TV Viewing: The British Detectives

I have only written a few new hubs since the barrage of changes came about.  British Detective shows have become something of an obsession, so I decided to write a curated list of all my very favorites.

When that proved to be too long for one page, bringing just the Female Centric shows into one list seemed to be a brilliant idea. After all, those are some of the creme de la creme.

It All Began Innocently Enough

Watching PBS began this trek into British TV. At first it was enough to see the shows weekly as they arbitrarily popped up in the schedule. But soon I had favorites, and great disappointment when unable to catch the latest episodes. 

PBS wasn't enough, I needed more. I started a Netflix account, then an Amazon Prime.... eventually an Acorn subscription. I was immersed in Inspector Morse stories, in Prime Suspect, Broadchurch, Happy Valley, and delved into the esoteric, the vintage, and whatever promised to have mystery and British venue combined.

For those who enjoy mystery shows and detective series, I wanted to give a good heads up on the shows they might otherwise miss. 

The Brit Detective TV Show Reviews

I have a new one in the works, but for now there are two pages:

• Best British TV Detective Shows To Investigate
• Female Centric Brit TV Detectives: Gritty, Strong, Independent

The third one is coming next month...

Start Watching

If you love good British TV, peruse the PBS schedule. One of the newer ones, 'Endeavor' is worth looking for, and on my station they regularly air 'Father Brown' on Thursdays. Check to see if the shows on my reviews are on your local station.

If not, one of the most complete offerings are to be found on Amazon Prime, which has two added benefits: you can watch whenever you wish, and you can watch on your device ( not just on the TV screen!)

Use my link, if you wish to sign up.

Join Amazon Prime - Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime - Start Free Trial Now

Disclosure: this affiliate link will support my writing with a small fee that adds nothing to your cost. 

Gardening Hubs, Will They Compete?

For the most part I moved my gardening topic hubs to my own sites, some still not re-published, yet. But for those still onsite only one has been moved to the home and garden niche site.

That has been disappointing.

Recently Hubpages instituted the addition of a small number of pages that can be submitted for review (the numbers are limited).

You can only submit one article every 60 days.

I chose to submit a garden article that had once been popular, but since it's been on Hubpages main site, has taken a drastic downturn in traffic.

An English Cottage Garden Isn't For Everybody

I haven't heard back from the editors yet.

Few Staff Members Vs Huge Backlog

The source of the lengthy time in pages moving to the niche sites may be due to the fact that it has proved a daunting job for the staff. They recently added more moderators/curators to facilitate editing and moving hubs to the new sites.

The pages that are desired for those are highly different from those that worked previously and this also may explain why older pages aren't accepted.

Can My Garden Pages Compete If They stay On Hubpages?

The question I ask myself is whether my articles compete for attention best while on Hubpages or when moved to my garden blog or website.

Google still penalizes Hubpages deeply. And that is th esource of woes for any writer who stayed the course, there.

Notice that my number of hubs dropped from over 216 to 145 (I have since written some new ones). That was quite a few articles to update, reformat, and publish!

Articles Moved To Ilona's Garden Journal

Garden Furniture For Outdoor Living

An Arboretum Can Save Time And Dollars

Cottage Garden Revival

Why Plant A Bulb Garden?

Firepit Conversations

Cottage Garden Accessories

Create A Child's Garden

Gourd Gardening

Scrapbook Garden Journal

Ornamental Trees Ideal For A Small Yard

Flowering Hanging Planters

Gifts For the Jolly Gardener

Mini Course In Landscaping 101

Flowers Of Monet's Giverny

Considered Raising Peafowl?

Posts On Ilona's Garden

Standout Front Yard Curb Appeal

Everything You Want To Know About Rock Gardening

Going Native In The Garden

Perennial Tulips For Long Lasting Beauty

Garden Hoes

Grilled Salmon With Herbes Provence

Hardy Prairie Plants

All Pink Garden Plan

There may be more coming....

since here are the articles still on Hubpages:

Hubpage Garden Articles

A Basic Guide To Essential Garden Tools For Beginners
Garden Journal Ideas: Keep An Important Landscaping Record
How Did I Live Without A Leaf Vacuum?
Bring All Season Color Into Your Garden For Gorgeous Effect
Birdbaths and Feeders Make Ornamental Garden Features For The Birds
The Top Perennial Flower Garden Books
Saxon Holt, Garden Photographer Extraordinaire
Homesteader Heirloom Apples and Real Cider
Dirt Cheap Garden Ideas
Fairy Sized Specie Tulips, Tulip Wildlings
Follow 3 Easy Steps For Spring Flowering Bulbs

The trouble is that I get almost 0 views daily on many of them. For instance, the Specie tulip page gets only about 7 in a month. That makes it a candidate for moving to my own website. I may not get alot more views, but it adds to the overall value of my own website.

If a page moves onto the niche site, Dengarden, the story is different.
The one page that moved, 10 Best Perennials receives 190 visits a day on average.

So far, the niche sites compete, but I am not competitive enough to be stationed on them to any great degree.

The focus going forward is to write more for my own web properties, since they were badly neglected over the years I participated on Squidoo/Hubpages.

Hubpages Hobble Along

Working online

The newest thing at Hubpages was the introduction of "Niche sites". Separated into new sites that center on a group of related topics, this has worked out for the site to something of an improvement so far, at least Google is friendlier to them than the main site.

For me, it has worked out middling well. Probably middling because they greatly slowed the inclusion of hubs, and after having only four moved from the more than 140 I have on the site. For those with more of their pages moved the results are likely much better.

The income improved a great deal after the niche sites were begun. Which wasn't hard, considering the hubs were down to pennies before the switch.

Sites Moved

Based on traffic numbers, only the most popular sites tended to be moved (after editors were through).

Of mine these are the ones that were chosen from the main site:

• Stunning Silver Hair
• Flattering  Summer Fashions For Over Fifty 
• 10 Best Perennials For Your Garden

Tightening Control

Along with the niche sites, rules were implemented and strictly enforced. All in the hopes of enticing Google to more kindly view them, I've understood from the forum discussions.

Cutting away the Amazon modules has been high priority.

Submitting to editing by unknown persons is another. While it is stated that writers have a choice whether to abide by the changes to their articles, the reality is that punishment is severe enough that it is a right in word only, not reality. Banishment from the niche sites or "un-featuring" altogether.

The Main Site

Most of my writing remains on the main site, which struggle to get any traffic whatsoever for individual articles. Not that the site structure helps. It is very hard to find anything except the front page featured stuff.

Promises are made to to include more pages within the niche sites, but it is slow going for many like me. Some of the more senior members of Hubpages report many of their pages moved, but I notice the forums have quieted to almost a whisper about the changes. 

New Work?

The conditions are not conducive to new work, but I wrote a few when I had time (My work has switched to improving my own sites, and moving rejected (repeatedly unfeatured) articles to them.

Of the new articles I wrote,

• Best British Detective Shows
• Best Female Centric Detective Shows
• Hungarian Pysanky

only the "Best Female British Detective Shows" made it to one of the new sites.

Most people on the site are "wait and see", but many are writing new articles. 

I spend most of my time there tending my older work, trying to learn about what works for online writing and reading in the forum.

I won't put lion shares of time in, as I did at Squidoo , until it appears to be worthwhile in terms of income. Income, because links are frowned upon, and it does not benefit my work elsewhere. I also do not find the community to be as satisfying as Squidoo. Perhaps I do not understand the culture of it, yet.

That is the report on the Hubpage experience to date. Stay tuned for future reports.

A Second Hubpages Account

I started at Hubpages just briefly before it absorbed the Squidoo enterprise. By default I found myself with two accounts.

This was by no means an unusual thing at either Squidoo or Hubpages, since writers for various reasons would have multiple ID's on these sites. I, however, found it cumbersome.

My List Of Cons For Having Multiple Accounts

I have personal list of "Cons" to argue against the idea:

1. It takes a certain amount of pages, written and featured, to earn enough money for a payout. This was true even before the ad amounts took a permanent dive for everyone.
2. Community participation is counted in profile ranking and it is frowned upon to use more than one for forum participation. This is more of an inconvenience than anything else.
3. I didn't divide topics clearly between profiles. This was result of not foreseeing the merger of Hubpages and Squidoo. Later, pages could not be transferred between the two without consequences.
4. It is just plain inefficient and became more so as Hubpages implemented changes in a fast and furious way.

Why It May Have Once Been A Good Idea

When writers wanted a particular niche domination, I suppose the separated accounts might have made sense, but in today's HP, the matter is moot. All pages are subsumed into the profile of the main site and now divied up into the new niche sites they are developing. A writers identity makes no difference in Google under this system. (As far as I can tell...)

Going Forward

In promoting and linking to pages I have tended to ignore the first, somewhat abandoned, Hubpages account; and now I think I should list those pages on my page list, here.

Since so many of the articles had to be moved to my personal sites, I will probably do this eventually with all those on the duplicate profile. They are languishing in this small profile that never really got off the ground (although I think their writing is better, and they adhere more closely to what HP advocates).

The primary account I have is "Ilonagarden", the first, though secondary in participation, is "Ilona1".

I will list the second accounts pages on my Page in this site, today.

Yay Or Nay

I think in today's HP environment it is bad advice to open more than one account. It is debatable whether the one will be useful going forward. It is a losing proposition to try to get into the niche accounts at this time, although it is early days on these huge changes to how the site functions.

Time is better spent developing your own site at this time.

I hope this review and advice is helpful to you if you are considering working on Hubpages, joining, or trying to decide what to do with your own multiple accounts.

New Niche Sites and Nixxing

My popular gray hair hubs moved to the niche site

In The Niche Or Not?

By now, the Hubpages program to divide up into niche sites is well underway. Of those launched, only a few of my pages qualified for one, The Bellatory beauty and fashion niche.

So far, the Bellatory, TatRing, The PetHelpful,and Delishably are the ones launched up to this point.

There has been much discussion within the forums about how successfully it is working out for individuals, high hopes, and speculation as to what will happen with the pages left on the "mother site".

Nixxing hopes are those who advise moving articles to your own sites.

I have followed suit with moving those which either fit in well with my present websites, or those which are not making any progress on Hubpages, the unfeatured pages.

My Niche Experience

The ad income went up, although not to previous "google-slap" levels. This has been offset by the stringent new rules on whether the article may have even one Amazon capsule or not, and editing by HP staff.

My Amazon income has plummeted from the changes at HP.

The stats show reduced traffic for those articles placed at "Bellatory", which I believe is due to loss of some Pinterest traffic, and possibly the newness of the domain.

I personally have never liked the front pages and lack of access that HP designs have in general ( including the new niche sites).

Moving Articles

• It can be a chore to move Hubpage articles to your own blog. 
• They must be reformatted.
• Often they have been "jimmied with over time and will need editing. 
• I have to change all the Amazon listings, deleting the ebay ones.
• Import the images.
• Rearrange the sequence of the content.

Those are just the basic chores involved. I also have to wait between deletion from the Hubpages site and publishing on my own to prevent duplication issues. I have no idea how site scraping problems will impact my articles, either.

My Strategy

Wait and see sums up most of it, but I am working on the present articles to get them featured or moving them offsite.

To get unfeatured turned into featured status means stripping out most if not all links. This means a large incentive I personally had for being on Squidoo  or Hubpages at all is gone. And additionally almost all the Amazon capsules must go. For me, eBay has been inefficient and has been deleted from almost all my work there.

This does means less income.

I am not writing new articles, although at first I created a couple to see how to work within the new restrictions. 

I am returning to working on my own blogs. I will write updates this year on how the moved articles fare on my sites. Hopefully I will have better reports on the Hubpage niche sites going forward, but I am not holding my breath.

Hubpage: Every Day Is A Struggle

A struggle to raise the profile number that keeps falling, to keep the hubs featured, to transfer writing from their format to a blog. Every. Single. Day.

 Every once in awhile the site gives me a request to know if I will recommend Hubpages to others. I ignore it. "Not now", is the answer I would have to give. I wouldn't do this to my friends.

The income is pennies and the workload has become almost unreasonable. My own nature is to tackle unreasonable tasks just to see if I can overcome the challenge of it... but not recommend it to others. 

Hubpages Has Become One Big Struggle

In trying to jump through the many hoops which do not seem to be enumerated for members of the site, I have ceased the actual writing.

I think I would feel better if I could write something and have it be acceptable enough to be featured. 

Part of the problem is what is used to evaluate the hubs. Mturk hires and robots, neither of which are good with the use of the English language it seems.

To be fair, when reworking my removed material I have had to rewrite some of it for my own satisfaction and standards. I edit regularly anyway, so that is part of my process and not something I am complaining about.

But There are strange things that seem to happen with my writing at the site. I don't like the edits that others make, and the system seems to promote nonsensical moving around of the various capsules. 

This Is A Rant

I don't mean to... but really so much is awry at Hubpages at the moment. And I am a bit weary of the struggle.

On the bright side.... it forced me to start working more on my writing and on building my own sites. That process had started with Squidoo.

For example sake I will list a couple of the Hubs that are totally unfeatured (have an empty circle next to them), followed by those unfeatured for lack of traffic, and a list of my top five featured hubs.

UnFeatured Top 5

1. Wedding Flowers For Each Month
2. Arabian Nights Halloween Costumes
3. Woodland Christmas Decor
4. Jamie Lee Curtis Good Looks
5. Helen Mirren's Style

UnFeatured For Low Traffic Top 5

1. Grandma Moses' Holiday Paintings
2. Costumes For The Christmas Play
3. Decorating Ideas For Christmas
4. The Cutest Christmas Teddy Bears
5. Irish Claddagh Gifts

Featured Top 5

1. Silver Fox Hair Styles
2. Middle Eastern Tattoos
3. Flattering Summer Fashions for Women Over Fifty
4. More Silver Fox Hairstyles
5. How To Write Thank You Notes

That should give you an idea of the different types of ratings I have in my Hubpage profile.

Some of these are topics I would not have written about, but prompts and contests on Squidoo inspired them. Some came from writing ideas ( like lots of articles that completely explore one niche).

I believe many more of my hubs will become unfeatured if I touch them (updates). Updates trigger the quality process. If they have Amazon capsules ( sometimes even one will cause a problem), or the topic is not liked... which is the situation with some that I permanently moved.

My plan is to completely reduce the number of hubs that keep on having problems and eventually replace them with newly written topics that are tailored for Hubpages liking ( for however long that lasts) just to see if I can do it. Sort of a "crack the code" challenge.

In the meantime, a lot of work ahead in trying to salvage the many hours spent in producing content and interesting articles for Squidoo/Hubpage consumption.

Was It All for Naught?

No. I learned things that many pay good money to learn. I paid in effort and time, which would be required anyway (maybe not quite so much of it, however!)

And don't forget... I did earn some money along the way. It paid for my hosting and domain names for a couple years.

Now, the cheese has moved and I need to find where today's cheese is stashed.

Hiccups On Hubpages

Well, It's been 15 months since I've become "ilonagarden" on Hubpages, and apart from the initial adjustment for the move from Squidoo, there have been a number of rather large hiccups.

So large, in fact, that there is now a secondary exodus from the site, and many very disgruntled writers.

I've decided to stay. I thought about it, and the whole experience at Squidoo was one of changing, learning to adjust to the decisions of the staff, and adopting the techniques that were desired by both the site and the public.

The History So Far

Most people know that both Squidoo and Hubpages have been writing sites where an income is possible from the writing. Squidoo folded and was absorbed by Hubpages. That is why my pages went there.

Both sites have had problems with Google, with spam-makers and spinners, and with the changing internet. HP continues to try to come up with a viable system.

Grumblings 

One of the grumblings that surface on FB and in their forums is the changes to the amount of Amazon listings (capsules) that writers are allowed to include before they get penalized (unfeatured).

I've had lots of problems with this myself, but realized I had developed some bad habits ( too much selling, not enough substance) while learning how to monetize on Hubpages ( and in other types of online writing as well). 

When one is spending a huge amount of time creating free content, there needs to be a way to pay for one's time. That is monetizing for most webmasters and writers.

Hiccup #1

As Hubpages has been stricter and stricter, my Amazon orders have dropped by about 80%. My websites drive very little traffic to order from Amazon.

No wonder. I have had to delete most of the Amazon products from the pages, and then there is the fact they I only get some of the commissions from the orders. Hubbers (as we are called) get little or no information on how that works.

Squidoo was ideal for their system, one's own Amazon, Zazzle products and affiliates all syncing together on a wide range of posts. This is not possible anymore.

As you can imagine, the income has dropped precipitously.

Hiccup #2

The continuing unfeatured status, some of which is run by Mechanical Turks workers who seem to grade the hubs (as the posts are called) make it a guessing game as to what is considered a good article. 

It is not as clear cut as simply good writing, or even fulfilling the rather large number of qualifications (word count, interaction features, videos, photos)  each hub is supposed to have.

When unfeatured, the articles are not listed on the site. It has become difficult to find many articles in either search or on th efew that make it to the front page.

Choices Must Be Made

I am making choices now. Unlike some who are leaving altogether, I have decided to take down and rework many of my articles for my own sites.

Some that I have done so far:

On Reflecting Pool

Wordpress Blog Plugins

Beach Scene Art

Time To De-Stress

On Garden Pages

Flowers That Monet Grew

Raising Peafowl

Herbes De Provence Grilled Salmon

Perennial Tulips

...and many more coming

My Daughters Site

A Fairytale Princess Party

I had written more than two hundred and fifty articles, and very few of those are now featured. So, they are slowly being moved to appropriate sites.

The Remedy

Not that this will work for everything, but one remedy for loss of feature status is to get rid of just about all the Amazon capsules.

Another thing to do is get rid of most of the outgoing links. I think this is too bad all the way around for the web. Originally that was what "the web" referred to, linking information together. But in today's climate that is contrary to ranking well, apparently.

On the forums it is suggested by HP staff that updating often will help. That would be useful for temporary "unfeatured for lack of traffic", but not for those little empty circles that mean you were slapped for quality control.

Try:

• Linking to the traffic-challenged hubs from your blog might help.
• Increasing content and diversify the features.
• Sharing on your social media profiles

For those in the Hubpages Ad program, it helps to remember that increasing traffic to your hubs impacts the income that the hubs earn.

So increasing the traffic is important for more than just trying to improve feature status.

The Big News For Squidoo and Hubpages

You probably heard it already:

 Squidoo Folds Doors, Hubpages Welcomes A Squatload of Squids

Yes, I went to my dashboard on Squidoo and found that they had announced "the good news."

Everything should be moved by October.

Lucky for me I had been trying out Hubpages and dipped my toe into the waters earlier last year. Now I must handle two different profiles since the changeover won't accomodate the lenses from Squidoo going into the present Hubs profile.

Yet, I am taking it in stride and created some new articles under my new profile, Ilonagarden on HubPages. I started this new blog to replace Ilona1Squidoo. That will remain as an archive.

My older profile will continue to be developed,Ilona1 on HubPages.

Welcome to the new world!

First hub up, an article about the marketing know-how learned from time spent on Squidoo