| HubPages | |
| Type: | Privately held company |
| Foundation: | 2006 |
| Area Served: | Worldwide |
| Location: | San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Owner: | The Arena Group |
| Industry: | Internet |
| Products: | Blog, online publication |
| Homepage: | hubpages.com |
HubPages is an American user-generated online publishing platform developed by Paul Edmondson that was launched in 2006. HubPages acquired its main competitor, Squidoo, in 2014. In 2018 Seattle-based content company The Maven, Inc. acquired HubPages, and went on to rebrand as The Arena Group in 2021.[1] The company is headquartered in San Francisco.
Though the content is user-generated and owned, the editorial staff and engineers are responsible for managing, editing, moderating, and publishing articles across the two dozen network sites.[2] The network sites focus on niche content that ranges from topics like automobiles and travel to beauty and pets.
The site launched on August 5, 2006, funded by a US$2 million investment from Hummer Winblad.[3] The three founders, Paul Edmonson, Paul Deeds, and Jay Reitz, are former employees of Microsoft and were part of the startup MongoMusic.[4]
It raised $8 million between 2007–2008 and has not been able to raise any since and struggled for the next ten years.[5]
In 2011, traffic to revenue-sharing sites, including HubPages, was slashed following changes to Google's algorithm ("Panda").[6] Over the ensuing years, HubPages made strenuous efforts to recover from the setback, while most of its competitors gave up and closed their doors. In 2014 HubPages acquired its largest competitor, Squidoo, in a friendly takeover.
In 2016, HubPages announced it was moving from a single-site to a multi-site structure with the introduction of separate "vertical sites". Each site contains articles covering a group of broadly related subjects.
In 2018, it was acquired by Maven which gave investors a mild payout.
Unlike its competitor Medium, HubPages is not a subscription-based platform and creating a user account can be done for free. Members post informational articles and earn a share of the income from those articles through the HubPages Earnings Program. At one time, having an AdSense account was a prerequisite for being a member but this is no longer the case.