Navigating HubPages

OK, here's where everyone gets to put in their two cents.

My intent is to update this hub with my progress at navigating and playing in hubpages. This started as an experiment in assessing my writing abilities, and now its an addiction. But now I find that my desire to expand my hubs has outstripped my knowledge of how the site works. I still am having trouble navigating the site and I don't know what the rules are. A most distressing thing happened today and I don't know how to fix it. My score went from 93 to 92 in spite of my publishing a new hub today. What did I do wrong? Am I putting too many links in my text? Am I linking to forbidden sites?

Also, I saw a hub where the amazon books were right next to the relevant text. I want to do that! I love amazon dot com, even though sometimes I am disloyal and use them for research, after which i patronize my local bookstore. But I want to be able to move things around like that and I haven't figured out how.

The good news: my article on Avoiding Holiday Crisis somehow made the first page of Google search "Holiday Crisis" Go figure! I am number 9 out of millions! And I couldn't have done it without HubPages!

I am about to start a hub on Aspergers, but I am terrified that leaving it unfinished with lower my score even more. I am going to do it anyway because that is my motivation to work on it - seeing it there unfinished. Rest assured it will be up soon, because there were two requests for it. But I want it to be positive and affirming, and that takes time.

I'll let you know if I get penalized for starting it without publishing it. But meanwhile, suggestions, ideas and encouragement will be heartily welcomed! 

Here's where I list ideas that I will try to get more popular hubs and raise my ailing scores:

the next two ideas besides the ones listed in other places here are recipes and videos. also i am going to have some targeted holiday themes including superbowl and valentines day, recipes for superbowl and for valentines day romantic suggestions. after that will be spring break, spring in general and then passover and easter. I'm going to be busy.... 

OK, here's how I don't understand what is going on. I started the hub on How to Diagnose Mental Illness - when I first published it, it was 50 and had zero content. I got a warning so I went in and added a lot of content - now its down to 47. Plus I added two hubs and my score is still 92. I know I shouldn't complain - I haven't even been here a week. (at this point I am down to 90 and still don't know what went wrong) 

But I don't get it. I really don't get it.

Another question I have is if I should be putting updates in the comments instead of editing the hub. Help!

12/14/08 Now I really don't understand. All my hubs went up in their scores, even (ha ha!) the one on 15 minutes of fame, which I admit needs some work. Even crisis intervention, which is on a hubscore rollercoaster, went up by a few points. My overall score? Down by two. I still have not figured this out!

But I did decide to add updates via capsule so the comments section doesn't get overburdened by them. 

If 100 is highest then my hubs have grades in the "C" range. Why? Not popular subjects and perhaps I haven't given them enough time. I hit 93 again this week (week of 12/14/08) but am down to 91 even though my hub on Asperger's online resources rocketed from an initial to 71 in less than 2 days. I guess I will have to learn some hot topic like getting out of debt or how to get rid of a bad virus. i do know a few interesting things about computers like how to get free...hmmm. i think i will go do some research. 

Wow, I am down to 86. Not such a good christmas present. I tried some tricks told in a forum and they aren't working. I am using my hub on Christmas videos to experiment with editing techniques. I will post here what I find out. So far I have not been able to get my capsules to go side by side or to the left.

I found out what social bookmarking is and that is frightening for me so I probably won't do it. That means I am limited to hubpages and my blogs. We'll see if I can be successful with just that. I also heard that it takes 3 months to start getting noticed here so I will watch that as well. Three months is a long time! 

I seem to have stabilized at 88. Its 12/30/08, and we will see where it goes. No answer on the forums on getting my capsules to go side by side. Looking at others who have better hubscores and more hubs, I see that they are in some way or another professional writers. So the current question is, can I do this if I am not a professional? I do write a lot, but without the "assistance" of the ruthless world of published authorship. Sigh. We shall see.

Hm. I guess this kind of counts as a blog. I like the fact that I can go back and keep editing the pages. Right now I am off to find out how I can make those Amazon suggestions more relevant. I have made 0 money so far, btw, and very little traffic from outside of hubpages. I guess that makes *this* a social networking site. And what happened that I can access this from work, which previously had blocked the site due to adult content? 

OK, my hubs are doing relatively well - All Bs and Cs. Not bad considering I am not a professional web earner. I have been learning incredible things but am still limiting myself to hubpages as my main venue. Today I am editing my hubs to have more targeted tags. I am taking them from the google ads on the page! stay tuned for updates, which henceforth will be on the comments, since the feed comes from there. And the date, which is a pet peeve of mine - no dates on the hubs! We should be able to have them if we want.