Post Subs Demise Traffic => New Quota 15-20% Lower

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   janderson99posted 8 years ago

   It appears that traffic, after the restructure to sink the subs, has stabilised to a new Panda "Quota" of 750 K which is down 15-20% from the 2015 traffic trend (850 K) . No sign of recovery - but here's hoping that the 'growth in the next few months' happens!
   
   

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      Buildrepsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting. Maybe you should look at annual influences, for example recurring patterns in 2013 and 2014.

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         janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Graph of 2013-2015. No Nov-Dec demise in previous years (apart from Xmas slump). Traffic is now at historic lows. The sub sinking plunge is clearly apparent.
         

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            makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            That's not the way I'd draw the overall trend lines - are you calculating or guessing?

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               Will Apseposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Didn't you ever learn to average out graphical data by eye at school?
               
               You cannot expect a hubber to crunch all that data for a statistically perfect result. If I was doing the same exercise I would come up with pretty much the same result.
               
               Not that I would like it that much, lol.
               
               I am a little worried the downturn is a search quality algo outcome, despite Paul Edmondson saying that he was happy with overall site quality.
               
               Paul has a lot more data than we do, of course, and with any luck he looked at dwell times for q&a. That might be the best guide to the usefulness/quality of that particular (rather concerning) feature.

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                  psycheskinnerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  I know that I did in fact learn to do that, and learn how it is highly susceptible to bias and use of impartial POV is vital.  And to propose "stability" there are specific criteria one uses (based on variation tolerance of a running mean).
                  
                  Yes there is an overall downturn but I do not see the distinct "periods" you propose or ascribe the stable periods to Quotas rather than just a roughly similar site being handled by roughly similar rules over that period (i.e.ecological stability).

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            2. 69

               makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               I not only learned how to do it by eye, I also crunched numbers for a living in jobs which focused on the assessment of performance management by others for many years - and believe me I can spot a trend line that's off.
               
               Neither 2013 nor 2015 are flat in terms of traffic trends.
               
               I've used Quantcast to comment on art websites for many years. If you click on the Quantcast charts you can get the values for specific dates during the year. This gives you the start and finish values and you can work out the annual equivalents in terms of overall annual trend from there. (i.e. you don't need all the data to work out the trends)
               
               Hence.....
               
               2013 ought to be trending down overall by 15%
               - starting just under 2 million at the beginning of January and finishing just over 1.7 million pageviews at the end of December 2013 (i.e. loss of 300,000 pageviews or 15% of traffic)
               
               2015 ought to be trending down by a much bigger percentage - double 2013  at c.30%
               starting around 1.7 million at the beginning of January and finishing at the beginning of December at around 1.2 million pageviews (a loss of 500,000 pageviews or c.30% of traffic enjoyed at the start of the year)
               
               Ask people what they think the trend on their traffic - and earnings looks like. I'm guessing there's a lot more feel it's more like 30% than a "no difference all year" which was what was being suggested by the flat trend line
               
               Overall - in simple terms - this means that HubPages has lost 37% of its pageview traffic in the last three years.
               
               Also another important aspect to 2015 is that the drop in pageviews has been bigger than the drop in visits - which means those visiting are not continuing to surf around the site as much. There has to be a reason for this. Either it means
               * they're seeing less that interests them
               * or that the links to the closely related hubs simply aren't there any more.
               I'm guessing it's maybe a bit of both.
               
               Please note that I'm also looking at GLOBAL daily stats re. Quantcast - which it's important to do as nearly half the visits and around about a third of the page views now come from places outside the USA. (janderson99 is quoting the American figures in the chart in the first post)
               
               I'm not sure if people realise that the American audience is under 60% of the total global audience for the site.
               
               1 January 2013: 1.9 million pageviews (US: 1.1m; Rest of the world 0.8m)
               3 December 2015: 1.2 million pageviews (US: 0.7m; Rest of the world 0.5m)

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               janderson99posted 8 years agoin reply to this

               the lines in that graph are not trend lines, they are simply ways to show the year boundaries.

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                  makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Aha - that makes more sense
                  
                  I'd have readily understood if you'd put the lines along the x axis (or outside the chart) as that's where the time is being notated
                  
                  However if you put a line ON a chart then people used to reading charts will see that as a suggested trend line.
                  
                  My bad for being a reader of many charts over the years!

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      So what caused that September to October surge I am seeing?

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         Maffew Jamesposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Panda 4.2 had a slow roll out, and much of the impact was seen over this period.

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   Buildrepsposted 8 years ago

   I think you're doing a great job, Janderson. You make changes visible of the recent decisions. It looks like a significant drop, that might still has to picked up by Google indexations (hopefully).

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3. 82

   Mark Ewbieposted 8 years ago

   

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      Will Apseposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Without numbers on the x and y axis that giraffe could mean anything.

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         Mark Ewbieposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Oh I see.  It could be profit or costs, could be good or bad.
         
         For the sake of sanity just accept my word that it is hilarious.

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         NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         It looks to me like the giraffe is just reaching down to eat some leaves or lick somebody's head. And it has a sunburn or something.

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            Will Apseposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Mark only has two pens.
            
            Little worried about that word, too.

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               Mark Ewbieposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Be careful.  I now have a graphics tablet.  That two pen look costs a fortune.

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                  Will Apseposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Lol.
                  
                  I'm glad that you are getting your money's worth.

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      NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Lol!

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4. 87

   Will Apseposted 8 years ago

   Without the troll we are all reduced to pedantry.
   
   Normally, I am slightly worried about using that word since I live in Thailand but tonight I feel brave.

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   paradigmsearchposted 8 years ago

   I gaze at my stats... Getting depressed here... Leastwise CPM has improved lately

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6. 82

   Mark Ewbieposted 8 years ago

   After certain negative comments I reworked the traffic graph...
   

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      theraggededgeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      The left side bloke is having fun on that 'L'. No wonder he's smiling

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         paradigmsearchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Film at 11.

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         Mark Ewbieposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Lol.  That makes it a better cartoon than I thought.  Right - that's going on Zazzle before the Xmas rush.

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   Will Apseposted 8 years ago

   
   
   This is one of David Hockney's stabs at using an iPad. Not sure it is statistically accurate.

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8. 59

   paradigmsearchposted 8 years ago

   Just visited Google Analytics I did. My current traffic is 63% of what it was this time last year. Looks like I am one of the good subdomains that is now being penalized for being mixed in with the sludge. I've been an understanding and a good little Hubber, but I am starting to get really perturbed about all this.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Me, too, but there is little we can do about these issues other than wait and hope that things improve.

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         Mark Ewbieposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I have been waiting since 2011.  Not waiting so much now.

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            TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Yep.  Seems like a waste of time even to think about improvement since the trends all seem to be downward.
            
            Sucks, doesn't it?

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      Susana Sposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Exactly the same decline as me at the mo - 37%.

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9. 69

   makingamarkposted 8 years ago

   I downloaded all my traffic data from Squidoo before I exited the site - back to when a lens was created.
   
   This was so I had a benchmark for traffic wherever my content ended up.
   
   The vast majority of hubs never ever got their traffic back on Hubpages after the initial surge which lasted maybe a fortnight.
   
   All the hubs which are still here are way down on "normal traffic" as per the benchmark
   
   However the content which has moved to new sites had both regained the traffic and is doing even better.
   
   Conclusion - traffic has little to do with content and everything to do with where it is placed and how it is monetised.

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10. 96

    Solarasposted 8 years ago

    The bump I received in pageviews, just as the subs were removed, has now gone away. Having said that, I still earn more for pageviews on articles that are not sales article here, than I do anywhere else. 
    
    For the same number of pageviews, I earn on Adsense 30% of what I earn at HP.  Many of my best performing hubs here sell nothing.  They are just fun (hopefully) for people who like to think about dog names.
    
    It sucks not to see growth and more to see decline. Still if you aren't selling anything on Amazon or Ebay or wherever, you can't beat the HP earnings, even taking into account that my CPM was halved after summer 2014.

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11. 93

    jansharesposted 8 years ago

    Has anyone seen major declines in recipe hubs? Traffic for my best performing recipe hubs have virtually disappeared since the change over. Sadness.

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       Will Apseposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       If multiple hubs using the same keywords are a problem (which I reckon might be the case), recipes will be hard hit.
       
       http://hubpages.com/search/?s=pizza+recipe
       
       http://hubpages.com/search/?s=apple+pie+recipe
       
       Google will find a way to rank these eventually, with any luck.

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          paradigmsearchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          +1

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12. 69

    makingamarkposted 8 years ago

    BTW Hubpages is now well outside the top 100 in the USA - Quantcast ranks it at 121
    
    https://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com?country=US
    
    (Interestingly this ranking thing is totally inaccurate - and I know this because I looked at their ranking of sites in the UK. Massive UK websites are missing from the ranking chart eg the BBC)

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       relacheposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Why would massive UK sites bother to use a US-based traffic tracking service when they could just use one based in their own country?  And why would massive sites actually make their data public?  The majority of sites online do not make data available to the public, period.
       
       What you see on Quantcast is like what you see on Alexa:  a limited amount of data from their user pool.  To consider Quantcast the be-all/end-all of web traffic reporting is erroneous.
       
       Just because Quantcast says HubPages is the 121 most-visited site in the US doesn't mean it actually is, that's just Quantcast's opinion.

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          TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

          +1

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          makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          My purpose in citing the BBC was to highlight the fact that Quantcast info is partial
          
          The reason for highlighting the current rank for HubPages is because some people in the past have favoured highlighting its presence in the top 100 as some sort of indicator of its complete invincibility - or whatever else they think this site is that means it will never go down the pan.
          
          Bottom line - we're on the same wavelength - just using different words to say it.

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             Solarasposted 8 years agoin reply to this

             I am sorry, but I am so tired of your constantly being a nattering nabob of negativity.
             
             It is a constant drag and drain on the community. Constant.

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                Will Apseposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                I often feel like saying to her -- success on your other sites is great but please do not try to talk this one down. It does not help.
                
                But, then, this might not be the time.

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                   makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                   Shooting the messenger doesn't change the reality of the message. Facts are facts.
                   
                   Many of those who have already been through one site upheaval are now conspicuous by their absence on this one.
                   
                   It's not that anybody wishes HubPages ill or wants to be negative - quite the reverse. Many, including me, would like to see it do well and be more positive in their comments.
                   
                   They'd just like to see more evidence of that - in their numbers and in HubPages numbers.
                   
                   Those that cope with change best are those that recognise that change is normal. Think about it.

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                   Solarasposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                   +1,000

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    paradigmsearchposted 8 years ago

    

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    Mark Ewbieposted 8 years ago

    My turn...
    
    

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    paradigmsearchposted 8 years ago

    Well, sports fans. Updated an even dozen hubs the last two days in the hopes of getting better indexing. Meanwhile, my stats continue to declare entropy alive and well. Oh, well.

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    Chriswillman90posted 8 years ago

    Well this was a depressing read but the truth hurts sometimes. Does this mean Hubpages is in big trouble again since we're in a steady decline?
    
    It's really hard to stay motivated and continue writing on here when there's no progress to be made. I don't know how some are able to persevere but kudos to them.

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