter levels and a photo of the commenter if s/he’s a Hubber.
- We’ve introduced a second ad in the footer, raising the number of ads from 4 to 5 in this design.
This current design will run for a week or two in these categories, as we find and fix any bugs, and gather data on their performance relative to other layouts.
Check it out! 
HubPages Blog 
I strongly object to displaying the number of page views. I understand that HubPages wants to try and show which Hubs are more popular, but revealing that metric openly is a big invitation to the content thieves. Those who do well on this site are now going to find their best performing content poached and plagiarized even more than it already is.
I’m liking these changes. Small but effective. HubPages seems to be “evolving” and becoming more and more author/reader friendly and original. We are standing out above competitive sites and this will continue to get better as the team rolls out more changes after the beta tests. Looking forward to the future of HubPages! Nice job team!
JSMatthew~
I do not see where you can share hubs with your followers, I always have liked this feature. Otherwise I like the new look, perhaps not having people’s profile pictures shown is something I would reconsider as well. In my POV. Keep on Hubbing. Blake4d
Oops I was wrong, I see the Hub sharing link now. Kewel. Keep on Hubbing. Blake4d
I love the new deisgn but I am disappointed tha that you are only prompting Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest in the floating share box and to share at the bottom of the page looks like a Facebook share. At least on my computer I don’t get the floating share until after I go below the fold and it wasn’t obvious how to find Reddit, Sumblupon and other social sharing sites (which on my experince is a great source of early traffic).
Yes this new design is a huge improvement. I love it. One criticism though, still no Google+ button
The new “what others are reading” is something I would like to see go away. I want a reader to hit the end of my hub and use one of the links to another of MY hubs.
That is what Groups is for, right? And the link capsule?
I absolutely agree with Man from Modesto above. I want readers to hit the end of my hubs. Not be diverted to someone else’s hub. It’s just simple common sence really. Why bring another option to the reader, after all the work that has been by the writer.
Graham – If a reader wants to click on a related Hub, they will choose to do so (they’re never diverted; they have plenty of options). Keep in mind that other Hubbers’ Hubs have links to your Hubs by the same measure.
The new HubPages layout seems easier for someone like me … a novice to online social networking and since I am so new to all this website jargon it makes it quicker for me to “know” what and how to do the tasks I am attempting to accomplish.