Page View Earnings Calculations HubPages Helium Factoidz
Which Writing Site has the Best Page View Earnings?
When trying to make money writing online, writers are keen to know which writing sites can make them the most money. There are different ways writing sites pay their writers for submitting articles to these writing sites, like for pageviews, through Adsense revenue sharing, through sales of articles, and through bonuses or activity rewards.
I am one of those writers who decided I needed to do some calculations to find out which writing site I should be submitting most of my articles to, in an effort to make more money from my writing efforts.
Firstly, I should mention that I much prefer writing articles for my own sites for a variety of reasons, but this does not mean that I dislike writing articles for online writing sites too.
To try and find out which writing sites make me the most money, I looked at 3 writing sites I belong to:
HubPages
Helium
Factoidz
Disclaimer
Please note that the writing site earnings below are based on my own writing site earnings. Your earnings may be different. Also, my opinion of the 3 writing sites, HubPages, Helium, and Factoidz may be a different opinion to yours. The information here is only to display my own findings and thoughts, and it is not intended that you should agree with my findings and thoughts. The information here is meant to be helpful or informative, only.
My Pageview Earnings Calculations
Pageview earnings calculated over a period of 17 days, from 1 May 2011 to 17 May 2011
I have been a member at HubPages, Helium, and Factoidz for more than 6 months.
I started with the HubPages Ad Program 7 days ago.
HubPages
38 articles
$0.42 (HubPages Ad Program earnings in 7 days) divided by 7 days, x 30 days = $1.80, divided by 38 articles =
$0.047 per article per month (call it $0.04)
Helium
78 articles
$0.96 (Page View Revenue Share earned in 17 days) divided by 17 days, x 30 days =$1.69, divided by 78 articles =
$0.021 per article per month (call it $0.02)
Factoidz
33 articles
$0.42 divided by 17 days, x 30 days = $0.74, divided by 33 articles =
$0.022 per article per month (call it $0.02)
Based on the Above Calculations, Which Writing Site Earns Me the Most Pageview Earnings?
HubPages, HubPages, HubPages!
Needless to say, I'm very impressed with the HubPages Ad Program.
I'm not a maths boffin, but if my calculations are correct, the HubPages Ad Program is making me twice as much money as Helium and Factoidz make me.
I'm hoping it's not just an "early thing" since I started with the HubPages Ad Program just 8 days ago, but if not, then it is clear that of the 3 writing sites, my highest pageview earnings come from HubPages.
Does this Mean I Won't be Writing for Helium and Factoidz anymore?
I'm really not currently keen to write for Helium anymore, for a variety of reasons.
I will still be writing for Factoidz.
Reasons for the above two statements:
Helium:
The much better pageview earnings I'm currently getting from HubPages has nothing to do with my reluctance to write more articles for Helium.
When I first joined Helium, I was very excited about adding as many articles as I could, and was pleased that these articles could also be previously published ones. I enjoyed the upfront payment system too. The only thing I didn't like about the upfront payment system was the fact that if I added an article to a title that already had more than 5 articles in it, and my article was quickly voted up into the top 5, I received no upfront payment for an article others obviously found useful or of good quality - whereas the first 5 submitted received an upfront payment, whether the article was of good quality or not. This did not deter me too much though, and I often found myself wishing I had more time to write and submit articles to Helium.
It was unfortunately not long after I joined Helium that Helium changed their rules regarding the upfront payment system.
The wind left my sails just like that. This wind was not a strong wind changing into a gentle breeze. It was a strong wind that just turned dead; chillingly calm.
Yet I still liked the fact that articles submitted to Helium could be previously published.
I sumitted an article to a title on Helium about how Helium could improve. It detailed how I thought that the upfront payment system changes could have been better planned, to suit everyone more, including Helium. It was soon voted up into first spot out of 24 articles. I'm pleased some people agreed with my ideas, but my ideas were just part of an article, and these ideas were not directly submitted to Helium staff.
My ideas were not used, and I did not pursue the matter. In the Helium forums, too many people seem quite content with the changes, including more changes that came a bit later, so who was I, as a newcomer, to throw a spanner in the works?
I can still earn from pageviews of my articles on Helium, but since that initial wind was taken out of my sails, I no longer have the enthusiasm I first had when I first joined Helium.
The Helium changes and new rules confuse me, even though I have spent many hours going through the site's pages and forum pages. Nothing jumps out at me as appealing, when I can earn more on other writing sites.
Perhaps my views are based on not fully understanding all the Helium changes, and there really is still something appealing about writing articles for Helium, but even if I did understand it, and realised that perhaps I made a mistake with my assumptions, that initial wind is not going to blow again, for me.
I pop onto the Helium site from time to time to do a bit of rating, to ensure that I can still earn from pageviews of my articles that are there. Rating does not take long, so it's not too much to do for small earnings.
Factoidz
Why will I still be writing for Factoidz?
Even if my Factoidz pageview earnings are half of my HubPages pageview earnings, there are other reasons Factoidz still attracts me.
I get a small activity bonus simply for adding a new article to Factoidz.
I have not yet tried it, but I can also write a requested review that may pay as much as $8 or so.
I can republish my Factoidz articles elsewhere, 30 days after they were first published on Factoidz.
I also like the fact that other Factoidz writers cannot vote an article down. Other Factoidz writers either leave the article alone, or vote it up.
I like being called an expert in a particular category or sub category topic area, if I have enough votes on an article in that category or sub category topic area to deserve this expert accolade.
There are many categories and sub category topics to choose from - just going through them gives one ideas on what to write about.
Earnings have to reach just $1 to make a payout at the end of each month.
Possible concerns about Factoidz:
The concerns I see people mentioning all over the Internet do not yet concern me. Many people claim that Factoidz is a Ponzi Scheme. Some people are also complaining that their privileges were revoked after a while, or that just when they were nicely settled in, and earning satisfactory amounts, they were banned from using the site, and struggled to get the owner to allow them to remove their articles.
Perhaps this has happened to some. It has not yet happened to me, or to many others who have been a member of Factoidz for quite some time now. Why do they stay? There must be something good about Factoidz for many to stick around on the site.
If something uncalled for happens to me regards my membership on Factoidz, of course I'll be upset, especially since I would not understand why, but it wouldn't be the end of the world either - there are other good writing sites, my Factoidz articles are also published elsewhere, and I would need to concentrate on spending time on writing new articles for my own sites or other writing sites, not worrying about what went wrong.
For now, and hopefully for long into the future too, I'm happy with Factoidz. Many others seem to be too.
Comments
@ Nan - thanks for the comment and encouragement. I definitely make more on my own sites than I do from online writing sites, but I do still enjoy writing for online writing sites too. Also, the earnings calculations explained above are just for the page view earnings from the sites, not also the other ways people can earn money writing for these sites, but, yes, even so, writing for online writing sites for passive income does not earn me all that much at all. What I do like about this method of earning from writing, though, is that even though my earnings are still small, these earnings keep coming to me every month, for work done just once. Over time, these small earnings add up to a reasonable amount, and then each article still continues to earn me small amounts per month after that. Although selling an article for full rights brings in more money right away, that's it, finished. I do a bit of both. Well done on publishing some books on poetry and history - excellent achievement, and keep it up!
Thanks for the info about factoidz and helium, and the comparison, Teresa. Rated up and useful.
@kim - thanks, pleased you found the info useful.
Great comparison article. Gave up on Helium years ago when they deactivated several articles I had, but still have 5 active article there. Have not tried Factoidz. Also I have been banned from Adsense, so I guess the new Hubpages earnings program will not work for me.
@FGual - thanks. If you're struggling to find more ways to earn a bit of extra income from writing online, especially since you're banned from using Adsense, then you might want to give Factoidz a try. Payments are made to your PayPal account. It's quite small earnings, but could be relatively reasonable if you add many articles, link to the articles quite a bit from elsewhere etc, I guess. Good luck!
Teresa, Thanks for the info. I've always wondered about those sites. So far I have only tried Hubpages, Squidoo, and Xomba. I still seem to make the most at Hubpages too.
@ Barbara - thanks. Xomba was the first writing site I joined, over two years ago now. For a long time I didn't even know there were other writing sites. I don't have all that many articles on Xomba, but, still, Xomba has earned me the least of the lot of them, even though I've been a member there for so much longer. I'll admit, I'm not too active on Xomba at all, but the same amount - or lack of - activity on other writing sites has earned me more than I've earned on Xomba.
Some people are doing well on Xomba, and I can only imagine how well they might then be doing on other writing sites if they spent some more time on other writing sites too.
The fact that some people are doing well on Xomba makes me pop in at Xomba from time to time, to put in a little more effort there, but each time I do this, I come away disappointed that there's still not much improvement in earnings afterwards.
Perhaps if I really spent a LOT more time on Xomba, I may see a worthwhile difference; it's just difficult to spend a lot of time there when I've seen that not as much time spent on other sites is so far earning me more.
I think I have a soft spot for Xomba, since it was the writing site I first joined, and quite a while before I joined the others, so I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet - I'd really like to come back here one day and tell others that Xomba is finally doing just as well for me as the other writing sites. That time is just not yet. It's so far depressing to find that my time spent on Xomba that earns me nothing or next to nothing is the same amount of time I could have rather spent writing for another site or for one of my own sites, time that does earn me a little something.
Thanks for the great article Teresa! It is very informative (as are so many of your others). It’s a bit confusing though because I have most of my work on helium... Maybe I should try and leave helium for a bit and submit some pieces to factoidz and hubpages.
Thanks again!
Thanks, Jade - the ideas in this hub are just my own - many people are still happy writing for Helium. I'm glad my articles have helped you - you've helped me too - an email I sent to you looked very much like it could be turned into an article, so I tweaked it a bit, and added it here on HubPages to maybe help others too - so thanks for the inspiration, and I really do help my articles can help you a bit, as well as help others :)
Another great hub from you, Terry!
Regarding earlier comments, Xomba's pretty much dead now, as far as this style of earning goes, I think. They announced a radical change of direction. I never earned anything off them either and that made me sceptical of those claiming it as a good earner. The same goes for Shetoldme, which says it gives you 100% of the adsense, but doesn't (at least not in layman's terms, maybe if you apply techno-legalistic terminology, they maybe do!).
I have not got involved with helium or factoidz. I set Hubpages going, then blogger, now I am focusing on setting some WordPress websites in motion, and struggling with some html/css issues in the process, which hopefully will be resolved soon! :-)
Thanks, Paul :) - what are those html/css issues? - pop off an email to Tony and I and perhaps we can offer a few tips?
I have tried helium before but couldn't really make any money out of it ... i guess my articles are still not up to standard. I still need a lot of work on my writing skills. I wonder if you have tried nowpublic before. I think it's a great site and lots of earning opportunities. It doesn't use adsense and it pays you through it's own pageviews calculation. Of course, the more pageviews you get, the better money you earn. Also, it ranks writers and the better rank u are, the better rate you get.
I must admit that I have stopped using nowpublic as I thought I want to focus on hubpages first.
@myi4u - thanks for popping in - I haven't heard of nowpublic - I may have a look sometime, but it's also nice to just stick to a few sites, and I think your plan to focus on HubPages first, for now, is a good plan.
Excellent article. I've often wondered how revenue is accumulated. I met you on RedGage. Glad to know you're a Hubber, too.
Hi all
I have been writing on the web for about a year and have been investigating further sites to make money on and am fairly horrified by the payments received. $.04 a month adds up to $.48 a year for a professional piece of writing!
To make $1000 a month, which is not a particularly good wage, you have to be writing 25,000 article a month, or 1250 every working day (based on 20 days a month). I think I am missing something here, because i can not see how it possible? I know some sites allow for articles that have previously been published, but many don't, so I have discounted that factor.
Could someone put me straight on how you guys earn money from writing for some of these sites?
Hi Chrissie, and thanks for the comment. Yes, pageviews do not earn that much for writers, unless they can up their pageviews considerably by working at a bit of excellent natural Search Engine Optimization techniques, write engaging content that everybody wants to read, and work at getting lots of traffic from other sites too.
If not spending a ton of time on marketing the articles in any of the above manners, the earnings might be very little.
But they're also ongoing. A nice little investment in return for spending time, for eg here on HubPages, with an amazing community of fellow writers. People do not get paid for writing stuff on Twitter or FaceBook, or even on their own blogs if their blogs are not monetized.
THEN
This hub (article) was only about PAGEVIEW earnings.
There are also other ways that HubPages writers earn some income:
From Adsense and Amazon
From linking to their own sites in their articles, or from their HubPages profile/subdomain - and their own sites may be monetized with Adsense and Amazon too, as well as other affiliate programs, or they may be selling their own products or offering their own services.
Hope that clears up why people bother to write for what at first glance seems like a pittance.
Good stuff here. Not many people go into such great depth about their opinions in their articles, I like that. Keep it up
The biggest problem with Helium, in my view, is that you're not only earning less per article - you're also giving away that article forever! Not a fair exchange, IMO.
As you've probably learned already, none of the reputable rev-sharing sites accept articles which are already published on another site. Helium may SAY it's only taking exclusive rights for a year - but what's the good of that, because even after the 12 months is up, your article still appears on their site, and therefore no one else will take it!
Even worse, they take the right to use your article in "derivative works" - which means they can put it in an ebook without your permission and with no payment to you. This has happened to a few Helium authors that I know - and probably to many others, they just don't know it!
@Marisa - thinking of Helium makes me tired - my pageview earnings from Helium have stopped because I haven't stayed up to date with rating - it will take me less than an hour to get it back up so that I can earn from the articles I have on Helium, but to do even that I haven't had the energy as I just feel depressed on Helium - thanks for the reminder, though, as I must just make myself do that rating to get a payout - after that I'm not sure what to do - I don't feel like doing tons more rating just to get a really small payout from time to time - I'd have to explore Helium more to see rules about removing my articles from Helium but I suspect the info that I find may not be encouraging - and just thinking of having to explore the site to find out what I can do makes me depressed. I'd rather spend that time on my own sites and on HubPages.
I started out writing for Helium before I knew any better. I now realise it's really not acceptable for them to have such control over your articles. They may say that you own the copyright but you don't have the power to delete your articles, and even updating/editing them is not in your direct control.
Plus last time I checked they still have this ridiculous rule that you have to spend time rating in order to get your revenue share! What this means is that if you started out there and are now a successful writer elsewhere with no time to rate (ie the good writers)Helium are keeping your rev share. If you're a bad writer who stuck with Helium because you never progressed on to getting 'proper' writing gigs, you probably still have time to rate and get your revenue share. Probably also means that Helium get to keep the (higher) revenue of more high rated articles than low rated ones. Ooh... I sound a bit bitter which was not my intention. I just really don't like the way Helium do business.
@ Karen - thanks for your input - I also started writing at Helium before I knew any better. I'm sorry I did, but I'm trying to put it behind me and just keep on doing the better things online, that I enjoy more, and earn more from. I do just need to rate a bit on Helium to get my latest payout amount, but then I don't intend going back to the site - just upset that my articles there will be earning Helium money, and nothing for me. Unless there is a way I can remove my articles, but I think the last time I tried to find this out I may have seen something along the lines of having to have a certain amount of writing stars to be allowed to remove one or two articles, or something like that (and to get my writing stars back up, I'd have to write more for them, I think!)
Nan Mynatt 12 months ago
Good analysis on the money you can earn. Although I have not profited from the hubpages I still write, because it let me keep my writing skills. As a former teacher none of the on line writing really pays much money. Reading the works of other people keeps me up on the newest trends, and I enjoy writing. I have published some books on poetry, and history. It takes a lot to become well known and picked up by a company that has analyzed your work. Keep writing! I marked you up on your score.