Beware of Hub Hackers, Copiers, and Haters
73Hubbers Beware
** Update: This incident has been somewhat resolved, but it is always a good idea to keep an eye out for people who try to hack, copy, or sabotage your hard work.
Have the haters now become hackers? You need to check to see if your Hubs have been hacked and your web traffic stolen from you by haters. I published a Hub a while back called, “How To Embed Amazon aStore Into Blogger Blog”. It was doing really great. The the Hub Score was going up and up. Before anyone says anything, yes I know that a Hub Score can go up and down depending on a number of things. I accept that.
However, my Hub was also on page 1 of Google and also on page 2 or 3 a couple of days ago. Now, my Hub is gone and two different Hub that do not match the search phrase are in my place. What’s up with that? I do also realize that Google can rate pages up and down quickly too, but what’s the explanation of my Hub title and my HubPages user-name being underneath the hubs that took my place? Either I’ve been hacked or somebody messed something up. Either way it’s just not right.
What's my info doing in someone else's Hubs?
I’m not a “techie head” so I won’t accuse the Hubbers who’s hubs are in my place because I don’t know if they had anything to do with this or not. But they sure are benefiting from my Hub title. Especially since their Hubs do not match the keyword phrase being searched for. They’re getting traffic that should come to me. Why is MY Hub title and MY HubPages user-name in their contents? I know I’m not “all that”, but it is simply the truth. Their Hubs are not what the search ask for. After all, it's supposed to be all about the reader's experience. If they type in a search for "how to embed an Amazon aStore into Blogger blog", why should they get search results that bring back a page on how to add one to WordPress or how to add a static page to Blogger?
Check your web traffic. Someone might be robbing YOU blind.
I advise all Hubbers out there to check your Hubs to see if they show up in Google. Someone might be sabotaging your traffic and you not even know about it. I only have a few Hubs compared to some people who have hundreds. I can’t imaging have hundreds of Hubs to check, but you need to check them. I'm probably not the only one this is happening to. If a lot of others have this same problem, maybe someone will do something to correct this. If nothing is done, at least it's out in the open and and exposed. I have satisfaction knowing that I CAN SUCCEED at getting a Hub on page 1 of Google even if someone steals it from me. I know I can do it!
Beware of hackers. Take this poll. Check your Hubs.
Have you checked for your Hubs' rank in Google lately?
See results without votingYour comments about Internet traffic & hackersLoading...
@NoRR4Me: Thank you very much for helping to bring awareness to this kind of problem. I'm going to contact Google and Yahoo now because as of this morning, I see that more of my hub stories including the Titles, have been linked to other stories Not related to my story content at all and used in the search engines to redirect my traffic away from my stories! I'll keep you updated on this problem! I rated you up too.
MailXpress, yes we should check our URLs periodically. The sniplet under the hub title on Google results should be the 1st paragraph of the hub or a summary, not side bar info. Anyway, as stated in my last video update, my hubs were eventually fixed and everything was fine.
It's o.k. that people disagree with my view, but there's no need to harass and troll others. Lots of good hubbers have left HubPages because of being bullied. I'm gonna continue to ignore the trolls. I'm here to make money online & I'm going well here.
Thanks.
Hi Norr4me,
Wow, I just read your update. Good stuff. I happen to agree with you. There are many people who have nothing better to do with their time but to harass and try to bully. Whatever. I do agree too that we must occasionally check our URLs in the search engines and if traffic is being stolen simply report it. The search engines do fix it over time.
I received your email and thank you so much for taking the time to write me back. I felt better knowing it's just not me who is being harassed. Good update. I'll be back.
Hello one more time,
I just searched for my Hubs profile URL and many of the redirecting link are taken down. I will continue to check every few hours to make sure the rest are not linked to me anymore. It was so worth the time to learn and the effort.
I do understand if a topic is similar or if I left a comment on someones hub it can be listed but when I realized so many people were stealing my massive traffic to Hubs, blog and websites which had nothing to do with the topic at hand I freaked out. I was so mad. I hope many people visit this Hub and the Hub I wrote to enlighten them so they can learn too. And yes, they should all complain. It's Bull_ _ _ T. See you later. We should make you the police of Hubpages. They should pay you for weeding out the cheats.
MailXpress, Thank you for confirming that I'm not "out in left field" on this. I was like, "Does anyone else see what's happening?" It's unreal. This whole thing has "left a bad taste in my mouth" too. I don't trust HubPages. I don't understand why they're doing this.
Yes, you have worked hard. Everyone sees it. You've helped many of us learn more about Adsense and other websites to help us make money online. It's is WRONG for HubPages to standby and let this happen. They need to stop. I wonder if Google will look at them if they keep getting complaints about what happening(rightfully so). Maybe then, HubPages will do something?
Thank you for letting us know what's happening. I need to take a closer look at some more of my Hubs too. Thanks again.
Hello NoRR4Me,
I wrote a new Hub sharing my experience with webmasters stealing traffic. I spent an hour reporting to Yahoo dozens of people using my URL to redirect visitors to another hub, blog or website. I also gave you a shout out to this Hub so people can watch your videos. Thanks again. I am so curious to see how my traffic increases. I bet it does. Speak to you later.
Hello again,
Unbelievable. I went to click on my Hubs profile link within the google search and the webpage/Hub it was linked to is no longer published. Obviously Hubpages has control and can fix what is broken.
They should penalize the cheaters. Get ride of them. I'll let you know when google finally disconnects my Hubs profile link to the many websites it was linked to by the cheaters. I'll keep you updated. What a joke.
Hi NoRR4Me,
Hubpages did contact me and they told me the same old story. I'm not happy. Sorry but I feel a link should be linked to me. I can understand the side bar of relevance but I don't feel that is why it is happening. I feel many computer gurus know exactly how to tweak the HTML codes to redirect links. I took the time to view the page sources and saw in many of the source codes were being redirected. I'm not a fool.
I will continue to tell google I am dissatisfied every day if need to be. I just sent them four dissatisfied complaints and supplied the link my links are being directed to. Not all of my Hub profile link are being directed to another Hub many of my Hub profile link are being directed to blogs and website WHICH HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC OF MY HUB PROFILE.
I feel I learned a hard lesson. I will not close my account here but I will tell you I have a bad taste in my mouth.
Just for the record my Hub profile link is on page one, two and three. I lost a lot of traffic but I truly believe all in due time the cheaters will lose in the end. I will continue to complain daily if need to be. I always knew in my heart eventually I would have to discover cheaters taking away from my hard work. I'll be in touch and I will continue to update here on your Hub.
&%$#@!!*()&*(^%$ I would not write what I am saying out loud.
MailXpress, oh no. I didn't think I was the only one. It's ridiculous what the cheaters are doing. I've been trying to keep an eye on my Hubs. I didn't even think to check Yahoo or any of the other search engines. Thank you for making me aware of that.
To be frank with you, I don't trust that HubPages will do anything. I didn't hear a word from them until after I complained to Google, TWICE. Even then, they gave a lame explanation saying that the info in the side bar was pulling up in the description. Then they provided a link showing that my Hub was pulling up correctly in Google. Well, yeah after I complained to Google. HubPages did nothing to resolve this that I can tell. I guess whoever was doing it stopped because I drew attention to it by posting up videos about this. I don't know if people were putting my info in the summary or description of their Hub to get it appear in the search engines, then the click goes to their Hub. I don't know, but it's a mess.
Anyway, I hope you get everything corrected & get your traffic back. But, there's no telling how much you've already lost. How many clicks did they get that should have been yours? How much money did you lose? We'll never know. I encourage other people to check their URLs also.
Hi NoRR4Me,
I want to thank you for opening my eyes. Let me tell you why.
I checked many of my Hubs URLs at Google, Yahoo, MSN and Bing and what do you know, I would see my Hubs profile URL in the search results AND when I clicked on it I was brought to another Hub, blog or website.
The people who are redirecting links are cheats and deserve to caught. So, I spent the last three hours writing to the abuse section to google, yahoo, msn and bing. I also contacted Hubs to inform them of some of the Hubbers redirecting links. I supplied the search, the direct URL I was brought to AND source code of the hub, blog or website.
Thank you. My profile URL was being used by so many people. I did not want to contact them because I figured let the search engines and Hubpages deal with the cheats the way they feel fit.
Thanks again.
mailxpress
I know it is sad, but this stuff goes on all the time. I think adding a copyright notice keeps the honest people from thinking about.
Thank you Sandy and Lelane, you guys have some really great Hubs. I would check their ranks on Google.
Sandy I see in your Hubs you put in a note at the bottom that your work is not to be copied. I think I need to start putting something like that on my Hubs. You'd think you shouldn't have to do that and that people would respect your rights, but apparently they don't.
Thanks again for your comments guys.
This is very interesting NoRR4Me. I have been suspecting something was wrong with my hub traffic too. You know what I am going to check them out right now. And please let us know if google and hubpages got back with you and what their explanations are.
OMG, this is horrible. I am going to keep checking on my Hubs and and other sites that I have writing for more closely. Thanks for opening my eyes. I hope you get some justice out of this.
Thank you Miley.
quite informative,
thanks i will take care of it now...
NoRR4Me Hub Author 21 months ago
Susan, thank you for commenting and rating up.
I learned a lot from reading your hub about propaganda. The video you included about how people spam, re-direct traffic, and steal content was very informative. I watched the entire 45 minute video. It's amazing the means people will go to for a buck.
Anyway, the problems I reported to Google were fixed. Google is all about making sure their users have a satisfactory experience. If a user search for "how to use Blogger", a quality page containing that info, titled the exact search term should not be bypassed and the user be re-directed to a page about how to use Wordpress (which has nothing to do with what the user searched for in the first place).