Google Panda refresh happening now!

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  1. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
    PaulGoodman67posted 11 years ago

    Google on Twitter: "Panda refresh is rolling out—expect some flux over the next few days. Fewer than 0.7% of queries noticeably affected"

    September 18th 2012

    1. relache profile image73
      relacheposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      With Google's volume, .07% is about 82,054,497,000 queries.

      1. Kangaroo_Jase profile image75
        Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        I was at least expecting a '003' on the end of that Rae, lol

    2. Lwelch profile image82
      Lwelchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That may explain my one hub going from 80 hits a day to 300-400.  Wild ride for sure.

      Luckily, so far that is the only change I see.  My other hubs are consistent with old numbers.  I am finally up where I was before April's hit when I lost half of my readers.

      1. profile image57
        Southernmapartposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Please tell us which hub increased that dramatically.

  2. wordscribe43 profile image90
    wordscribe43posted 11 years ago

    Hold onto your seats!!!  Thanks for the information, Paul.

  3. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
    PaulGoodman67posted 11 years ago

    I found out from aa lite in the Zzzz forum thread - but I thought the Panda news deserved its own thread!

    Only 0.7% of queries affected, according to Google, but HP is often sensitive to changes, in my experience!

  4. Dame Scribe profile image56
    Dame Scribeposted 11 years ago

    This will prove to be interesting tongue lol

  5. David 470 profile image82
    David 470posted 11 years ago

    Wow, Paul, this is funny I am seeing this because I just thought to myself "I wonder if  another Google Update occurred"

    The reason why I thought this is because I just checked some of my hubs and see red flags on hubs that normally do not receive as much traffic. My traffic overall is not really improving, however.

    Hopefully, I will be benefited instead of damaged by a New Google Alg.

    1. brakel2 profile image74
      brakel2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I read it is not an algo change. The example made it sound more like a correction. I will try to link.


      http://searchengineland.com/panda-updat … ime-133607

      1. IzzyM profile image85
        IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        That link you linked was out of date - Panda 3.9 happened on August 20th.

        This is new (and has already been discussed on the forums).

        https://twitter.com/google/statuses/248060554227367936

        1. brakel2 profile image74
          brakel2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          The link was explaining a Google refresh. I entered another link, as you did, to ensure its correctness. Thanks Izzy for noticing. Hope this refresh helps us.

  6. cameciob profile image79
    cameciobposted 11 years ago

    I was just searching for any Infos about an update as my stats lost 1/4 of views. Then I returned to hp to find your post.
    It looks my keywords are among the queries they updated.

  7. Hollie Thomas profile image59
    Hollie Thomasposted 11 years ago

    I'm tanking big time, good job I've been working on those new subdomains. smile

    1. IzzyM profile image85
      IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      You and me both.

      Isn't it weird how new subdomains seem to do better than older ones, at least initially?

      This refresh has come too early for me, as Google has not yet de-indexed any of my sleeping hubs.

      My latest tank started over a week ago. I've gotten that used to the ups and downs, I barely notice.

      What is a couple of hundred views between friends anyway? I lost the bulk of my traffic over a year ago and it has never returned.

      At least not yet.

      1. Hollie Thomas profile image59
        Hollie Thomasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Yes, they do.

        I've refreshed the hubs that I thought were worth refreshing and the deleted the one's that I thought had no future, but just like you say they haven't been de-indexed yet.

        I've enjoyed brilliant traffic for the last couple of months but knew that it wasn't going to last.

        I'm down from just over 400 views to 50, and sinking.!

  8. Len Cannon profile image89
    Len Cannonposted 11 years ago

    Haha, have HubPage stats stopped updating just in time for Panda? That's a worrying sign if I remember. OH WELL. Sally forth.

  9. Greekgeek profile image79
    Greekgeekposted 11 years ago

    Man, I'm slow. I've been taking the day off to do some creative writing, and just now saw the Tweet from "A Googler".

    Came in here to report, but of course everybody knows already.

    Let's see what Quantcast shows us over the next week. I'm hopeful we may see an uptick. But I can never tell until at least a week has passed, due to the weekly low-high-low pattern.

  10. MargaritaEden profile image69
    MargaritaEdenposted 11 years ago

    So if one of my hub's views decreased by 200 does it mean it's a low quality content I have? What does it really mean? What does the Panda do to the traffic?

  11. Shopping-Online profile image64
    Shopping-Onlineposted 11 years ago

    Well, my views have gone down to 25% of my normal views now.

    1. mmorpglover profile image70
      mmorpgloverposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I thought the refresh is in the next few days, not in the past few days?

  12. Kangaroo_Jase profile image75
    Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years ago

    Give it a week or two and we will see what happens once folk (Google) stops shakin the tree

  13. prettydarkhorse profile image56
    prettydarkhorseposted 11 years ago

    Yep, usually on the third week of the month smile

  14. Stacie L profile image88
    Stacie Lposted 11 years ago

    Well I'm doing better than I normally do...hope that remains the case..smile

    1. profile image0
      EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Same here - my traffic has tripled. Hope it lasts. Given up trying to figure it out!

      1. Barbara Kay profile image73
        Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Mine hasn't come close to tripling, but it is doing well.

        1. brakel2 profile image74
          brakel2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          My views began increasing yesterday and today. Hope this works for everyone and stays up.

      2. profile image57
        Southernmapartposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        I'm new to HP and haven't yet started writing.  There is too much dust in the air around search engines(G) and how posts to the 'net are qualified.  Your increase in numbers is interesting and I looked at some of your hubs for the reason.  Your hubs are outstanding in uniqueness and are easy to read.  Some of the difference is your ability to deal with numbers in matter-of-fact terms.  Your hubs are factual and interesting.

  15. Lindy's World profile image59
    Lindy's Worldposted 11 years ago

    Ok I must be a ditz because I don't understand all of these Panda attacks.  What are the purpose of them?  Why does or doesn't the Panda choose to bite you? And why is my traffic all over the place.  For example, one day this week I had over 100 views the next day I had 20 then it is slowly climbing back up.  I know that I don't have a lot of content yet but my hubs until the last year have been all over the map.  Can someone please explain this to me?

    1. aa lite profile image86
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Plenty of people have written hubs about the Google Panda.  I would recommend Greekgeek's recent hub about the introduction of idle hubs, she explains everything very clearly.

      They are not so much Panda attacks, about once a month Google refreshes the data.  Things on the internet change, a site might get a Panda penalty, and then solve whatever was causing a problem so it doesn't deserve the penalty anymore.  Google needs to regularly run the algorithm so it reflects the web as it is now.  Google would say, and I believe them, that the purpose of Panda is to give its users, the best sites that will answer their query and not to suggest 'low quality' sites at the top of its search results.

      A Panda refresh usually doesn't have much of an effect on most sites, unless something big has changed on them.  HubPages just made a big change, by introducing idle hubs, so we are hoping for a positive result in traffic.

      To understand your traffic ups and downs, you first need to know where your traffic is coming from, is it mostly from search engines?  It might be that if you have a really good day, that a lot of traffic came from social media, for example Facebook, or maybe somebody shared your hub with their followers.  I big temporary peak of traffic is most probably not from Google.

  16. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
    PaulGoodman67posted 11 years ago

    So far, traffic for 2 out of 3 of my HP accounts remains as bad as ever.  The third account looks to have got a boost.  But it's early days...  I think we need to give the changes a week or two, as others have said...

  17. Dale Hyde profile image80
    Dale Hydeposted 11 years ago

    My page views have plummeted.  Two days running.  I am at the point of giving up writing. Every time that things pick up, they get knocked down. Much to frustrating for me at this point.  Again, I will say that the "idea" presented on HP for passive income has failed me.  The continued tweaking never ends...so that is not passive in any sense of the word.  The amount of time spent versus the income is getting to the point of almost embarrassing when when calculates what they feel their time may be worth.

    1. Kangaroo_Jase profile image75
      Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Dale,

      If I may suggest, this is now the opportunity to work harder than ever. The reason being these events happen in cycles, things go up, things then crash. But what can ever increase is your work appearing on the internet, the more output you have the more opportunity for it to be found by others.

      Write more hubs.

      Write on other sites. Expand your portfolio of work elsewhere, not just only on HubPages.

      If you haven't already, look into creating your own websites, writing ebooks (you must have hundreds of pagan rituals and historic practices you may write about running about in your head!)

      Look at other opportunities for earning dollars on the internet, (Allposters, Zazzle, Amazon based promotions)

      There are always lots of opportunities and ways to learn how to seek them out.

      I say all this because before we ended up with subdomains here, I got sandboxed by Google, I don't know why I was sandboxed but it was hard seeing my work, literally overnight loose 60% of traffic and stay there, for FOUR MONTHS.

      After I got of of jail (so to speak) from the Google nightmare I write 7 more hubs, but all my traffic doubled than it was before being sandboxed. It has continued to climb, slowly but surely.

      I spent my sandbox time looking at other ventures.

      Or you may simply choose to have a rest from all this an reconsider.

      I hope for your benefit you stay and show us more of your work.

      1. Dale Hyde profile image80
        Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Thanks. smile

        I am quite diversified online in various places as well as owning several websites. I was basically speaking of HP.  I am not sure why it seems that HP is so effected by the Panda updates.  When I view the stats on my sites I don't see the fluctuations that I see here in my views at all.  It may have to do with sub-domains as my sites are simple regular domains that I own.

        I don't plan on leaving HP, but I simply can not take the time to continue to review and update over 100 hubs here continually.  I can count the times on one hand that I have made changes to published material elsewhere.  On HP I have totally lost count.

        I think one mistake that I made here is to look at all of the "possible" solutions for the Panda updates. Most speculation and not proven. I have jumped in and tweaked upon reading such suggestions.  I think this time around I will just wait it out and not touch anything and concentrate on other areas as you suggested.

        I am on Amazon on various levels as well as several other ad programs on various sites and blogs. smile
        E-books I have not done yet. I may well consider that advice. smile

        1. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
          PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          My earnings at HP collapsed 4 or 5 months back.  I have 3 accounts here now, in an effort to spread the risk.  Mainly my efforts have gone into raising income elsewhere, however.  I won't pretend that it hasn't been tough.  But if my main HP account does ever fully recover, I'll be in a good position.

        2. imgreencat profile image61
          imgreencatposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I too have watched my views drop about 80% over the last week.  I tried a few things like unpublishing some of the sleepers, but to no avail.  I put everything back now and it's still just as bad.  Finally, I've come to the conclusion that I will just move on.  I'm going to try my hand at ebooks for a while.  Not writing another thing here until I see a substancial improvement.  I had 155 articles here and if I would have used those ideas and expanded them, I could of had 155 ebooks out there.  Don't get me wrong, I feel like I've learned a great bit at HP but the money was never there for me.  So if it goes up or down, I'm not going to worry about it.  I definitly think we need to fill some other baskets if we're smart.

    2. wrenfrost56 profile image56
      wrenfrost56posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Don't panic just yet, most people on hp don't make much money at first, it does take time but it will pay off in the end. It took me an age to make my first cent, but when I stopped checking my earnings and just got on with the writing my earings soon picked up. Keep trying (at least for a while longer) and I'm sure your hard work will start to payoff soon. smile

      1. Dale Hyde profile image80
        Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Thanks for the response.

        I have had excellent earnings here for several months, so I know it is possible.  What is discouraging is to have those earnings off of hubs that apparently are good at the time and suddenly the same hubs, without any changes are deemed "bad". 

        I will hang around, but will just be putting less effort in to the continual "need" to tweak and make adjustments.

    3. Lwelch profile image82
      Lwelchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      In June I lost half of my hits.  Now while a lot of people tell you to refresh, refresh.... well, I cleaned mine up a bit, but not much.  I simply do not have the time to go through and remodel all of them right now.  So I pouted.  That was my main course of action.  This month I am back where I was before the update that killed us.  Why?  who knows!  Some of my busy hubs went back to where they were, some of my higher ones went up but not as far, and a handful went up higher than where they were.  So... some of it is seasonal and some is google indexing.  Waiting helps.  It is like any commission job, there are ups and downs, it is a roller coaster.


      Now for an odd aside - I jumped in this becuase one hub went from 80/day to 400/day.  After three days the google traffic is back to normal - no more 300 hits from google.  Odd.

    4. tammyswallow profile image91
      tammyswallowposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Mine has plummeted to. It hasn't recovered since I updated to the new profile. sad

      1. Dale Hyde profile image80
        Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Well mine has not gone down any further...but it is at the point that I may have to do a reversal and pay HP via PayPal for hosting me, lol.

        1. paradigmsearch profile image60
          paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I keep muddling along... Sooner or later I will have my "brilliant idea" and become rich and famous. Actually, someone else can have the famous part.

  18. Len Cannon profile image89
    Len Cannonposted 11 years ago

    I was on the edge of my seat all day. Would I crash? Would my articles soar? It turns out I'm doing exactly the same as I did before!

    1. Dale Hyde profile image80
      Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I need to buy a helmet, lol. smile

      1. WorkAtHomeMums profile image87
        WorkAtHomeMumsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        I've gone from 1500 a day all google to about 10. No search engines in site. It's sickening. This isn't the first time it's happened but I don't know why I bother.

        1. Dale Hyde profile image80
          Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Certainly not the first time here for me either.

  19. paradigmsearch profile image60
    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    Well, I was hoping for an improvement after deleting my Z hubs. But traffic didn't drop either. So I guess I've survived another one.

    1. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
      PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      No major changes for me either.  The Google bots haven't visited me since early August, however - so maybe something will happen once they check my hubs over?  Or maybe not...  ;-)

    2. aa lite profile image86
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I am not seeing major changes either.  I've had consistently "good traffic" for me for the past 3 days, but it was just what I was getting on my "good days" before.  It is too early to say whether this will stay that way, or whether I've just been lucky and had 3 good days in a row.

      If the idle hub strategy is going to have a positive effect, then first the idle hubs have to be de-indexed, and then a Panda refresh done.  I don't think my hubs have been de-indexed ( I can still find them by googling site:"my site"), so I might have to wait another month to get the next Panda refresh.  However the number of pages indexed for the site as a whole dropped by about 25% some time ago, so if the spam on other subdomain was pulling us down, I would have expected to see a change.

  20. IzzyM profile image85
    IzzyMposted 11 years ago

    I've not had the bot visit yet either, to tell one way or another.

    But I did put some hub titles into Google this evening while checking for plagiarism, and everyone else rated above mine, even on my most popular hubs.

    Then I checked Google.com (instead of Google.co.uk) and my titles (some of them) were back on top.

    This was a hint from Paul Edmondson - put an exact hub title into Google, especially if it is a long-tail one, and your hub should be in the #1 position.

    If it isn't, there is something wrong.

    So, there is still something wrong with my account, but useful to note that the local Googles are way off from each other again.

  21. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
    PaulGoodman67posted 11 years ago

    I just went to check the graphs on the "HP Success Stories" and they appear to have gone!  I don't know if that's a temporary thing, or permanent...

    1. IzzyM profile image85
      IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      LOL, well they weren't a good advert, were they?

      I have mixed feelings about the success stories anyway.

      They are hugely encouraging to new users, but depressing to those of us who have been here awhile.

      1. janderson99 profile image54
        janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

        The sleepy hubs move is clearly directed at pruning out the dead wood. Evergreen has withered and gone brown.
        The new focus in on hubs less than 6 months old - if the traffic drops hubs are killed off after 6 months in my experience.
        The new strategy is like the old ancient one - write quick hubs of moderate quality - if the Grim Reaper comes by, and they are still have potential - add a few extra capsules, tweek the title or if its a 'no-hopper' delete. There is no point building massive hubs when the likely success rate is 20% or less!
        Despite all the keyword research you may do, it is hard to predict what will get traffic - the old notion of building a stellar hub and waiting for organic links is probably dead now, as you have to get traffic within 6 months.
        So IMO write many moderate hubs quickly - those that work - add to their content and quality. Those that don't - drop 'em. This is the old way that many of the 'success' hubbers employed. The difference now is the 6 month life expectancy - sure there will be exceptions - but they will need to be refreshed to remain viable. IMO The 'success' hubs suffered a major crash in late 2011 and never recovered.  ZZZ is killing all of these off. Most of the hubs writen now will be killed off after 6 months - ZZZZZZZZZ

        PS There is no point fixing hubs to stop them getting sleepy - as the Grim Reaper ignores the revision date. Instead wait and revise when the ZZZ appears as a hub score boost is applied after you revise them, which gives them a reprieve.

        1. rebekahELLE profile image86
          rebekahELLEposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I think someone with a large volume of hubs is going to suffer more ZZZ's than hubbers who don't have hundreds of hubs.  If I get what you're saying, you're encouraging hubbers to focus less on quality (moderate) and to write many more hubs quickly.  I don't see why that would work.  I do agree with not focusing on massive hubs simply because most readers don't want a massive page to read.   I know I don't.  Although the tables and graphs can be helpful, I think the cleaner a page looks, the better chance it has of being read instead of bounced.  Keep the graphs simple and very easy to scan quickly.
          In my experience, evergreen is still green and doing fine.  But all hubs require some sort of update at some point, if nothing more than a title tweak or adding a sentence. I have far less hubs than you, but have only had one ZZ which I still think could be helpful to others, so I changed the title and it was back up again within a day or so.  I'll see how it does.

          1. janderson99 profile image54
            janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            The 'stellar hub' approach is a hell of a lot or work. Keyword and title SEO can be a bit of a hit and miss. Even when I spend lots of time on this, probably only 20% really attract a lot of traffic. The stellar hubs approach is based on the 'build organic links' concept - but that is now an endangered species because Google puts more emphasis on freshness. HP's ZZZ program also kills off hubs that don't get enough traffic after about 6 months. So instead of spending 4 + hours making all your hubs 'stellar', it may be better to spend 1 hour on 4 hubs with minimum stuff and enhance the ones that get traffic to boost their appeal and keep them fresh. If 20% of your hubs deliver 80% of your traffic it pays to put the time into those that show signs of succeeding. A simple search for "chicken recipes hubpages" or "childminding hubpages"or similar, shows that the many hubs with higher position in the SERPS do not have all the 'stellar stuff'. The 'many moderate' approach enhancing the successful ones was any old strategy that perhaps needs to be dusted off. Stellar hubs to build organic links is probably a dinosaur though some of the elements such as pinable images are worthwhile, but one or two will do at the start. Most home videos are Yuck, though you will get the ad income if played. IMO

            1. aa lite profile image86
              aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

              What is the evidence that Google is now putting more emphasis on freshness rather than backlinks? The last I saw from Google on the subject was that, for certain subjects, like current affairs, sports results etc. they will prioritise fresh results, which makes sense.  Have they said anything else since then?

              Of course perhaps we shouldn't trust everything that Google says, but just because they say something, doesn't automatically say that the opposite is true. 
              In the reptile pets field, one of the keywords that I am trying to rank for has at number 1 a site that hasn't been updated for years, that has some missing images and links. I guess Google considers it an authority on the subject (it does have quite a lot of organic links, and forgives it for its crimes.  Likewise when looking for a lot of keywords I see many old pages, that were last published years ago on the first page.

              1. janderson99 profile image54
                janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Do a Google search for the freshness update =>

                The Google "freshness" update to Google's search ranking algorithm, which affected around 35% of all searches was first applied in late 2011 and it has been tweaked in the first half of 2012. Sites that benefited from the update tend to be content sites and brand sites with frequent updates. Many are news sites, but others are travel sites or other consumer sites. The sites that lost in this update are government websites or less time-sensitive news organizations.

                The update, built upon Google's new Caffeine search infrastructure, determines when certain search queries should return more timely content, instead of older pages that might rank higher in absolute terms. For example, a search for "olympics" is likely to want results for the 2012 Summer Olympics, rather than the Wikipedia page for "olympics."

                1. IzzyM profile image85
                  IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Wikipedia is #2 for this search term in Google UK, and #3 in Google.com.

                2. aa lite profile image86
                  aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Exactly!  In the second paragraph it says when certain search queries should return more timely content.  Google is clever enough to realise that if somebody searches for the 'olympics' or the  'presidential elections' they most probably want pages about the 2012 events.  However this rule is not universal, it only affects certain queries.  For example if you are searching for 'day geckos', Google thinks you just want a good site about the lizards, not the freshest site about them, it's not a time sensitive query, and it returns a site that really doesn't look like it's getting refreshed frequently.

                  Unfortunately Squidoo and now HubPages don't trust themselves to be able to imitate Google in recognising time-sensitive content and ever green con ten, hence the mania for constant updates.  At least with HubPages if a site is doing well, you don't really have to update once a month the way you do with Squidoo.  It seems to me that Google is quite happy with unfresh content unless it thinks it's a time sensitive query.

      2. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
        PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

        @Izzy - Well the HP Success Stories writing is still there.  Just the graphs have gone.  So now they're just putting out a "hugely encouraging" message!  wink

        1. Rik Ravado profile image86
          Rik Ravadoposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I'm not surprised they removed those graphs!  You could see how badly nearly all the 'success' hubbers continued to tank week by week.  Painful stuff.  If I owned the site I'd have removed them long ago - I think they probably need to revise the text also and make sure the words reflect how those individuals feel now.

          I'm doing better in terms of the graph than most of them but I wouldn't want my graph on display for all to see.  I hope this doesn't sound cynical - I'm still a fan of Hubpages - honest smile

          1. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
            PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, the graphs originally implied that the only way is up, with gradually improving traffic levels over 2 or more years.  Like with house prices, it became clear that sudden drops can happen too, however.

            I too was surprised that HP left them up.  Although they were actually useful as a source of info regarding what was going on for other hubbers.

            My only concern is that taking the graphs down might be interpreted as there is no imminent recovery on the way...

  22. Dale Hyde profile image80
    Dale Hydeposted 11 years ago

    Just an update. My views continue to drop.  My top hub is one of the lowest in views at the moment. My overall views right now is the lowest it has been in over six months when I had a lot fewer hubs.  If it drops any lower, I will have to owe HP!

    My total stats on 115 hubs, I think that is what I have, is the same total that I used to get with several hubs each.  Embarrassing for sure.  It is like someone pulled the plug.

    Anyway, just thought I would do the update.  Have spent too much time on HP just writing this, lol. My time is best spent doing other things at the moment until change happens here.

    1. paradigmsearch profile image60
      paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This weekend looks like it's turning into a real nosedive. I did some research. This weekend is the September equinox. That explains everything...

      1. wilderness profile image94
        wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Dale, Paradigm - all very odd.  My rise flattened out for a couple of weeks, but no decline, either.  Now it's rising again; today may be the best Friday I've seen since March (when I began the Long Big Fall), and yesterday was certainly the best Thursday since then.

        1. Dale Hyde profile image80
          Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          That is great to hear! Glad that some of you are having the same views and better views! No need for all do take a nose dive!  Someone has to pay the electric bill here, lol. smile

        2. David 470 profile image82
          David 470posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          That's good to hear. No good news here I am afraid. Except, I am seeing a rise in topics that generally do not produce traffic for me, overall, however, I am not back to where I used to be.,(back in March or so)

  23. Len Cannon profile image89
    Len Cannonposted 11 years ago

    I have a sinking feeling that my new Hubs aren't, and perhaps, never will rank for any keywords on Google. I know they've been noticed  as they URL shows up when I search, but very basic keywords don't return results. The traffic has long become irrelevant before a long tail search term featured in the TITLE of my article will return my Hub. It has been pretty consistent and it is making me wonder what the fate of new content on the site will be.

  24. paradigmsearch profile image60
    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    It's raining blue arrows! No... No... No...

  25. paradigmsearch profile image60
    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    The roller-coaster continues...

    "Right now
    7
    active visitors on site"

    A new personal best.

    1. snakeslane profile image81
      snakeslaneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      0 visitors on site (normal)
      edit: OMG! I have a visitor!  (1)
      edit: 2 visitors!
      edit: looks like we are having tea...
      This real time stuff is exciting.

      1. paradigmsearch profile image60
        paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Done a tweet/pin fest recently? I do that whenever I'm bored. big_smile

        1. snakeslane profile image81
          snakeslaneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          You know I haven't, I really should.

  26. MakinBacon profile image81
    MakinBaconposted 11 years ago

    Evidently we're still in the middle of the refresh, as three of my profiles just got slammed over night, with views on all of them dropping about 33 percent each.

    I don't think, other than being sure you're spelling, grammar and overall structure are sound, there really is much else you can do to please Google, as far as that part of the traffic equation goes.

    Most of  my traffic is from search engines, so when most of my articles are unchange and driving traffic for months, and in many cases years, and suddenly the entire profile of hubs take a hit, there's no way to figure out what has happened and why.

    All you can do is wait for several days or a week to see if it's a hit in a general way that will correct itself. Other than that, it's futile to work on hubs over and over again, especially those that have driven traffic nicely in the past.

    If it was only a hub or two it would be different, but when thirty of fourty hubs are hit hard, you know it can't be the same thing wrong with each one of them, assuming decent spelling and grammar are in place.

    Anyone that has read Google's demands know after reading them they are so general in order to protect their algorithm, that you have to read between the lines in an attempt to figure it out. That hasn't changed over time, and will surely remain the same for years into the future. Google simply isn't going to get specific other than saying the old mantra of quality content, etc. etc.

    But when you look at eHow and some of those low quality and low content "articles," you have to wonder what it is you can do when they are allowed to continue to hold major positions in search results with about as low as quality as you see anywhere on the Internet.

    All that can be done is to write the best articles we can and leave the results in the hands of the search engines. Of course the other strategy is social media, but that's a different subject.

  27. peeples profile image93
    peeplesposted 11 years ago

    I really don't understand how all of this works. I do know though that what is happening to my account is not normal. 5 days ago I tripled my views for 2 days then I wake up this morning and I have had 50 views total on all 70 something hubs. This is a fifth of what I normally have. WTH?

  28. Anishpat profile image77
    Anishpatposted 11 years ago

    Hi peeples. You are not alone. The exact same thing happened to me! After a spike in traffic, it has now dropped to almost nothing!

  29. cameciob profile image79
    cameciobposted 11 years ago

    My understanding is that Google tweaks the search queries. That means that some of our keywords used to buid hubs around are falling off the cliff. Google does this tweaking several times a year. They calling "refresh", we call it "Panda update". I noticed that the updates of the queries are mostly done around some events or periods of time..it makes me think that it refreashes the keywords to match the advertising seasons.
    My vews have dropped also. I checked on webmaster tool and saw that my most used keyword had a significant drop in impression and had lost few positions in SERP. On the other hand, some other keywords have gained position (too bad they don't count too much on my subdomain).
    Last year at the begining of September, after a similar update, I dropped to almost nothing only to go back and above at the beginning of november, with the Christmas shopping season.
    I still have hope. Good articles will always surface.

    1. aa lite profile image86
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's not entirely true, Google algorithm updates and refreshes are not the same thing.  Google runs a Panda refresh once a month, this is just to see "what's new" on the web.  For example Panda doesn't like all ads above the fold, lets say Panda didn't get refreshed, you had a lot of ads on your site and you get slapped.  So you remove a lot of the ads to give your users a better experience, if Panda never got refreshed, that would not be noticed and you would have the penalty for ever, even though your site was now much higher "quality".  Obviously that would not be good, so Google has to refresh what Panda thinks about the internet once a month.  If your site hasn't changed in any significant way, it shouldn't be affected by the refresh.

      But Google is also constantly tweaking its ranking algorithms, and big changes to the algorithm can really alter your ranking when there is an update, even if nothing had changed on its site.  Incidentally, I think the indications from Google are that they are fairly happy with Panda now, and they will not make any major changes to it.  So it will now be mostly Panda refreshes rather than updates.  There will be a lot of tweaking with the Penguin algorithm.

      But Google has other algorithms that are not Penguin or Panda, so yes there are algorithm updates happening all the time.  Also a drop in traffic might not be caused by anything on your site, it might be caused by changes on your competitor's sites.  They might have had a panda penalty, and then they removed it, the penalty was lifted so they now rank better than you.  You see that you are dropping in the SERPs and feel it's very unfair because you didn't do anything to change your site, so why do you have a penalty?  But you don't have a penalty, it's just that your competitors had theirs lifted and have now displaced you.

      There is no evidence that Google does anything with the ranking of specific keywords based on when advertising for them brings revenue.  It's just that at specific times, certain sites might buy Adwords for some keywords, so then you get less organic search for these keywords, or there are more new pages about specific keywords on authority sites etc. etc.  So you might get less organic traffic for keywords, but this doesn't suddenly mean that Google has changed its algorithms for these specific words, it just means that there is more competition for them.

      1. cameciob profile image79
        cameciobposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        This is a very good overview of what we think is happening.
        And thanks for explaining the algorithm updates vs refreshes: makes my understanding more clear. And it is possible that some other sites may have taken over my best keyword ....maybe they just published "fresh" content.  I don't cry too much, not anymore, over traffic loss. But I just want to understand the thing.
        But I feel strongly that some of the keywords dance (or algorithm update) is linked to the money they get from advertisers, even there is no evidence. The e-commerce is growing fast, year by year, and the competition as well. Some companies may use unorthodox methods to rank, as it had happened two years ago and Google only told the world about it after the holoday season, when people had spend already their money. Makes me wonder how did they find out when everything was over...????
        And I can just tell by my changes that there are seasonal tweaking and it is aimed at Christmas already. And this had happened last year as well. I think that the turning point would be late october-begining of november.

        1. aa lite profile image86
          aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          cameciob,

          Sorry, yes I agree with you absolutely that other webmasters/corps try to rank their keywords at certain times, like before Christmas, which causes a "dance".  I just don't think Google is involved in this, except in the most obvious way, of putting sites that pay them through adwords on top of the SERPs.

          1. cameciob profile image79
            cameciobposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Why did they tweak the algorithm so often?

      2. viryabo profile image94
        viryaboposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Thanks for this insightful info. it does make some sense to me and helps me see things in a different light. Makes me feel i should worry less and try to keep improving on whatever i do.

  30. Hollie Thomas profile image59
    Hollie Thomasposted 11 years ago

    As Paradigmsearch so often says, we are lab rats! Google cares about clicks and conversions, not quality content. Which site delivers clicks and the most conversions is *probably* what fuels their algos, and this is what they may be testing. IMHO.

  31. Dale Hyde profile image80
    Dale Hydeposted 11 years ago

    In for another update. No sudden spikes here. Views continue to be low.  I did check my earnings for yesterday with the earnings from exactly one month ago.  My earnings are one third of what I was making 30 days ago.  A two-thirds drop in earnings is quite a drop. I shall continue to pop in from time to time and see if things change. Not producing any new material for the time being.

  32. arizonataylor profile image78
    arizonataylorposted 11 years ago

    I CRASHED last October, due to a Panda update.  My numbers never improved.  Now, they're up again, finally.  It's a wild ride.

    1. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
      PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's obviously great news that you've emerged from the wilderness.  But disconcerting that it took so long. 

      I am hoping that I will recover too, once the Google bots see all the good work that HP and I have done recently! smile

    2. profile image0
      EmpressFelicityposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Mine started on an upward curve a couple of weeks ago and they're still going up. It's great, but I have no idea why!

  33. Stacie L profile image88
    Stacie Lposted 11 years ago

    Well what i feared has happened...I'm crashing to earth.
    My traffic has plummeted the last day.
    I had hoped Google would leave me alone this time..sigh..sad

  34. Doodlehead profile image50
    Doodleheadposted 11 years ago

    My unerstanding of how this all works is that unless out hubs are all about the same topic there really is no hope of being favorably ranked by Google.

    Google wants the sub-hubs or whatever you call our individual selves here on Hubpages to focus on one topic.    If you write about different topics you will never rise in the ranks.

    I hope I am wrong about this.   Please someone shoot me down.

    1. vespawoolf profile image92
      vespawoolfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I only write about food and my views have plummeted. So there must be more to it than just the topic.

    2. aa lite profile image86
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Actually I've recently read a hub by Paud E were he says that (all hubs having to be about a single topic) is a myth.  Apparently subdomains that focus on a single topic are no more successful than ones that write about a variety of topics.  Since Paul E. actually has solid data on all of HubPages, I think his observations are very valuable.  He did say that older subdomains seem to be doing much worse than newer ones, although there is not explanation about why this happens.

      One thing that is supposed to be helpful is link your hubs on a topic together with textual links, which Google rates higher than links in a list at the bottom of the page, and also to other hubs, and authority sites on the same subject.

  35. againsttheodds profile image60
    againsttheoddsposted 11 years ago

    got some google love... finally

  36. blairtracy profile image90
    blairtracyposted 11 years ago

    All of my hubs have dropped to basically nothing. And what I mean by basically nothing is 2-8 views per hub. sad

  37. truefaith7 profile image87
    truefaith7posted 11 years ago

    Same here. My views have plummeted down to a tiny little trickle of traffic over the past couple of days. This is the third time this year this has happened.

    Guess it's time to pack up my unpublished hubs and move them elsewhere.....

  38. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
    PaulGoodman67posted 11 years ago

    The bots finally visited me and my traffic appeared to be improving.  Then the HP traffic counter froze.  Then HP went offline for several hours!

    1. aa lite profile image86
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Maybe HP traffic is so improved that the servers couldn't handle the extra load :0

      Anyway fingers crossed that your traffic improvement will continue

      1. Barbara Kay profile image73
        Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        LOL I wish it were true.

  39. profile image0
    healthylife2posted 11 years ago

    I experienced exactly the same thing! Glad HP is back up!

  40. ocbill profile image52
    ocbillposted 11 years ago

    Gotta learn to live without Google "search" more often & get traffic other ways. email, android not so much and apparently their driverless cars are already approved in some major cities.

  41. Anamika S profile image69
    Anamika Sposted 11 years ago

    My views are now 20% of my normal views. My HP earnings are also at its all time low.

    1. vespawoolf profile image92
      vespawoolfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      At least we're not alone in this! Compared to my peak traffic last month, my views are down 60%. It's at an all-time low.

      1. Rik Ravado profile image86
        Rik Ravadoposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        In the last 2 days my traffic has been decimated.  I've gone from 5000 views a day to less that 500.  This has happened before and I've quickly recovered (a few days) but its scary and depressing! sad

        1. vespawoolf profile image92
          vespawoolfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          That's similar to the drop I've experienced. I'm glad to hear you recovered so quickly! It gives me hope. I do think my drop is also tied to the seasonality of recipes. Tomato season is over in the US and many of my big earners use fresh tomatoes. So who knows if I'll recover. Only time will tell.

          1. Rik Ravado profile image86
            Rik Ravadoposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            My traffic is still falling - now 350 hits a day - hopefully it can't get much lower... hmm

            1. vespawoolf profile image92
              vespawoolfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

              Yeah, mine isn't much better. It's like watching a deer lying on the highway, convulsing in agony. Maybe it's better to look away. I'm going to cook dinner! :   )

  42. Len Cannon profile image89
    Len Cannonposted 11 years ago

    Keep in mind that HubPages was down for a good eight hours today before trying to gauge your stats for today.

  43. Stacie L profile image88
    Stacie Lposted 11 years ago

    Wow this is the lowest traffic I have ever had! Hubpages was down?
    Oh boy..not good. roll

    1. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
      PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      My traffic's dropped back to low levels after a brief (mini) surge.  I would be happy with medium but not spectacular traffic, if there was just some sense of stability and a degree of predictability.  I am thinking that HP switching to subdomains last year might have just created more instability, rather than improving things for the medium to long term, but I hope that I am wrong.  I don't mind traffic swinging up and down by ten or fifteen percent, it is the sense that you can lose 95% overnight that is disconcerting...

  44. nakmeister profile image66
    nakmeisterposted 11 years ago

    My hub views have halved. Early this morning they were fine, now they've been decimated. I'm hoping it is because the site was down for so long!

    1. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
      PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Me too!  If that is the case, we should get a mini-boost to the 24 hour stats figure this evening.

  45. profile image57
    Southernmapartposted 11 years ago

    Reading about Panda on Wiki, the following is taken from the page updated September 25, 2012:

    "In March 2012, Google updated Panda and stated that they are deploying an "over-optimization penalty," in order to level the playing field.[12]"

    I am reading a lot to understand SEO and the rules for writing on this site.  Now, I must be concerned with "over-optimization."   Does anyone have an idea where the line is drawn?

    1. aa lite profile image86
      aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The overoptimization algorithm is known as Penguin.  According to Paul E. HubPages as a whole did not lose a lot of traffic after it was introduced in April, so I suspect one shouldn't be too paranoid about the Penguin.

      If you are worried I think you need to ask yourself whether you've put a lot of effort into building links to your pages.  I actually don't think the vast majority of hubbers did this, but some web masters used to build thousands of links to their sites, for example though producing spun articles and submitting hundreds of them to article directories, or taking part in link exchange schemes. 

      One person on HubPages who complained about major traffic loss after Penguin, I think got penalised for keyword stuffing.  I had a look at a couple of hubs, and a couple of keyword phrases were repeated everywhere, it really didn't read naturally.  This wasn't a subtle thing, it really hit me.

      I think as long as you don't go out building links like crazy, and you try to write naturally, you should be ok as far as the Penguin is concerned.

    2. profile image0
      Ethan Greenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The jury is still out on exactly where the line is drawn, and it's meant to be that way, otherwise everyone would just adapt to the new rules of the game. One of the best explanations I heard in terms of key-words was that it is still important to choose keywords wisely, and make sure you use them at natural intervals in your articles. But if you go back through an article and put a whole bunch more of them in because you don't think there are enough or you want to get higher up the search results, it probably won't work. That said though, I have still been tinkering with keywords a lot in the last few months, and have generally found that as long as I don't go over 1-2% of keyword density, I haven't been penalised. I also try to use more synonyms rather than just repeat the same phrase, and this seems to have worked our fine for me so far. If you put a keyword phrase, for example 'how to tie your shoelaces' in the domain name, the title, the header, the summary box, image titles, the first paragraph and last paragraph of an article which used to be the way forward, then you are also probably going to shoot yourself in the foot. But if you use synonyms, and leave one or two of that list clear of that particular keyword phrase, you will have a better chance of not being penalised whilst still letting the search engines know that your article is a valuable one for people wanting to know how to tie shoelaces.
      Thats just the keyword part - there are more facets to the over-optimization issue. But I think misuse of keywords is one of the quickest ways to get yourself condemned.
      Hope that helped a little

  46. Rik Ravado profile image86
    Rik Ravadoposted 11 years ago

    My traffic is still decimated - normally I get between 8 and 30 simultaneous visitors on google analytics Realtime View.  At this moment it is 2!  'Realtime' is a good way of seeing what is really happening NOW - Hub stats reflect the last 24 hours. 

    Update: now it is 4 (getting better?). hmm

    vespawoolf: Your deer analogy is pretty accurate - Ugg!

    1. Dale Hyde profile image80
      Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I just started viewing the GA "Realtime" after reading this earlier. I really like it!  A ton of information on a very easy to read and understand page. smile  Thanks.

  47. ITcoach profile image57
    ITcoachposted 11 years ago

    Hi Every one,

    I think so that google may fall the ranking of some sites but the google is now taking notice of hub pages a lot.

  48. Anishpat profile image77
    Anishpatposted 11 years ago

    Hey Rik Ravado, good to see your traffi is slowly going up. Mine is still down in the dumps,
    How do you check 'realtime' traffic in google analytics? I can't seem to find then option.

    1. rebekahELLE profile image86
      rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago

      Click 'Home' on the upper left of your GA page, click Real Time (Beta), Overview, etc.

    2. Rik Ravado profile image86
      Rik Ravadoposted 11 years ago

      Anishpat: What rebekahELLE said! 

      I've just been locked out again from both of my sub-domains and hubpages.com for over an hour although I could see a trickle of traffic getting through on analytics.  I'm convinced the problem may be access to the site rather than a Google search problem.  I'm not convinced everything has been fixed here.
      Here is hoping Hubpages has a weekend shift and this gets sorted out properly  hmm

      1. PaulGoodman67 profile image95
        PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

        Yes, my main profile (this one) is relatively okay, but the two other accounts I have are still almost dead.  Traffic was in a state of flux before the crash, so I'm thinking HP was maybe working on the site before the weekend and then something went wrong.  We might have to wait until Monday now for a full fix....

        1. hazelwood4 profile image66
          hazelwood4posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          My traffic has went way down in the last two days, hopefully we will see a rebound.

     
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