Hi there, friends! I have some great news today. We’ve been saying for a long time that we want to give more exposure and recognition to the Editor’s Choice Hubs on HubPages, and I’m thrilled to announce that we’re finally doing it! As part of our long-term commitment to the Editor’s Choice program, we’ve decided to offer these additional benefits to participants:
- Editor’s Choice Hubs will soon display an EC banner label over their thumbnail image on Related Hubs, Topic Pages, and Profiles.
- The Editor’s Choice Accolade will now be a numbered Accolade.
- Hubs of the Day will now be selected exclusively from the corpus of EC Hubs (Starting Friday, January 30th).
- The best EC Hub of the previous week will now be highlighted in the Weekly Newsletter.
- EC Hubs will now have preference among Hubs shared on the HubPages Facebook Page and Tweeted on the HubPages Twitter Account.
- Each month for the next year, an EC Hub will be chosen randomly to receive a bonus of $50 to reward the author’s commitment to quality (Hubbers must be enrolled in the HubPages Earnings Program to receive their winnings).
Here’s what the new EC banner will look like:
Pretty awesome, right? If you’re interested in writing Hubs that have a very good chance of being chosen as Editor’s Choice, be sure to check out the last section of the EC announcement Blog post.
On a related note, it is with a twinge of sadness that I must also announce the imminent retirement of the Rising Star Program. This program was intended to offer encouragement and recognition to promising new writers on HubPages, but it never received the traction we hoped for. New users will still have the opportunity to participate and gain similar recognition by creating EC-worthy Hubs (and will receive a congratulatory email and accolade for their first Hub chosen as EC), and Hubbers who have already won a Rising Star Award will get to keep the Accolade. The last Rising Star Contest ended today (results are in this week’s Newsletter). Farewell, old friend, it’s been fun! Onwards and upwards. 🙂
HubPages Blog 
Thanks Christi that’s great news do I enroll on the hub it do you do the work !!!
Sent from my iPhonejacquelyn d fuller
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Hi Jacquelyn, just make sure you have opted into the program (check your profile settings), and write Hubs that follow the guidelines. After that, Hubs will be reviewed by our Editors automatically. 🙂
“Hubs of the Day will now be selected exclusively from the corpus of EC Hubs (Starting Friday, January 30th).” – I assumed that this was always the case! Considering that hubs of the day are supposed to be amazing hubs, you think that they would also be an editor’s choice hub. Learned something new today.
Yay! I love this! It really awards quality hubs and writers. Will the hubs that are already EC hubs be included in the program–the eligibility for increased promotion, HOTD, $50 random prize, etc . . . ? Woohoo!
Hi Victoria, the $50 drawing will only include Hubs written during that month. We really want to give Hubbers a great incentive to keep writing high-quality Hubs. But older EC Hubs will be eligible for all the other benefits listed. 🙂
I suppose I’m out then as I’m not in the HP earnings program. Why penalize those who use their own affiliates rather than HP’s in-house earnings programs? 😦
Hi Randy, I believe you can enroll in the HubPages Earnings Program (all you’ll need is a PayPal account and a tax form) without enrolling in the HubPages Ad, HubPages Amazon, or HubPages eBay Programs. HEP is just our payment mechanism. You are still free to earn through your own Amazon Affiliate Account and/or AdSense only ad layout. I will double check with the Team for confirmation, but I am pretty sure this is the case.
Randy– Just heard back and this is indeed the case. Enrolling in HEP does not require you to enroll in the HubPages Ad Program or any of our other earnings programs. It will just allow you to receive contest winnings, EC bonuses, etc that we credit to your balance. You can still continue to earn with your own affiliate accounts. 🙂
This certainly is fantastic news. Glad to hear it and thanks for the continued commitment to improving HubPages for everyone.
OK, I have hung in with the EC program and just received notice today that I have ten (even though I have had 17 or 18, since early on). I have not really seen the individual benefits so far, but a pat on the back is worth a pat on the back.
Hi Rochelle, the reason you’ve just now received those notices is that one of the improvements was to make the EC Accolade a numbered one (meaning it will display the number when you reach 1, 5, 10, and 25 EC Hubs). Well done on having so many of your Hubs chosen!
Thank you for the good news. But wait a minute…
“For the next year, a random EC Hub will receive a bonus of $50 each month…”
That reads like the same EC hub will receive $600 during the year. Nice one!
Surely you mean:
“Each month for the next year, an EC Hub will be chosen randomly to receive a bonus of $50”.
Pedantic? Not really, I just like to be clear.
Hi Sue, you are absolutely right. A different EC Hub will be chosen each month (from a pool of EC Hubs written during that month) to win the bonus.
Awesome, hubpages just keeps getting better and better.
This sounds good and I might opt back in! Couple of questions, though. Will url’s change? Will existing links to specific hubs still work if they become EC?
Hi Chet,
Your Hub’s URL will be to the HubPages domain instead of your subdomain when a Hub is made EC, but existing links to Hubs will still work.
I’m confused about the numbering system. I had 3 Editor’s Choice hubs in the beginning weeks of the program, a long time ago. Today I have a ribbon and accolade, but only for one of them. Since they have been noticed long ago, why is only one being acknowledged? I mean, it’s nice to be noticed, but they were there for years.
Hi Jean, it’s because we’ve just started the new numbered Accolade system for EC Hubs. EC Hubs will now receive an accolade with the level of EC Hubs they’ve reached (1, 5, 10, 25, etc). It means you were awarded the first EC Accolade. Congratulations! 🙂
Thanks for the reply, Christy, but it’s approaching my best earning time of the year so I can’t risk any URL changes to my sub just on the off chance the EC actually works. Perhaps later when the stats show it’s really worth having EC hubs I’ll take another look at it. 🙂
I see one good thing in here – HotD choices will be chosen from EC hubs. I’m assuming that will mean that things like spelling & grammar will be taken more seriously.
On the flip side, why is everything op-in? It seems to me that both EC’s & HotD’s are utterly useless if they aren’t ‘across the board’. If people don’t care about winning these things – they simply don’t/won’t put in the effort to do so.
This is the reason why things like your ‘Rising Star Program’ and ‘HotD Nomination Button’ didn’t work – because people have to opt themselves in and be AWARE of this stuff.
As a marketing person, this site doesn’t do a very good job of highlighting things that we NEED to see. I mean, sure there are links floating around; but if we’re not paying attention, they are easily missed. What about making important info into a HUGE, EYE-CATCHING graphic for awhile that will catch the eyes of users – at least until they ‘catch on’?
Where are your marketing peeps? I suppose this is an improvement, but it’s also kind of a dud.