Are you a fan of our new Profile design? While it was previously only displayed on staff Profiles, you can now feature it on your own subdomain, too!
Here’s how:
- Visit any Profile displaying the new design (staff members such as Robin are good people to turn to).
- Click on the “Upgrade My Profile” link, which will take you to the edit page for new Profiles.
- Update your Profile information by choosing or uploading a background image, adding Hubs you would like to feature, and inserting URLs for social media profiles you would like to share. You may also want to edit your bio, as hyperlinks will no longer work and long bios will be visually truncated.
- After clicking “save”, you will be asked to confirm your decision to transition to the new design.
- Once you have confirmed your intention, the new Profile design will be live on your subdomain!
Keep in mind that the shift from the old Profile design to the new one is permanent; you will not be able to go back once you have confirmed the transfer. That said, this design will roll out on all profiles eventually, so you might as well be an early adopter and show your fellow Hubbers how creative you can be with featured Hubs and custom background selections!
HubPages Blog 
I love the look. I wonder how many are going to scroll to a hub? I like the idea of more hubs showing. Change is always a good thing though. No objections I am up to go for it. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Writers cant stay in the box we would get all whacked out. Thanks for keeping up on things. I appreciate it. I do not know how much thanks you get from us hubbers. I do hope allot. People are usually faster at pointing out dislikes. A human condition I suppose.
Well cheers to you and keep going hub staff. You are doing supercalifragilisticexpealidocious My Love skye2day.
I love the new profile design! I just made the switch. I think it will be much more appealing to readers. The hub carousel is eye catching and encourages more exploration than just a bio that isn’t interesting to the casual viewer.
The layout and featured hub slide show look great, and I love that you can see a lot more of a writer’s hubs below the profile. Restricting the amount of bio text shown is also a much needed improvement as some people write their life story on their profile pages (whatever floats your boat) which pushes down the latest hubs.
What I don’t like is that links are only restricted to social media profiles. Why not cap the link limit at 5, but let the links go to any pages you want–website, blog, etsy store, etc. Not everyone wants their personal facebook and twitter accounts associated with their Hubpages account, but many would like to link to their blog. Please consider this suggestion seriously as I think most will greatly appreciate having more options.
For some reason the first featured hub I want to use is not listed when I click the drop down menu. Any idea what is wrong?
Not sure what’s going on on that front, SirDent. Are all of your published Hubs present in the dropdown menu?
I just changed over to the new profile, and the instant my hubby saw it he said “Oh that looks much better!” ha!! I agree! Brilliant!!
I love the new profile look. Will definitely be moving over to it very soon (not today! LOL Gotta learn how). You can bet I’ll be contacting Robin for lessons.
Thanks HubPages for making us look so good!
New profile design is very good !
I like the fact we can put the hubs we like best to be put up. I prefer to put up hubs about racism, and religion. And I can also allow my website about racism appear. This will allow us, to have more control over the view of our profile. Guess we will find out how this will work out.
Visually I love it. Looks great but man those are some ‘heavy’ pages. HP does remember that page speed is a major factor for Google SERP rankings, right??? Will only become more so according to Matt Cutts!
I think a 4.25 MB profile page, a 23 second load time and a YSlow grade of 77 “C” is beyond horrible. Google’s PageSpeed is even worse at 67/100 “F”. This is with an empty cache which is what 99% of our visitors is going to have I’d guess. I am on a pretty fast cable connection so it’s not because my internet is slow. I was getting a steady 200KB per second the whole time. The hubber’s profile I tested has 107 total published hubs, no idea how many thumbs actually loaded, but obviously way, way,way,way…. too many. Thankfully this is only a profile page and not an actual hub to keep things in persepective.
The links part I truly hate. I don’t like that we can’t link to outside sources and what we can link to is no follow. So we can build up our profiles to HP’s benefit, but how dare us to try and use our profiles for own benefit.
I surely won’t be enabling this on my profile any time soon.
Had to chime in one more time…just visited Julie DeNeen’s profile page and the Featured Hubs look SO cool! Now this moves up my to-do list for sure!
Love the look of the new design! Two small quibbles – I really don’t like that we can now see not only who fallows someone, but also who they follow – that is no-ones business but mine (who I follow)
Also, I can’t get the tile button un-checked for my own background photo, which is disappointing. Otherwise great look!
Looks interesting. I will wait a bit to see the consensus. I would like to know if we can edit these profiles easily? Thanks so much. You’re always on the cutting edge of these developments, Simone.
Blessings to you, Debby
SImone, about 50 of my published hubs are not showing in the drop down menu. I have no idea what is going on either.
I have been on HP for ten months and have had no problem with the occasional changes HP has instituted, but this new Profile Design is, quite frankly, awful.
1 — The washed out gray font is almost impossible to read if you are over 30 (and a lot of us are!). What in the world is wrong with a crisp black??
2 — The design is confusing; very little information is displayed on the main page; why should we waste time looking for things that used to be found easily?
3) — My apologies, but the whole look screams of “overwrought, fashionista, OMG aren’t we cool, copycat youth culture.” If I wanted to do serious writing and reading on Facebook or a dozen other all show and little substance platforms, then I would already be there. Soon it will be hard to tell HP apart from them.
4) — Please rethink this. Please, please do not make it compulsory.
Thank you.
phdast7
Hi – two questions about the new profile.
Is the “contact [hubber]” option still present?
Is the “search content by [hubber]” option still present.
I really like those, and don’t see them on people who’ve upgraded.
Thanks!
Sid
Just converted my profile last night SS. Thanx for ever keeping us posted and your blogging as regular as a solar panel in the Mohave. You gotta ask how does that brilliant woman keep it up so well. Ummm yeah I meant to say that. Keep on Hubbing. LOL Blake4d
I agree with Sara – many people like to link to their own blogs or sites on their profiles, and many work hard at being active on HubPages in order to get their profile visited, and their own sites visited. If the option to link to their own sites from their profiles – for those that make use of this opportuntiny and being active on HubPages because of it – is taken away from them, they will have less reason to be active on HubPages. But perhaps there are not that many of us who use HubPages to get our profiles visited, and ultimately our sites’ links on our profiles clicked…
Wow! Thanks Hubpages for the new gorgeous layout. I wonder where are the “Contact Me” and “Subscribe” links?
I love the new profile page layout!
I like the look of the new profile design! I wanted to try it immediately.
I was actually beginning to fill up the blanks but when I reached the links section, I felt lost! I could only fill up the website and twitter. I’d rather have links to my other sites than to my social media profiles. So I backtracked and came over.
I noticed that some hubbers also pointed out the same thing about the links. I hope that you could please reconsider this. Please!
Until then, I’ll just stay with my present profile design.
Thank you!
What is the pixel/MB size limit for uploading your own background image? I tried a couple of different images several times each, but received an error message each time. I’d love to upload my own custom image!
Overall, I love it. I agree with others that it would be nice to have a couple of additional link spots, such as to an etsy store, but the new look is very modern and matches some of the new hub layouts well.
Cutting the profile page to a few lines? How is that smart and productive? Before reading anything one writes I want to know who that person is and what their interests are.
I will never change to the new and “improved” profile and if it becomes mandatory I will leave the HP all together just like many have done recently.
What do you mean by moderation? Can’t I have an opinion without your consent?
While I like the overall design of the new profile page, the main problem I have with it is that the font is entirely too light in color. My 62-year-old eyes can barely read it. I imagine other “boomers” are having the same problem. Consider a darker font please!!
The new design has a rather pinterest feel to it. Like it, but am going to stick to the old profile for just a while longer.
Hi Simone-I’m trying to list my featured Hubs, and http://lorlie6.hubpages.com/hub/Animal-Euthanasia-How-to-Come-to-a-Decision is not there!
What to do?
Thanks,
Laurel
Thanks for this new-hip profile design. I’ve been able to look and find my older hubs and edit some of it by not looking into the account tab anymore. 🙂
Thanks for the comments and feedback, everyone!
Debby Bruck, these new profiles are just as easy to update as the old ones- there are just a couple more things you can update. 🙂
SirDent & Laurel, the reason why some of your Hubs aren’t showing up is probably because they do not have images that meet the minimum requirements for the Featured Hubs carousel.
Sid Kemp, the contact Hubber is still option through the Fan Mail tab, however the “search conent by [Hubber]” option is gone; we recommend using the same terms, along with the Hubber’s username, in our main search bar.
Hahaa, it wasn’t me, Blak4d! It was Micki, Derek, and Fawntia mostly!
natashalh, I do not know what the image requirement is now, but we shall be adding it to the place where you upload background imaegs soon. In the meantime, I encourage you to use images that are as large as possible. Original files from your camera are a safe bet.
Petra Vlah, I don’t know what you’re referring to… we did not mention moderation in this post. But if you clarify, I’ll do my best to answer your question! 😀
Thanks, Simone. Adding a photo did the trick. Have I told you lately that you are awesome?
Well, judging from the comments that management has responded to and the comments they have ignored, I take it that allowing a fixed number of links to any sites of the author’s choosing is not happening. OK fine. But may I ask what the rationale behind it is? I am not alone in not wanting my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts associated with my pursuits on Hubpages. It’s not about my being ashamed or embarrassed of my Hubpages content, it’s simply about privacy and separation of personal and professional activities. I don’t see why it would be so bad to allow us to link to other sites in lieu of the social media sites.
If more linking options were available and someone abused it by linking to inappropriate sites, someone would notice it and flag it. A person could just as easily link to an inappropriate Twitter or Facebook profile.
If it’s about Hubpages being hip and only allowing links to the coolest of the cool, well, FB is becoming more and more passe by the month. I know as many people who have either deleted or ignore their FB accounts as I do people who are still publicly active on it. It’s going the way of Myspace. And while do I use Twitter, it’s mainly to follow what a small number interesting people have to say than to add my own voice to the din. There’s no reason to direct anyone to my Twitter feed, even I’m not interested in it.
I just am curious as to why having more linking options is not even on the table.
Sara,
Because I was not the person making the final decision regarding this point, I cannot give a completely comprehensive response, but the gist is this: we want to streamline Hubber Profiles, and we wanted the bio to be a means of introducing oneself in a succinct manner- nothing else. Hope that helps! 🙂
The new Hubpage layout and design is certainly eye catching to say the least. Hubpages has definitely out done themselves by implementing this design and offering it to all hubpage members. However I still would like to learn a bit more about how to navigate within the new subdomain. And I would like to wait a bit more on consensus feedback from other members, to see what else they have to say about the program after using it for a month or so. Even though from what I can see from feedback so far, it looks like there are more Pros than Cons about this new look. But otherwise I am itching to hit that upgrade button. Thanks once again hubpages for giving us all the option of taking one small step that may undoubtedly lead to bigger and better things for our writing portfolio
Jl
Hi Simone,
What Sarah said: I Hub with just first name an initials and tweet with my full name, which I use professionally.
Many of us will not want to link our Twitter or Facebook accounts, because of this and other reasons, and many of us will want to link to our blogs.
Even though you did not make this decision, could you please pass on our comments (and call the management’s attention to those in “Answers” too)
Thanks!
I have looked at the profile pages of some who changed them, and they do look nice. But I don’t have a FB account, and only Tweet new things I write on my personal blog. I don’t like linking every account I have in my life together. I use Linked In too, but that exposes all my work acquaintences to HP when they may not want to bothered. I’m not sure how I feel. I understand we need to change with the times, but am tired of constantly getting used to new changes. I think I’ll wait and see. And we can’t put our personal blog addresses on the profile page now? So HP isn’t doing us any favors to help us, although they have our content.
I just found out about the new profile while hub hopping and attempting to follow a new hubber.
I have switched to the new profile simply because now my profile viewers can see a greater range of my hubs and the struggle of marketing some hubs more than other is out of question because people can browse and scroll, this is one option I particularly like.
I have been through some of the comments above and like Anthony Goodley, was wondering if this will effect the speed at which a normal user can view my profile.
One last thing; I would love it if we could have more control over what hubs we wish to display to a stranger audience.
Overall; since I do not generate income from the site and simple write for my heart’s pleasure, my concerns may be different but for now, I find it to be an interesting change.
So we can’t list our own blogs on the little profile space we are allowed? I think the new profile page looks way too busy, and it sounds as if we have to feature things we don’t want. I already dislike having to display 6 hubs that are supposedly related to my topic of metaphysics, when they are not
The new profile is awesome! Thanks for making it available for everyone.
Great update. I’m looking forward to your offering even more backgrounds. The update is not bug-free, however. Even if I choose no featured hubs, my Halloween hub shows in the profile. Please help me fix this.
Nice work 🙂 Now, it looks almost as lean as Wizzley’s author profile pages 😉
It’s good that HubPages is always looking for ways to improve. But honestly, I think the new profile layout looks too cluttered and confusing. Maybe because the hubs’ picture thumbnails look too large… or is it that the text excerpts for each hub make the page look too wordy… or maybe because displayed hubs are in a hodge-podge without categorization? It feels kind of like the [not so] new Facebook timeline; I find it cluttered and confusing as well.
I prefer simple, clean layouts that are easy on the eyes. Maybe you could put the option to choose thumbnail sizes and whether to show text excerpts or not? Also, displaying hubs by category like in the old layout would make it much easier for people to find topics they’re interested in.
Anyway, thank you for all your hard work. 🙂
Was about to update my profile, but after reading the comments I’ve opted to keep the old one. Reasons: concerned about the contrast in the print (old eyes can’t handle subtlety); definitely want control of content being posted to FB and Twitter (one of the beauties of HP is being able to declare your opinions, even if I don’t want my FB friends to know them). Example-political choices…we have a rift within our family and I want to keep the peace, yet I do express my choices on HP. Lastly – I try to keep things Fast – time is money when on line! Love HP still though – if you’re active commenting on posts, etc. people will find you! Thanks for a great venue!
Just discovered the new profile look today. I am really impressed. You guys did a great job. I will definitely start coming back more often now. I love the layout and how easy it is to get around on the page. And the way you have the hubs displayed is great; they stand out much more than before and you can see more of them at one time just by scrolling up and down. And, esthetically, it’s very pleasing and modern/updated looking
Thanks for all your work.