Hubpages Launches the Hubpages Ad Program

A couple of months back Hubpages had announced the beta launch of their very own Hubpages Ad Program which would enable contributers to earn more money from their Hubs should they decide to opt in for it. Initially it was based on an invite only basis and they had hoped to make it open to all the Hubbers by June-July.
Well, things seems to have worked out perfectly for the Hubpages team and they have already opened up the Hubpages Ad Program to all their contributers and thereby joined a very small number of sites (Triond.com being another one) which enables its writers to earn both direct revenue as well as revenue through 3 rd party ad servers like Google Adsense.


How the Hubpages Ad Program Works?
To get the HAP ads to run on your Hubs you need to opt in for the program and fill out a Tax form and provide a Paypal ID. In case you are a bit apprehensive of sending your tax info online, you may also fax it to the Hubpages team. For non-US individual operators like myself the "tax form" is very basic and basically amounts to a statement confirming that my Hubpages earnings has nothing to do with anyone or anything in the States.


After you fill in these details Hubpages will verify whether your Hubs meet their ad serving T&C and then start displaying Hubpages ads on those hubs which they judge as having appropriate content.


Payout threshold is a rather high $50 (compared to Triond's 50 cents) and payment is made through Paypal. So effectively, if Paypal services are available in your country then you can earn from the Hubpages Ad Program.


However, a very important thing you should know about the Hubpages Ad Program is that you must have an active Adsense account in order to run HAP ads on your hubs even though there is no direct link between the two affiliate programs.


Will You Really Earn More With the Hubpages Ad Program?
Well , I guess this is definitely the most important you have ask regarding the Hubpages Ad Program and it rather a tricky question to answer, specially considering that the program is very new (a week old at the most)  and I have up signed up for it just a few hours ago. But one thing is for sure: the Hubpages Ad Program definitely sounds like it can give Adsense a real run for its money as far as  making money from Hubpages is concerned.


For one thing, Hubpages is a major online publisher with millions of PVs every month. This mean that it has access some very lucrative CPM ad programs which normal publishers like you and me won't have.


However, it is also important to realize that once you decide to run Hubpages Ad Program ads on your site it will encroach on your Adsense ad zones and so you may expect to see a dip in your Adsense earnings from your hubs. But whether there will be an over all increase in your Hubpages earnings is time will tell and (as far as I can read the situation) it may very well vary from publisher to publisher depending on their Hub style, content and niche. But there is no reason to get overly pessimistic as beta level testing seems to have produced encouraging results. So go ahead, cross your fingers and give it a shot! 

Squidoo or Hubpages ? We Have a Winner

Squidoo and Hubpages are two of the most popular Web 2.0 publishing platforms, offering a similar range of features and thus making a comparison between the two inevitable. And if you Google something like ” Which is better Squidoo or Hubpages? ” you are sure to get 100s of posts and articles most of which are inconclusive or are written from a particular view point (which may not concur with yours). After being a member of both Squidoo and Hubpages for over a year I have had considerable experience with both these internet giants and am in a position to tell you exactly what I think of their services in a author’s-purpose specific manner.


Hubpages or Squidoo : Which is Better for Content Writers ?

In my opinion, Hubpages is more suited to content writers than Squidoo, especially if you your SEO skills are as lousy as mine. In my experience, Hubs (on Hubpages) gets listed lot more easily than a Lens (on Squidoo). Moreover, Hubpages is more adept at directing its members to new Hubs and also has features like Hub Hopping to help you gain more page views. Moreover, Hubpages offers roughly 60% revenue compared to Squidoo’s 45%


However, in the unlikely event that you are a SEO wizard then you should definitely go Squidoo, but you will probably earn a lot more just maintaining your own blog.


Hubpages or Squidoo : Which is Better for Bloggers ?


If you are keen on maintaining one or more mini blogs(such as a blog dedicated to your pet) then you should go with Squidoo. In fact, the Squidoo lens is specifically designed to be used as a mini blog offering the blogger TOTAL HTML control of the lens and even allows you to use your own affiliate banners, amazon codes etc. Like Blogger, Squidoo also comes with an impressive set of popular and profitable modules like amazon, zazzle, cafepress, e-bay etc.


Hubpages or Squidoo : Which is Better for Article Marketeers ?


As far as article marketing is concerned Squidoo is way better than Hubpages. In fact whereas Squidoo encourages you to use their platform for marketing your products Hubpages’ article acceptance policy is designed to hinder your efforts. Here is quote from an e-mail I received from them not too long ago:


“The rules – read these carefully:
* If your Hub’s content is unique to HubPages (doesn’t appear anywhere else on the internet) then your Hub can have a MAXIMUM of 2 links to any one domain (tinyurl and other cloakers are considered wildcards). Links in the image source field of images count toward this limit.
* If your Hub’s content appears anywhere else on the internet, then you may NOT add links to sites or offers you are promoting. This means that you can not have any promotional links on Hubs that appear elsewhere on the internet.
* You can not give a short teaser and a link to “read more” or “continue”. The Hub must have the full content you want to present and that your title implies.
* You can NOT add links to sites irrelevant to the Hub’s topic
* Your Hub may not contain an RSS feed that directs to the same site as a link within the body of the hub”