Anyone else losing traffic because of Google's quick answer at top?

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   NateB11posted 9 years ago

   Don't remember what they call it, but in search results, Google puts a quick answer to a query at the top of the page. Basically, if a person gets their answer from that, it's likely they won't go to articles on the subject. Which is good generally, for users.
   
   However, I'm pretty sure I'm losing significant traffic, like 50%, for at least one Hub because of this quick answer thing. The Hub is still in a pretty good position on the first page but has a lot less traffic.
   
   Anyone else noticing this happening to them?

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      colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I have not been seeing a "quick answer" at the top when I do searches.
      
      What browser are you using?  I use Chrome.

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         NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I use Firefox. It doesn't show up for all queries. Also, I'm not certain it's the reason for the loss of traffic, but seems like the a strong possibility. I also might have lost position for other keyphrases. Hard to tell.

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            colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Nate, you might be interested in this article on Newscience.com, "Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links".
            http://goo.gl/OJipp9

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      SheilaMilneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I've certainly seen the quick answer in action from time to time using both Firefox and Chrome.  It must depend on the particular search being done.
      
      I've definitely lost a lot of traffic for one of my hubs in the last week or so.  I don't know if the quick answer is the reason though.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Evidence seems to point to the fact that the quick answer box affects traffic to Hubs. Traffic has increased recently to one of my hubs and when I google the keyphrase, the quick answer box is there but has a very insufficient answer in it. I think searchers have gone to my Hub because the quick answer is inadequate.

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      Matthew Meyerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I have noticed that Google is displaying similar info for searches for drink recipes as well and read an article where they explained that they were now making their own content based on the content for which people are searching.
      
      Here is the article on the Verge that I saw.
      http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/5/815463 … edge-graph
      
      This is related to what @janderson99 posted
      http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2716473

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   Rafiq23posted 9 years ago

   I am also experiencing the same problem. My traffic has significantly dropped during the last couple of weeks.

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   Thelma Albertsposted 9 years ago

   I have not noticed and experienced it, yet. Thanks for the info.

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   susi10posted 9 years ago

   You can thank Google's Hummingbird algorithm for that.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That's interesting, I hadn't thought of Hummingbird having anything to do with it, but that makes sense. I think anyway. Hummingbird was supposed to make search more intuitive and deal with semantics; like the gist of the search. I guess that's related to short answers when I think about it. Unless there's more. Is there more to it?

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   relacheposted 9 years ago

   Whether or not a quick answer comes up depends on the search query.  It's a more likely result when someone types in an actual sentence as their query.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I hadn't thought of that; would depend on how people are searching. I'm pretty sure most of them would come to my article in results from a phrase as a query. Another reason why I think the short/quick answer messed up my traffic.

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   jansharesposted 9 years ago

   I haven't noticed any questions related to my hubs, NateB11, but I have definitely seen a huge drop in my best hubs. Hummingbird, susi10? I remember hearing about that a few weeks ago. Is that what's going on?

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   janderson99posted 9 years ago

   The 'short answers' are derived from Google Knowlege Graph a database of answers G sees as the future (like HAL in "2001 a Space Odyssey"). It started with conversions, and has recently moved to Health and SEO. G steals the answers from various sources including Wikipedia. This link may be useful. http://searchengineland.com/optimizing- … box-215037

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      colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting article. Thanks.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the info and article.Very interesting.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That is very interesting that you can optimize for the quick answer box and the knowledge graph. Of course, a lot of what you need to do are things already done for SEO and other purposes.

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