Anyone else seeing a drop in traffic?

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   melbelposted 12 years ago

   I've been experiencing a drop in traffic for the last week or so. I've been seeing a lot of people in the forums talking about how they are seeing increases in traffic, but I am seeing the opposite. Is anyone else seeing a drop in traffic?

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      LeanManposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I had a few weeks with a significant increase, but in the last 2 -3 days my traffic has reduced (allowing for the weekend) but still above the point where I had my increase. I will just keep publishing and go with the flow!! If G does not like me here I have other eggs in other baskets... but this is still one of my best performing for income..

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      lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Melbel, mine increased this week, but the weekend thing has made it drop to my usual traffic...

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         Xenonlitposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Same here. I had a good increase, then a drop. My pay is stuck for three days, too.

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      Dorsiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yup, drop in traffic here too. About 1,500 - 2,000 less reads a day. Don't know why. Started a couple weeks ago too.

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      Lwelchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I am another one that has seen a massive spike in my traffic.  I have wondered if hubpages or google restructured something.

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      freemarketingnowposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I have written 12 hubs. 3 are dropping in traffic. The other 9 are okay.

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         lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Your here just 9 days and that's just the initial views your talking about. You need to see it a few weeks or months down the road.

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   rmcrayneposted 12 years ago

   Thanks for posting melbel.  I've been monitoring the forums to see if anyone else has dropped.  Mine started dropping too early for the weekend, on Wednesday.  Down about 30%.  Back up a bit tonight, but still concerning having followed Izzy's thread.  Hope it's just the usual lull that happens Jan/Feb.

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   Randy Godwinposted 12 years ago

   Perhaps HP staff could address the OP's Question as to traffic falling across the board.  If an "Elite" doesn't know then why ask commoners their experience?  This may be the reason for the recent "spring cleaning" thread posted by Jason a few days ago.  Or it could be mere coincidence.  Who knows? 

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      rmcrayneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Randy I was previously elite status for being on the HubMob team.  Elite designation is sort of a show of appreciation by HP for volunteers for greeting, and HubNuggets team volunteers.  We are not "in the know" any more than "commoners", and are in reality still "commoners".

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         Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         A "show of appreciation" is understood but why such a presumptuous and, in my opinion, ill chosen title to describe simple greeters and volunteers?  And frankly, some of those bearing this title are not good examples of those who are perhaps representative of the quality writers on this site.
         
         It's embarrassing to me--and to others I have spoken with privately--when an Elite doesn't know the difference in "there, they're and their or "your and you're" when posting on the forums or even in their published articles here on HP.
         
         This gives the impression the "best" writers here are basically lacking in proper grammar and spelling.  Why not just call them HP Gods if it doesn't make any difference?  Frankly, I have very little respect for anyone who would aspire to such a presumptuous title and refuse to follow them.  I just don't understand the purpose of such an ill used moniker on a serious writing site.
         
         I've know some who had the title thrust upon them and asked to be relieved of the name.  Those members I respect much more than Hubbers requesting the designation.  But there are always those who desire such nonsense.

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            EmpressFelicityposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I've always thought that the term "Elite" was divisive and had the potential to cause trouble.
            
            Perhaps "Helpers" would have been better - it's far more descriptive/accurate as a word to describe what "Elite" hubbers do, as well as being less controversial.

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               Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Of course it's divisive!  Do you really think the PTB didn't take this into consideration when coming up with the idea?  And if they didn't, what does this tell you about their foresight in creating such a designation?
               
               There are always those who enjoy being placed above others with special titles which seem to indicate their superiority.  These types always make the best volunteers for any organization or business.  I've experienced the same thing on other writing sites and it always causes problems among the membership.  It's well known an unpaid volunteer will show more loyalty than a paid worker because the volunteer feels the need to justify doing something without any monetary compensation for their efforts.  Sad but true! 

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                  thejeffriestubeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  +10000 internets for highjacking the poor girl's thread with nonsense.

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                     Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Nonsense is in the eye of the beholder.  Need glasses, do you? 

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                        thejeffriestubeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Leaving ranting replies that have nothing to do with the topic posed, rather, what appears to be a personal beef against "elites", is in a word, nonsense. Your comparison between Elites and "commoners" is telling. Snarky replies tell the other part of the story. People will only treat you as a commoner if you allow them to. ;-) Mel does much for the community here, you know, besides complain.

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                           Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           No, I don't know that.  I asked her what she did that she couldn't do without bearing the silly title but she did not reply.  So Mr. helper, why don't you enlighten me instead? 

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                              thejeffriestubeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              Perhaps that "silly title" represents something significant to her personally. To belittle it without even knowing her, but simply by the tag she wears, is shocking. I had the same sort of folk do that to me when I once wore this country's uniform. It did not matter that I was a person. To them, I was just a tag.

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                                 thejeffriestubeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                 And let me say, there is no honor in forum sparring without a worthy adversary. Well met, Sir.

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                                 Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                 Perhaps it does.  More's the pity if that is true.  As far as me trying to "belittle" her.  I have no problem with her but if she asked for the title then  this does tell something about her feelings towards the name.  Some had this title thrust upon them and asked for it to be removed because of its connotation.  I would have done the same in their place and this act made me respect them so much more.
                                 
                                 I don't see the parallel between being a soldier and being an "Elite".  Did you ask to be called something which denoted you to be above all others in the military, or am I missing something.
                                 
                                 So, answer the last question in my previous post which you seeming overlooked.  You know, all of the important things she has done she could not have without the title. 

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                                    Norah Caseyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                    If you would like to continue this discussion about the legitimacy of a badge, start a new thread.

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                                       Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                       Okay.

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            melbelposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I just like to help.
            
            I'm really just wondering if anyone else is experiencing a drop. I don't have some idea that I'm better than any other hubber because I have an e by my name. Heck, there are hubbers who aren't Elites that are seriously awesome and actually deserving of an e solely based on the content they publish or how they behave in the forums. Not really "elite", maybe "awesome" instead.
            
            Sorry if I have bad grammar in the forums. I read, edit, reread, edit.... as much as I can in my hubs, but when I post in the forums I can only care so much.

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               Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I'm sure you do like to help, but so do many others of us who don't ask for the title.  You did ask for it, didn't you?  What do you do now that you couldn't do before without the title? 
               
               And sorry, but I have to disagree with you again about anyone here deserving an "Elite" designation, no matter how well they write.  And no, I was not referencing your post or hubs in my previous post.  It was merely a bad choice of titles to show appreciation for the volunteers.  That's all!
               
               As for the original question, yes some are reporting drops in their traffic.  Time will certainly tell if it is merely a trend or something everyone may experience.  I've already had mine! 

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4. 94

   PaulGoodman67posted 12 years ago

   Yes, my traffic has been down and HP traffic overall has been down according to Quantcast.  As Randy says, we're being encouraged by HP to minimize sales hubs and look at deleting and editing hubs with short time spent on them by visitors.  The thing that concerns me is that my traffic is on a downward slope so if current trends continued it will get worse!

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      Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      This very thing was predicted by some of the former big earners now gone from HP.  They stated traffic would be good at first and then fall after a bit when changing to sub-domains.  So far, they seem to be correct about this, but I hope they were wrong.  Time will definitely tell for sure.

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         IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Some of us are perhaps the other way round, and there is a current thread about traffic rising very quickly which a couple of people have responded to.
         
         It will probably be at least a year before it all settles down, and then we will see how well or otherwise the subdomains have worked.

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            PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I personally suspect there won't be any settling down.  Google will keep introducing changes and sites will have to respond.  As you say, there are winners and losers.  I wrote lots of sales hubs in the run-up to Xmas - that wasn't a bad plan at the time and I was satisfied with the results - but now it seems to be working against me!  :-)
            
            Also, I have now joined Wizzley and wrote my first page/hub there.  I'm spreading myself around a little more, although I still love HP!  :-)

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5. 0

   jenuboukaposted 12 years ago

   My traffic has steadily increased, or rather maintained a healthy flow.  Now that I say that.....It is a daily lotto when I look at my account to see which hubs are rated in the 90's and 80's.  I have given up on trying to figure out what or why, just content that there are some who like reading my hubs.
   Now for finding the spamming on the comment sections....that is a whole other new realm I discovered today.

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6. 79

   LeanManposted 12 years ago

   Last week my traffic was up about 30% which was a very healthy increase, it has in the last few days dropped further than it usually does over the weekend.. but it is still higher than where I was before the 30% increase. I think it is very much a wait and see game..
   
   I have also taken out my "sales hubs" and moved them onto a different account here to try to see the difference in performance. (Its a pain in the posterior sphincter moving hubs!!)

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   theherbivorehippiposted 12 years ago

   I've had very high traffic the past couple weeks. All of a sudden, I have plunged today like never before. WAY worse than any plunges in the past. I think I'm around 20% of what I have been the past couple days. All blue arrows. Not sure what's going on....but I don't like it.

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      attorneyalposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I am having the same problem right now.

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   sofsposted 12 years ago

   For the last three weeks my traffic drops gradually down by 30% from  Thursdays and picks up by Sunday... Earlier it used to slow down of Fridays and be back on Mondays... but 30% is a heavy slide...even for weekends.. all that is Google traffic.

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   theherbivorehippiposted 12 years ago

   Wow...no new comments. No one else has had their traffic take one giant nose dive in the past 24 hours? I'm in this alone? I've been thrilled the past couple weeks...now I am singing the blues. Anyone? Anyone? I don't want to be down here all by myself.

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10. 95

    melbelposted 12 years ago

    I've taken down a lot of hubs in the past few days that I want to work on. I hope that as I republish them, that it'll help strengthen my domain. I also noticed that I'd had my profile here on HubPages setup incorrectly (I messed it up on my last profile edit) when it comes to rel=author. I fixed the problem with that. I hope that was the issue that's caused my traffic to fall.

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    Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

    my traffic is up and down each week.I feel seasick from it..

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    IzzyMposted 12 years ago

    Would anyone who has unstable traffic (up and down like a yoyo) care to share with the community their percentage of sales hub to overall hubs?
    
    There does seem to be a link.
    
    This account has I dunno, too many to count sales hubs.
    
    One of my newer accounts has a mix of sales and non-sales hubs, but probably too many sales hubs because its traffic is up and down too (Google traffic is what pulls out/comes back every time).
    
    In total on that account there is 40 sales hubs, though some of the sales hubs are informational too and not purely written for sales, so have very few Amazon/ebay capsules, and about another 25 informational hubs without sales capsules.
    
    My newer niche accounts have no sales capsules, but are not old enough to have attracted much search traffic, though one has started.
    
    We should be able to work out some kind of percentage, per subdomain, to stay out of Google's bad books.

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       Polly Cposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       This is something I have been wondering about too - on my badly slapped account, I always had a huge percentage of sales hubs since it was the reason for setting up a second account in the first place. I would say it was about 80 percent sales at the time I lost the traffic. I have recently unpublished a lot of hubs with the intention of gradually moving them and now (as of this week) it is about 50/50, though I don't hold out much hope for any improvement.
       
       The account I moved them too is really small still, I have 9 sales hubs and 6 other hubs, all of which were published before. Not much traffic, although still more google visitors than on my slapped account and it has been rising this week. I can't help but expect a decline though - I just think it has so far escaped the eye of Google!
       
       On this account I only have one sales hub and my traffic is currently doing the best it ever has. It is pretty steady, with a slight decline at the weekends. However, the subjects I have written about are less competitive and I think my hub with the highest traffic is being used by students writing an essay! So, not a good earner..

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          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Polly that is excellent information.
          
          I'm sure HP have all this information in a database but they aren't sharing. If a few more people would like to share, we can compare.
          
          Yes I know I could go open everyone hubs and read them all and put it all into a giant excel sheet or something, but that is far too much work for a lazy person like me!
          
          I can't help thinking that some of us have accounts that are in the sandbox. Nothing we do to those accounts will pull us out, though we will reap the benefits of all improvements made now, when we finally do come out.
          
          Yet others are seeing the up/down swings, and it is those accounts that can be pulled up by getting the sales/informational hubs balanced.
          
          I don't really want to stop writing sales hubs because that is where the money is, so we need to learn the correct ratio.
          
          1:45 is a bit low, but glad to hear it works. How high can we go?

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             Polly Cposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             No, I don't want to stop with the sales hubs either, not after experiencing their earning potential. Actually I lied, I have 2 sales hubs here, I forgot one! But it is sort of half and half, probably more informational.
             
             With the other account, the hubs I'm moving are all hubs with fairly long reading duration. Several are ranked quite well so far, but only time will tell. I'm not exactly confident, but it's an experiment.

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             wordscribe43posted 12 years agoin reply to this

             I guess one of my questions is what you consider to be a sales hub.  Are you including hubs with any Amazon/eBay capsules at all (like informational hubs we slap products on as almost an afterthought)?  Or are you talking about product reviews?  Or informational and products hub mixes?  Or all of the above?

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                IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                I put them into three groups only. I don't slap sales capsules on to informational hubs, not usually anyway.
                
                So the two groups of sales hubs are "buy.." hubs, product reviews that have more than 4 sales capsules, and genuinely informational hubs that also look at several products.
                
                I know there is a fourth group of product reviews that only look at, and promote one item. Not sure where they would be placed. I only write them when I have actually tried the product in question.
                
                I have a lot of "buy.." hubs that don't really inform the reader about the product uses or whatever, because they are assumed at this point to know all that, and are at the point of buying.
                
                Those hubs therefore only line up a choice of products, and discuss their differences.
                
                Not a lot different to Amazon (although the word are fresh and original) but all in the one page to save them flicking through Amazon pages.
                
                Don't asks me how it works, LOL, I would go to Amazon and flick through the products quite happily, but some people don't and Google it instead.
                
                I started off writing informational hubs that ended up being Amazon hubs, and after a while realised that the searcher didn't see the difference, and they really don't.
                
                Maybe I went too far that way.
                
                If I research the best products on the market, and all their uses, and write a hub around them, that is an informatinal/sales hub to me.
                
                For example I might write about blood pressure monitors, but most of that hub will be about how to read blood pressure and what it means.
                
                When I started writing about greenhouses, I explained all the advantages in greenhouse growing, not in a brand of greenhouse.
                
                Then I moved over to brands and why one brand was better than another, without any explanation about why they needed a greenhouse.
                
                But at the end of the day, Google is not reading hubs; they are seeing all the product links pointing out to Amazon and maybe not liking them.
                
                So, again it comes down to ratio, I think.

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                   wordscribe43posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   Interesting, Izzy.  That's pretty much what I've done.  Lately I'm writing exclusively informational hubs because I've suspected I got hit in August as a result of too many sales hubs.  I didn't actually ditch any of them, but I began adding more info hubs to level out the ratio and I continue to do so. I'm about 50/50 now, I'd say and my subdomain is doing really well. 
                   
                   The other big piece of what I did was to get rid of too many keywords.  I went through each hub and ditched as many unnecessary ones as I could.  I still don't know if these are the reasons I recovered on Halloween, I really don't.  But, I will say I was keyword stuffing, not always intentionally.  In my case, I suspect that was part of my problem. 
                   
                   I also took out any titles that said "buy a ____ online."
                   
                   I'm so sorry you're still going through this, Izzy.  I hope the 6 month mark will be the turnaround point for you.

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                   Mutiny92posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   I deleted hundreds of sales hubs that started with "Buy ..."
                   
                   I opened a new account and started almost all my hubs with "How to..."
                   
                   Within  a few months (and 25 hubs) my new account is 4x the traffic of this one with half the hubs. 
                   
                   I also focused on making each hub well north of 1,000 words.  In fact, one of my soon-to-be-published ones will be near 3,000 words (too long, but...)
                   
                   I probably have 10-15 total amazon ads on all of them - I suspect I went too far on that account, but I thought it was better to be safe than sorry.  So far so good.

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                      IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                      This will all be good stuff to know in the future.
                      
                      I have about 100 hubs that are the "buy...online" type and I started changing them, but ended up with "where to buy...online" instead. No much improvement LOL
                      
                      Thing is I am seeing the search terms as they come in for people landing on those hubs and they have typed "buy.." into the search engines.
                      
                      "How to..buy..online". Would that work?
                      
                      Some hubs simply don't lend themselves to 1000+ words.
                      
                      I'm also not convinced hub length is as important as it used to be because of the number of people who use a mobile phone to access the net, instead of a computer, but am willing to open up to the possibility that longer hubs will do better in future if only because they can hit more keywords.
                      
                      
                      
                      Thanks! Me too, fingers crossed. Having said that, I have accepted my fate for the moment, but hope to find a way to stop the wild fluctuations in everyone's traffic. I still think it is a matter of ratio.
                      
                      I added about 100 non-sales hubs in since my traffic went away to no avail, but my sales ratio is still really high and I'd dearly like the know the cut-off point.

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                   Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   Hmmmm!  Actually, my informational hubs sell the most products, or at least the most expensive ones.  But then, I don't really write pure sales hubs very often as I had rather do history or How-to articles instead. 
                   
                   I believe if a reader trusts the author's info and finds it useful they will be more apt to buy the product from the ads on the page.  Especially if there are numerous comments praising the article or asking questions and getting the repair info they were searching for in the first place.
                   
                   Even though I've reduced the number of ads per amount of text I'd never exceeded the recommendations from HP in the first place.  It hasn't seemed to help at all.

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                      IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                      I see where you are coming from, and yes the reader liked your hubs, as they liked mine, but the reader isn't getting to read them through Google because Google has decided there is something it doesn't like.
                      
                      I think either an even lower ratio to what HP demand is in order, else fewer sales hubs, or informational hubs with only one or two products promoted.
                      
                      It won't help me or you at the moment, but if accounts with possibly too many capsules are seeing wild fluctuations in traffic, then we will no doubt see the same when our traffic does come back, unless we adjust the ratio.

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                         Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                         Don't you mean "if" it comes back, Izzy?

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          Polly Cposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          After reading some of the other replies, just wanted to add that most of my product hubs on my slapped account are reasonably long - around 1000 - 1500 words or more - and that I have only ever once used 'buy online'. However, I have a high amount of hubs entitled 'best...'
          
          The other point is that I do have a large amount of amazon links on many pages - I had to cut some when the 1:50 rule came out but still probably have up to 20 or possibly more on some hubs which I know is a lot so I suppose that could defintely be defined as a 'gateway' page.
          
          I cut out all links with summaries as some people recommended to avoid duplicate - however, on this account I didn't bother and it is not affected.

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             IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             I would still sit tight with that account as the 'probation' period is nearly up.
             
             It is the ratio on new subdomains we can control.
             
             And "Best.." are great titles, better than "Buy..".
             
             On the webmaster tools page, my top keywords are "ago" and "price" in that order.
             
             As I never type either, I assume the 'price' Google is seeing the sales capsules, and I suppose the 'ago' comes from HPs own  "3 days ago" "3 months ago".
             
             That is my top keyword? How odd!

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       wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Izzy, I know this is not what you asked for, because I don't see the yo-yo traffic, but I'll throw it out there anyway.
       
       25 straight sales hubs out of 125 total.  These are "buy" hubs and product reviews or suggestions pushing particular products.
       
       Without counting, probably another 75 that use Amazon links.  These will mostly be "how to" hubs with links to specialty products or tools discussed in the hub.  They probably run 500 words or more per link rather that the minimum of 50 words required by HP.  I don't consider them to be "sales" hubs. 
       
       Example; a recent hub has 4 amazon/ebay links with 1691 words.  The only reason it has so many links is because I'm still experimenting with eBay, showing the same thing as Amazon to see what happens. Another one has 16 links and 3600 words (I went overboard with both) but 6 of those links are again eBay showing the same thing as Amazon.
       
       Sorting by traffic levels. all of the sales hubs are in the bottom half, and most of them are in the bottom quarter.  They don't get a lot of traffic, but they do produce income out of proportion to their traffic levels because of Amazon.  They also produce the high commission sales and I would hate to get rid of them.
       
       Just some numbers and a little explanation of the types of hubs I use.

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          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          This is excellent.
          
          Going by your figures we can get away with roughly 25% of all our hubs being pure sales hubs, and the informational hubs keep sales products to a minimum.
          
          It's something to work towards.
          
          I might only be 50 or 100 hubs away from that threshold. I'd need to sit down and check.
          
          I wonder if total word count, counts for anything? My long hubs tend to be purely informational, but does Google see the overall total of words across all our hubs, or just individual hubs?
          
          I wish we had numbers on our stats to make it easier, then again, we can always download the csv files and add in an extra numbered column.

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             wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Good!  Glad you can maybe make something of it.
             
             I don't know about word count, but I can say that my average is probably above 1500 words per hub.  I don't think I have anything under 500 or over around 4500.
             
             Do remember, though, that while 20% (not 25) may work in general, it may not.  It is based on a whole 1 hubbers experience.  For all I know google may count total subdomain words, total "doorway" links and look at that.  I don't think so, but they might.
             
             And I shudder when you say you might only be 100 hubs away from that.  That's a whole lot of hubs to throw away in the hopes that it might help.
             
             Good luck, Izzy - nothing would make me happier than to see you (and Randy) reporting that traffic is coming back.

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       Ella Quirkposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       IzzyM,
       
       Until recently, this account had always done reasonably well and was steadily growing. Then in early January it suffered a tragic drop and hasn't recovered since.Leading up to the Xmas period I did add more Amazon/ebay sales hubs, thus putting sales hubs in the vast majority...probably as much as 70/30, maybe even more.I guess I got too greedy. Very disappointing though.
       
       I'm wondering if combining Amazon with ebay in the one hub might have tipped me over the threshhold..? That's really the only new element I introduced.

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          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          You are the second person who is suffering after adding Amazon products in the run up to Christmas, that is why I think there is a link.
          
          Hope your traffic comes back soon.

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    shibashakeposted 12 years ago

    According to this thread in Webmaster World there were 5 algorithm updates in January-
    http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4402875-11-30.htm
    
    - Google Algorithm Update 4th-5th January 2012
    
    - Google Algorithm Update 14th-15th January 2012
    
    - Google "Above The Fold" Algorithm Launch 19th January 2012
    
    - Google Algorithm Update 24th January 2012
    
    - Google Algorithm Update 28th January 2012
    
    
    My traffic was hit at around the 24th. I noticed that search impressions were stable, but click through on search had dropped significantly. There were significant shifts in impressions across many keywords. My guess is that Google is testing out different sites on various keyword classes, in an effort to collect usage statistics.
    
    I have also observed that my HP traffic seems more susceptible to traffic swings. Perhaps Google is 'testing' certain sites more than others.

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       melbelposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       The 19th was the first day my traffic started declining. I'll have to look into this further. Thank you for posting this!

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       rmcrayneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       My traffic was hit about the 24th, dropping about 30-40%.  It has gradually climbed since then, but not back to previous level. 
       
       I have virtually zero sales hubs. Mine are informational, w/ on-topic Amazon products.  Some hubs do however have lots of products listed, and I did have to reduce the number of products on some with the 1 per 50 words rule.

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14. 90

    wordscribe43posted 12 years ago

    Izzy, I would think about taking out the words "buy online" altogether.  Just a hunch, I guess... but after I did that my hubs showed increased traffic.  Perhaps this term activates Google's gateway filter... could be worth a shot. 

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    1. 87

       IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Yes I thought about that, but don't know what I would replace it with. Not only that, I would lose the traffic from people who actually type in "buy..." into search, which was the traffic I aimed at (and there are LOT of them even though I am only picking up with ones from Bing and Yahoo). I'd like to leave them in, but disguise them a bit with other words around them.
       
       Edit: this is for the future anyway. My traffic will not come back, no matter what I do, till Google lifts the sandbox effect from my account.
       
       They will, Randy, they will.
       
       If not, I might have to get my big brother to go and visit them. My big brother is bigger than their big brothers!

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          Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          HA!  I'd rather visit them myself!  Probably a bunch of wimps anyway! 

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15. 67

    Esmeowl12posted 12 years ago

    I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing a drop in traffic. I was getting paranoid.

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    1. 60

       Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       You haven't lived until you lose 80% of your traffic and earnings overnight!  Quite an exhilarating experience.  I do not recommend it! 

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       1. 64

          theherbivorehippiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          This is where I am right now. I feel your pain. I was seriously great this weekend and then I logged in to Adsense this morning and thought there was some sort of error...so I logged in here and I wish I wouldn't have. This has ruined my day.

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          1. 87

             IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             I am so sorry to hear that. At least you have had traffic, look on the bright side

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          2. 60

             Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Yes it's not too encouraging at all.  It ruined my best selling season of the year when I got hit.  I went from the best month ever to the worst I'd had since about 8 months after joining this site.  Instead of making Adsense payout in the first week of the month, it will take me at least a year at the present rate. Yep, it's that bad! 

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             1. 64

                theherbivorehippiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                

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16. 95

    melbelposted 12 years ago

    I am currently in the middle of moving most of my sales hubs to an alternate account. I'll let you know how that works out for me.

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17. 90

    wordscribe43posted 12 years ago

    Okay, Izzy I recounted what I'd deem my sales hubs.  I have 30 out of 91... so only 1/3.  Not as many as I thought.

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18. 87

    IzzyMposted 12 years ago

    Hmmm
    
    @wilderness, I rounded it up to 25% to take into account those long hubs you have with few sales products (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!).
    
    @wordscribe - 1/3rd, and you have had ups and downs? Not many? Or was it just the one?
    
    @Rosemary, you have no sales hubs but a lot of product just the same. I'm beginning the think we will need to cut down further to maybe 1 per 100 words, but I'd still like to know if the total word count is across domain or hub as far as Google is concerned.
    
    'Fraid I have just too many to count, though I could possibly do it on my other account that only has 60 odd hubs.
    
    I'll work on this tomorrow (its almost 5am here).

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    1. 90

       wordscribe43posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Slight ups and downs until the big one on 8/10/11.  Steady, increased (and increasing) traffic since it recovered on Halloween.  No more roller coaster rides for three months now.

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    2. 91

       rmcrayneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I've wondered the same thing.  I've not systematically gone in to reduce products, but any time I go in to edit any hub for any reason, I take a look at Amazon products/capsules, kill any remaining RSS feeds, and reduce links to my own hubs (like long lists of recipe hubs on other recipe hubs).  I've not removed my referral trackers from links yet, which has been suggested by a few hubbers.

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       1. 87

          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I put my rss feeds back, and added them to new hubs. I'm not convinced they have anything to do with the drop. I stuck to the single sentence to avoid duplicate content, and I know those hubs are getting hits through those feeds. I've not removed referral trackers either and I doubt if it is that anyway.

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19. 75

    Richieb799posted 12 years ago

    I haven't seen any plunges yet, fingers crossed. I actually have to be grateful, since my earnings have beaten last January buy a nice amount, I was anticipating a drop in earnings this month since I believe advertisers don't pay as much?
    Obviously January is never as good as the December and months prior to it, so this is the trend I am going to expect for my Hubpages career in the future.
    I have seen others reporting that Hubpages as a whole is nearly back up to Pre Panda traffic?

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    1. 87

       IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Yes yes this is all well and good Richie, but how many sales hubs do you have in proportion to all your hubs? Roughly? Do you have any sales hubs, or hubs with sales products in them?

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20. 79

    LeanManposted 12 years ago

    Hi Izzy, I had less than 20% sales hubs although in the last 24 hours I have removed them to a new account to try to see what the difference is as I want to try to minimize the number of topics on my account to help boost them..
    
    My account had a lower than usual drop over the weekend which had started earlier and lasted longer than it normally does but looking at the dates that were posted earlier for google updates they could tie in.. But my traffic has returned to its high points again today (Tuesday is generally my highest day and the day I monitor on and I am within 60 or 70 views of my all time high.)
    
    I was looking at the hubs that I have moved, they are all fairly recent, but I also wondered about removing all of the "buy this online" type H1 headings from them so that they look more informational than sales (None have "buy" in their titles.)
    
    Very few of my hubs are less than 1000 words even the sales ones that I moved, but I rarely reach 1500 words. But in general even my worst performing hubs average at least a view each day or more and many are in double or triple figures daily. All of my hubs (I think) have Amazon and ebay capsules on although I am no where near the 50 words per item limits.
    
    It will be interesting to see how the sales type hubs perform on their own when I hit "publish" on my other account - I am just going to wait a week so that the "old" versions start to disappear from google (although I should go look at the google URL removal tool that I keep seeing mentioned in discussions here.

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    1. 79

       LeanManposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Oh... I should add that a website I own has about 25% amazon/affiliate pages and that seems to be totally unaffected by any of the google changes and just chugs along with the views slowly getting higher each week as I add pages...

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       1. 87

          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Much like mine then (own sites I mean). On my own sites my product ratio is around 50/1, same as here, but are unaffected.
          
          It is here that is the problem.
          
          My sites are now older than my subdomain, but not by much.
          
          The main difference between the two is links, as HP's internal linking system is awesome!
          
          Yet it may just be those huge number of links that got my site sandboxed. I'm sure it happened to more than two of us.
          
          I wish I had moved my product hubs off to a another subdomain before this, but I didn't and at this point may as well wait as I have nothing to lose. The sandbox always lifts eventually.
          
          But I don't like to see the 60 odd hubs in my new account languishing during its traffic troughs.

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    2. 90

       wordscribe43posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Yes, use the webmaster URL removal tool.  It usually only takes a few hours, it's GREAT.  I never wait for my articles to be "naturally" taken out of the cache.

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21. 64

    theherbivorehippiposted 12 years ago

    I was hoping yesterday was a bad dream, but nope...I'm still in the same position. I don't have very many sales hubs on this profile. I do have a related Amazon capsule and I have added eBay to about half on this profile so far, but they certainly aren't sales hubs. Even my one money making hub that usually sees well over 300 views a day is lingering just over 100 the past two days. I wish I had more time to invest in fussing with this and moving stuff around,but I don't. I guess I will bury my head in the snow and hope that this  profile comes out of hibernation eventually.

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22. 82

    LuisEGonzalezposted 12 years ago

    Based on my previous experiences with other sites before I joined HubPages, there always seems to be a lull during the months of January & February.
    
    With that said, I do not have any sales hubs and my views started dropping at around January the 20th. Judging from comments on other sites on which I participate as well as here, it appears to be Google trying on new things in combination with the typical lull at the beginning of each year........
    
    BTW; Elite is just an appellation, maybe a fallacious one, take it as you will.  However, there are certain canons that must be judiciously gratified by hubbers ante delineation as Elite...Bottom line is just a WORD.......

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    1. 87

       IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Yes it might be a Google 'flux' thingie. On the other hand, you have sales products on your hubs too. Are they on every hub?
       
       Google can't read, all it can do is count links and pluck out words that end up out of context depending on how often they are repeated.

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       1. 82

          LuisEGonzalezposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Yes I have product adds on my hubs, which brings out another point on which your are perhaps very correct. If Google counts links as you say, then by reason it follows that having a certain number of adds may be a detractor or as it was pointed out a while back by staff; having too many adds can get Goggle to penalize you somehow.

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       2. 64

          theherbivorehippiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Izzy how are your personal sites/blogs doing? Mine are all fine...and I have them full of affiliates....FULL. This is why I'm so puzzled by this profile. Why is it being penalized once again (worse than ever)? It has far less Amazon and eBay capsules than my other profiles and they aren't slapped like this. My Wizzley pages are all fine. Websites and blogs...all fine. Once again, I'm baffled.

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          1. 87

             IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             All my own stuff other places are doing OK, not fantastic because I haven't worked as hard at them but I will when I get round to it.
             
             They have not suffered a drop though, like this account has.
             
             Although I am looking now at affiliate links, I honestly think the reason for the swings or drops are to do with these subdomains being new and coming complete with 100s if not 1000s of links.
             
             The two just don't go hand in hand, and Google is confused.
             Even the success stories have been hit if you look at their profile graphs.
             
             http://hubpages.com/success
             
             I do think it will all settle down eventually.

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             1. 94

                PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                The "success stories" show the HP trend.  For three years or more the good hubbers experienced a gentle and prolonged rise in traffic - then from February last year up until now, it's nothing but peaks and troughs and spikes... I'd like to think things will calm down (I'd love a gentle upward slope) but after a year of craziness, I am not holding my breath.  :-)

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                1. 87

                   IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   I don't think we can count the times before the subdomains came in - that was the effects of Panda on HP as a whole.
                   
                   If we count from July/August as being the time the subdomains started (though I knows some testers went over early) then I think we need to give it a year from then.
                   
                   Everyone out there on the web says that 12 months is the magic figure for ending sandboxes too.
                   
                   Of course, this time they might be wrong, but we will just have to wait and see.

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                   1. 94

                      PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                      Sure.  It's all speculation.  Plus Google themselves might not be sure what they are going to do, or not do, more than 6 months ahead - not in a specific, detailed way, anyhow.

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                      1. 0

                         Norah Caseyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                         I agree. It is also important to keep in mind that Google is a corporation. Like most corporations, they have shifting interests and a rotation of managers on different projects. The wife of a friend of mine works at Google, and she has had three different managers in the last year and half, each one with different product goals. Six months from now, the search team may have a new set of priorities and/or a different structure. That could explain a part of the seemingly random traffic fluctuations.

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23. 81

    GmaGoldieposted 12 years ago

    Last two days I have seen a traffic increase and yet my hub score continues to drop...I did allot of backlinks internally from one hub to another - did this hurt my Hubscore - I thought it would help.

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    1. 91

       rmcrayneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Seriously, don't obsess about hubber or hub scores.  They have no impact outside of HubPages community. They have no bearing on traffic or earnings.  I dare say you are the only one on this entire thread giving a second thought to HP scores.

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24. 70

    rLcasaLmeposted 12 years ago

    This week, I've received a sudden great increase in traffic, but it also decreased back to normal instantly.

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25. 88

    Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

    I 'm up again...

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    1. 64

       theherbivorehippiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Well perfect. I'm providing a nice balance by continuing to drop more by the hour. lol I'm glad someone is at least rising while I'm falling.

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26. 87

    IzzyMposted 12 years ago

    Oh well, at least I won't end up like this guy. Made $2.5M by age 21 and lost it all by the time he was 22.
    
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article … onths.html
    
    "But a radical 2007 overhaul of the website meant Google believed it was a brand new page. It lost its Google 'reputation' overnight and plummeted to the engine's eighth page."
    
    Google never sent me that much traffic though it would be nice if they did, just for a wee while

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    1. 94

       PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Great story, although he also had problems with MySpace's sudden decline and getting hit with a $400,000.   But getting his overhauled site moved to page 8 by Google does seem uncomfortably familiar! lol
       
       The internet is a fickle place!  :-)

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    2. 86

       Dorsiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Looks like he was in the right place at the right time like one of the commenters said - and lost it all because his newly designed website lost favor with the Google Gods. Just goes to show you how important that PR is. Wow - and he blew it all in a year. Oh...to be so young and foolish....

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27. 64

    theherbivorehippiposted 12 years ago

    Traffic has doubled. I appear to be rising up again. I'm still down about 50 percent from where I was Sunday but at least it's moving in the right direction. *Fingers crossed*

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28. 60

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    "Anyone else seeing a drop in traffic?"
    
    I am not amused. 2/1/2012

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    1. 60

       Hollie Thomasposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I'v seen so many ups and downs in traffic that it has made me dizzy. The only consistency, is that it will fluctuate.

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    2. 64

       theherbivorehippiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I dropped to almost nothing on the 28th and I'm steadily rising today. Fingers crossed you'll only be down for a day or so and then it will go back up again.

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29. 88

    Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

    Lots of blue arrows in the past few arrow..I'm crashing!

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    1. 0

       kelleywardposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       lots of drops and I'm new here so I haven't ever had much rising traffic except for a few days. What are you doing to change it?

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30. 90

    blairtracyposted 12 years ago

    The past two days now I have dropped to basically no views what-so-ever.

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31. 88

    Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

    I pinged some hubs the past week.Does anyone else notice a drop after doing this? it usually helps me. Also StumbleUpon,fb and blogging.
    I don't have a G+ account.
    Does anyone with a G+ account experience a a plunge this week?

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32. 59

    humagaiaposted 12 years ago

    Sorry so late to this discussion but more active elsewhere these days, and HP is at the bottom of my list of earning opportunities now, so I don't monitor it regularly.
    
    But just want to add some numbers for those that want them, to try to help with analysis of the issue.
    
    My HP traffic ONLY is dropping or has dropped. Since Thursday last week my total views are down to 1/3rd of Wednesdays and my best viewed hub is down to 10% of Wednesdays views.
    
    I have very few sales hubs in comparison to others - I very rarely add Amazon to anything other than a sales hub.
    I do not use 'buy' but I do use 'best'.
    I do not have any eBay capsules anywhere.
    
    I have noticed on MS that the number of links into HP as a whole has crashed, but this may be due to this figure being gleaned from other than Google now.
    
    My total words ratio across my whole sub-domain must be excellent, as most of my hubs are well over 1,000 words, with, as I say, very few sales hubs.
    
    Not only have I seen a lowering in number of views but I have also seen a lowering of average click value. I usually average about 80p (£0.80 pence) but at present that is down to about 20p (1/4 usual average). Thankfully my sites are showing no degradation to either views or average click-through or click value. In fact I am seeing a better than average click value on them today.

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33. 86

    wymyczak66posted 12 years ago

    My views are down as well. Not that I have a lot to begin with, but my best hub is only getting over half of the views it normally does I'm just glad I'm not the only one. I was starting to worry when I read all of these threads about amazing stats coming out of nowhere!

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34. 61

    steveamyposted 12 years ago

    A drop would imply I have traffic..

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35. 64

    theherbivorehippiposted 12 years ago

    So up until last weekend my traffic was fabulous. Monday it plummeted to next to NOTHING. Thursday it was regaining strength and today it is higher than it was to begin with...and I'm usually a bit lower on Fridays. Hopefully everyone experiencing a sudden drop will see the traffic come back strong. I did not delete any sales capsules, alter any hubs, do any backlinking or anything. It came back naturally. Fingers crossed for everyone...I know it sucks to see traffic vanish....and keeping fingers crossed it stays up for a bit!

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    1. 83

       shibashakeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Very good to hear that traffic came back strong for you!
       
       Mine has recovered some, but still not back to where it was. Since regular traffic swings have become a fact of life at HP, I am trying to stay Zen and diversify.

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36. 60

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    Traffic drop continues.
    
    10 times my present hub count would make it, plus Social Security. A long, long road...

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37. 59

    cloudy daysposted 12 years ago

    I'm actually seeing about a 20% increase in traffic to my hubs since the latest panda update last week. I'm hoping it isn't just a temporary glitch...

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