Until now I presented comparison with wide variety of publishing networks with revenue share - Triond Versus Bukisa, Triond Versus Google Knol, Triond Versus Docstoc, Triond VersusRateitall, Triond Versus Flixya and Triond Versus Blogger. I signed for another publishing network with revenue share option called HubPages in order to have wider experience on the Internet and provide more options to my readers. Lets see what is inside HubPages and what it have to offer compared to Triond.
versus 
Triond is a publishing website, where authors submit their articles, pictures, audio and video files and earn when people see them. HubPages is similar website, where authors submit their content in the form of so called hubs. Basically the hubs are articles that contain material around selected topic – the material can be text, picture, videos, comments etc. When logging for first time to HubPages, I was impressed with the quality of their website. Compared to the Triond’s website, that had very poor interface when I first joined, receiving several face lifts and getting better over the time is still not as good and options rich as the HubPages website. It was very easy to navigate around it, find what I need and setup my account. There are hubs written to help, forums, answers and guides and I had no trouble finding what I need and managing my account. After signing I added Google AdSense, without the need to publish at least five articles, like it is on Triond. The difference I noticed with Triond and HubPages with the Google AdSense is the fact that it is not exactly revenue share in the form of divided percentage. HubPages gives 100% of the revenue to the publishers from their Google AdSense earnings but it does not place the adverts on every view. HubPages rotates the adverts – in 60% of the cases it will be publisher’s AdSense ID, while in the 40% of the cases it will be HubPages publisher’s ID. Statistically this may lead to 60%-40% revenue share for the author, but there may be some rare situations when all the authors views with his Google AdSense ID did not receive any advertisement revenue, while the views with HubPages generate bigger amount that will go only to HubPages, or it can be the other way around. With Triond, the publisher does not have to worry about the revenue split, because Google AdSense does the calculations and there is no risk of the other party receiving more or less money. With huge amount of traffic the revenue share shall be falling under the laws of the bigger numbers, so the authors would take this much into consideration.
The rotation of the Google AdSense ads on HubPages have the goal to give higher percentage of impressions to the authors who refer other people to the hub pages, so it is this way for a reason.
Just like on Triond, where revenue can be received from other parties than Google AdSense. On Triond there are several advertising networks that give extra revenue, paid by PayPal, Check or Western Union. HubPages also allows extra revenue – from the websites of Amazon, eBay and Kontera. There are also HubPages Ad Program, but I did not qualify for it yet. In the revenue share aspect HubPages seems the better options, being more polished and giving more to the authors. Triond on the other hand gives exact split of the revenue and the author shall not have any doubts that the other party may be receiving more or less.
Both Triond and HubPages have referral system, that gives percentage from referred people revenue back to the people who referred them. While Triond gives sure percentage from the referred people’s revenue coming from the alternative to Google AdSense revenue, HubPages have the advantage of rotating more Google AdSense ads (10% from the views of the referred authors) to the people who refer someone, making it more attractive for the publisher to refer as much people as possible. In the referral earnings, HubPages is much better option than Triond, where the referred people must publish something, while on HubPages, hubbers can receive revenue even from hubs that are not made by them. Surely HubPages is the more attractive place to hang around, having fun and receiving revenue from it.
In the traffic and search engine optimization aspect, while HubPages claims to have search engine optimized website, I did not notice receiving more traffic than the similar articles on Triond, even less, so in this aspect Triond shall be better. Or at least it was, until the Google Panda update that slammed Triond’s websites down in the search engine results.
The publishing tool on Triond while simple and not feature rich is easy and fast to use. The HubPages publishing tool have much more options from the start to the end, but I found it little harder to use. On HubPages, the pictures must be uploaded first before being used on a hub, while on Triond I simply click on the image button and upload the needed image. All in all, I found it much easier to publish and create with Triond, while HubPages gives more options for the design, look and the templates, but it is harder to use. Triond or HubPages publishing tools is the better is up to the authors opinion and goals. If he prefers straight on topic articles, surely the Triond is the better choice, while the HubPages is for the people who prefer to experiment with different layouts, templates and content presentation.
The community presence and support on HubPages is much stronger than on Triond. HubPages forum, answers and hubbers are offering more help to the author, while Triond’s forum is mostly for wasting time and looking at self promotion. HubPages is sending regular e-mails to the hubers with promotions, contests and chances for more revenues, while Triond is mostly quiet with its publishers. Of course there are people who would prefer the Triond way of communication, while I think the HubPages method of giving more attention to the people who earn them the money is the way to go.
While Triond does not offer any other reward for articles and authors participation, HubPages gives Karma to each profile that raises over the time if the author have good presence. When people find hub useful, the Karma goes up. There can be followers on HubPages that is the same as the fans on Triond, but on HubPages, the participations on the forums is also rewarding.
Which revenue share network to choose from the both networks? I would say that being on the both of them is the best choice. While HubPages is the website with more options and better presentation, Triond have the charm of having your content on different websites and the importance of every view that brings revenue. Triond also gives more freedom to the authors to place their backlinks, the simpler interface and the options to earn only from pictures, video or audio files.
If a reader wants comparison between other revenue sharing networks, please let me know by submitting a comment on this article.
About the author: Ventsislav Tsvetkov participates on Triond and HubPages for many months.
Nice review.