Do you think Idle Q&A Pages are affecting the SEO of our entire Subdomain?

1. 81

   CCahillposted 11 years ago

   Do you think Idle Q&A Pages are affecting the SEO of our entire Subdomain?
   
   This is just one possible theory for the recent crash in traffic, the traffic loss coincides with the new profile layout, which embeds the Q&A section into the profile page, directly on the Subdomain, is it possible that this is what is causing our bad ranking with Google, with so many pages with 0 traffic within 30 days and no new content....

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2. 58

   NotPCposted 11 years ago

   I didn't even think of that! I would not be surprised though! I agree that Q&A pages should definitely be re-evaluated considering many of the questions are duplicates and many are equally unnecessary. What would be the best course of action?

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3. 67

   waynetposted 11 years ago

   The Q&A seemed a good idea at the time....but it seems that it is a feature that is open to abuse with questions that are either duplicate or simply inane questions that don't bring any views or traffic and thus create a dead end page...I've deleted all of my no views/answer questions and this looks like it has increased my views, but need to verify in my analytics stats first!

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   1. 81

      CCahillposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Ah interesting, will look forward to see the progress on this one. How did you delete them? i could only find an option to close the page to new answers.

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4. 86

   AlexK2009posted 11 years ago

   There may be more than one factor. Most people blame the Google Algorithm change.  I will look at this in more detail soon.
   
   Overall I think several things have affected my views but this and the algorithm change are currently prime suspects. 
   
   I think the new profile may be confusing visitors.
   
   Any other candidates???

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5. 60

   STEVEW13posted 11 years ago

   If google makes an algorithmic change, which they did in the last few weeks, and all of a sudden lot's of people's pages drop in ranking then yes that is not a coincidence. BUT the change they made recently wasn't anything that would be effected by something like that, so it is more likely that just by changing the page it has been seen as less appealing when re-scanned by the google bot, which happens every so often so as to determine you page/subdomains strength. I haven't got any Q&A under my profile, yet my hubs have seen a significant drop in traffic recently, so it is much more likely something else than that.

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   1. 81

      CCahillposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Ah ok, because had you have had no questions and also no drops in traffic that would have heavily suggested the Q&A is the problem, however still possible that even your subdomain is being dragged down by the idle pages of hubpages Q&A from o

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6. 83

   Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

   If the Q&A has been idled, it should not affect traffic or rankings. The site's explanation of idled hubs made it clear they aren't seen or indexed by Google, so if Q&A posts are 'idled,' the same would be true.
   
   If, however, they are indexed by Google (which is what may have happened a few weeks ago), they could have harmed rankings by making it look like we have pages that have very little content. Google's quality-cruncher can't discern a hub from a Q&A or Forum post. So people may have been dinged for those pages, but HP has made adjustments to correct the problem.

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