Tag Archives: Editor’s Choice

Editor’s Choice Accolade/Nominations and Bing Webmaster Tools Verification

editorschoice_final

We have three quick announcements for everyone!  First, starting today we will be awarding the Editor’s Choice accolade to all Hubbers who have five or more EC Hubs!  Your accolade will be displayed on your Profile Page along with your other HubPages accolades.  Congratulations to those who receive the accolade; it’s not an easy one to earn!

Second,  several Hubbers have requested the ability to nominate Hubs for Editor’s Choice, and we agree!  Hubbers can now nominate EC candidates by submitting a Hub’s url in this Google form.  Be sure to leave the entire Hub URL (not just the title) and we will try to take a look at these Hubs as soon as possible.

Third,  thanks to our HubPages engineer, Edward Zhang, you are now able to verify your subdomain in Bing’s Webmaster Tools.  We have updated our Google Webmaster Tools Learning Center entry to include instructions for Bing.  Why should you verify your subdomain with Google and Bing?  Here are a few reasons:

  • Get an inside view into how Google and Bing view your subdomain, e.g., crawl and indexing rates
  • Analyze your link and query traffic, e.g, what sites link to your subdomain the most and your most linked content
  • Share information with Google and Bing
  • Check if you have a manual action against your account

Have a great Thursday and Happy Hubbing!

A Few Answers to Your Editor’s Choice Questions

The HubPages Editors have been hard at work evaluating Editor’s Choice Hubs; as of this week we have over 14,000 EC Hubs!  While we are happy with the progress, we still have a lot of Hubs to evaluate.  Thank you for your patience as we do our best to get to everyone’s Hubs.

We’ve been listening to your feedback in the Forums and wanted to take some time to answer the most common questions: 

  1. Where can I find Editor’s Choice Hubs?  Our plan for the future of HubPages has multiple phases and designating the best Hubs as Editor’s Choice is step one. Eventually you will be able to navigate to EC Hubs more easily; stay tuned in the next few months to find out how!  We also have an accolade in the works that will be out shortly.  🙂
  2. How do I know if my Hub has been selected as Editor’s Choice?  In My Account > Hubs > Statistics, EC Hubs have a banner next to their title.  If you don’t have any banners, don’t fret; we likely have not evaluated your Hubs yet.
  3. If I edit an Editor’s Choice Hub will it lose its status?   Editing a Hub will result in the loss of its EC status only if the Hub also loses its Featured status. Improving and updating your EC Hub should have no effect on its EC status. However, adding spammy links or doing other unscrupulous practices will effect your EC Hub and could warrant an action on all of your Hubs.
  4. What should I do if my newly-designated EC Hub starts to lose traffic?  While this is uncommon (aggregate traffic to EC Hubs has increased), you have the option to opt out of the Editor’s Choice program in My Account > Profile > Edit Profile.  Short-term fluctuations in traffic happen, but we believe EC Hubs are the best long-term strategy for sustained traffic growth.
  5. Why don’t I have any EC Hubs?  The likely answer is that we haven’t gotten to your Hubs yet.  However, if you have Hubs that have Style Tips, it might be a good idea to make some edits.  🙂
  6. Why are many EC Hubs written by Apprentices? It was easy for us to initially designate some of these Hubs as EC because they have already been through human review.
  7. Are EC editors evaluating new Hubs?  Yes!  We recently started evaluating new Hubs in addition to old Hubs.
  8. How are EC Hubs evaluated?  HubPages Editors read and evaluate every Hub that becomes an Editor’s Choice.  There are many factors that go into our assessment including, the quality of the writing and media, the aesthetics and layout, the number and quality of links, whether the Hub is specific and answers the question of the title in a clear and robust way, the usefulness of the Hub, and the Hub’s competition with other Hubs.
  9. Why hasn’t my best Hub been chosen yet?  It is more than likely that we just haven’t gotten to your Hub yet.  Designating EC Hubs is going to be an ongoing process; we have quite a few prolific Hubbers!  Plus, some of the editors are extremely picky.  🙂 Remember to take a look at the Style Tips!  They are a great indicator of possible reasons that your Hub is not selected, especially if your Hubs tend to have more than one. For example, a great Hub that has multiple products at the bottom along with a “Sign-up for HubPages” link is unlikely to be chosen.
  10. Can I turn off EC status on one of my Hubs and not others?  We only allow the turning off and on of EC status at the account level.  Designating Hubs as Editor’s Choice takes a great deal of resources, and we want to put our effort into Hubbers who are interested in participating long term.

If you have other questions, feel free to leave a comment, and we’ll do our best to answer them! Have a great day!

Announcing Editor’s Choice Hubs

We want to continue rewarding Hubbers who create content readers enjoy with a new designation highlighting their achievements. Today we are excited to announce Editor’s Choice Hubs. These are exceptional Hubs that are selected by HubPages Editors and are available to readers on the HubPages.com domain.

Hubs provide value in unique ways.  Editors consider many elements when making the Editor’s Choice selections (from how well written the Hub is to if we have already selected a similar piece.) Good Hubbers should expect some of their Hubs to be selected, but shouldn’t expect all Hubs to be chosen.  We will be using a variety of measures to assess your Hubs, but ultimately Hubs on HubPages.com will be editor approved; hence the name Editor’s Choice.

Quick Facts on Editor’s Choice Hubs:

  • Only a very small percentage of Hubs will be selected; don’t be disappointed if most of your Featured Hubs are not Editor’s Choice Hubs.  All Featured Hubs that aren’t Editor’s Choice Hubs will remain on your subdomain.
  • Editor’s Choice Hubs will be phased in slowly over the next few weeks. It will take us time to get through all of the potential candidates, so please be patient with us.
  • Editor’s Choice Hubs will receive greater social exposure on HubPages’ social media profiles.
  • Being Featured is a basic prerequisite to becoming an Editor’s Choice Hub, but there are many more factors that candidates are evaluated on, e.g., uniqueness, quality, engagement, intent, a good search experience for the reader, and whether the content is trustworthy, reputable, and authoritative.
  • Hubs that lose their Featured status will also lose their Editor’s Choice status.
  • An opt-out option is available in My Account > Profile > Edit Profile. However, each time you toggle this setting, you will need to wait 60 days before you can do so again.  You can only opt-out at the account level, not on a Hub by Hub basis.
  • Editor’s Choice Hubs will not lose their status if they are edited; in fact, we recommend regularly editing and improving your Hubs.
  • The Editor’s Choice status is not necessarily permanent.  At any given time, only a small percentage of Hubs will be designated Editor’s Choice.
  • An Editor’s Choice accolade is in the works!

Want your Hubs to have an Editor’s Choice designation and be showcased on HubPages.com?  Here are a few criteria to shoot for:

  • Write high-quality Hubs.  Check out our Learning Center entry on Stellar Hubs for guidance.
  • Follow our HubPages Style Guide.
  • Make sure your Hub has passed the Quality Assessment Process.  Again, passing the QAP doesn’t automatically move you into the Editor’s Choice bucket.  Hubs will have to be of even higher quality to make the cut.   Shoot for that 8, 9, or 10 on the quality scale.
  • Remove any promotional links or links to websites that aren’t high quality. Linking should be natural and every link should benefit your reader; the intent of your Hub is considered during the evaluation process.
  • Use the Grouping feature on HubPages instead of including large blocks of links to your own Hubs.
  • Only include relevant and useful Amazon and eBay products and limit their number.
  • If you are writing on a topic that is already extensively covered online, be sure to go above and beyond the best articles on the web.  Rewording the same content won’t cut it.
  • Titles should be descriptive and concise.
  • Proofread:  Grammar and spelling should be perfect.
  • Use high-quality images that are either original or legally used and attributed.
  • Please note:  all of the above criteria are not mandatory for an Editor’s Choice designation, but you increase your chances of your Hub becoming Editor’s Choice if you implement these suggestions.

For more information, please visit our FAQ.