What to Do if Your Subdomain has a Sudden Drop in Traffic

Traffic fluctuations are a normal occurrence, even if you are getting the majority of your visitors from search engines like Google. For example, summer is usually a time of dipping traffic as many people are on vacation; if you write seasonal Hubs, your traffic will increase during different seasons and wane during others.

In many cases, traffic fluctuations are normal and shouldn't worry you too much. However, there are instances when a sudden large traffic drop in your subdomain can occur. This Learning Center entry is here to provide you with a few ideas on what you can do if your traffic has a sudden, very large drop.

Unfortunately, Google doesn't give us specific reasons why your traffic may have dropped. We have noticed a few patterns that we can share and have a couple tips for you to try to get that traffic back. Here are a few possible reasons your traffic has dropped:

• Google made a mistake. If Google made a mistake and you have written useful, quality Hubs, then you can disregard the following reasons and move on to remedying the problem. Even so, we do suggest that you still take another look at your Hubs with a critical eye. We can all make improvements, and Hubs that you have written a long time ago may be the reason for your falling traffic. We recommend going back and taking a hard look at all of your Hubs and making sure that they are up to par, and have updated, relevant information on the topic the titles suggest they address. Even the best writers improve over time and Hubs that were created a few years ago may warrant improvements.
• Excessive backlinking. If you have used any programs to procure backlinks, you may have been targeted. We have always discouraged this type of backlinking in favor of only organic backlinking. If you write a really useful, informative, and/or interesting Hub, your Hub will naturally attract backlinks!
• Over-optimization or keyword stuffing. We strongly discourage trying to squeeze in more keywords in an effort to make your Hub more appealing to search engines. This is very old advice, and nowadays, it is more likely to hurt you than help you.
  If you haven't made any effort to squeeze in keywords, we still suggest reading your Hub out loud. The reason for this is many times we don't realize how many times we have put one or two words in our Hub, but when we read the Hub out loud we can hear the word repeated in an awkward way. You may have inadvertently written a few words too many times.
• Doorway page Hubs. Doorway Hubs are those that are only optimized for a specific keyword and designed to funnel visitors to another website. Here's Google's stance on doorway pages. If your Hub is solely created for a click through to Amazon or other affiliate offers, Google may see your Hub as a doorway page.

1. Take a good hard look at your Hubs. If your Hubs exhibit any of the above criteria, revise or unpublish them. A few poorly written Hubs could be influencing all of your Hubs' traffic. Many of us have written Hubs years ago that are no longer relevant or of high quality. We all grow as writers and our recent writings are probably better than our older writings.
2. If you have keywords that are repeated in your article in a way that sounds stilted or awkward, remove some of the keywords. Make an effort to make your writing sound as natural as possible.
3. Once you feel that your Hubs are of high quality, you can apply for a reconsideration of your Hubs on Google's Webmaster Tools. We have created a Learning Center entry on how do do this.
4. We recommend that you continue to write high quality Hubs to help create trust with Google. Most Hubbers that have seen large dips in traffic, whose Hubs are not keyword-stuffed, gateway pages for Amazon, etc., have eventually seen a traffic recovery. We have seen very few cases of content that is high quality that hasn't done well over time, a few temporary traffic drops notwithstanding. We recommend continuing to write and be a positive part of the HubPages ecosystem.