Complete loss of Google traffic after switching to new profile?

1. 85

   aa liteposted 12 years ago

   This might be a complete co-incidence, but I switched to the new profile a couple of days ago, and today Google is pretending it doesn't know me.  Hubs that ranked on the first page for main keyword are not found in the first 10 pages.  Even more worrying, I can't find them in Google even when searching with lengthy phrases from them.  When I searched with a fairly specific title of one hub, G returned by profile page, where the hub is listed, and, in second position, a stumbleupon like for that hub, but not the hub itself.  It's like they were de-indexed overnight.
   
   The change to the new profile might be a complete co-incidence, obviously other people have done it without this disaster happening.  The only thing that I can think of, is that I had claimed Google authorship, by linking my old profile to my Google plus profile with the rel=author attribute, or whatever it was that you had to do at that time.  Perhaps I've lost the authorship with the new profile and Google now thinks my hubs are stolen by me? 
   
   Anybody else in this situation?

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   1. 69

      Kate Mc Brideposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Was thinking of moving to the new profile but changed my mind after reading this.Hope you get it sorted because it wasn't a good thing to happen

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      1. 85

         aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Well, don't be put off too much by my experience, I'm sure if this was common we woud be hearing screaming from lots of people on the forums.  It is quite probably that my wipe-out was completely unrelated to the profile change, it's just so unexpected that in a panic I keep looking for excuses.  It only happened today, so I am hoping against hope that it is some glitch in the ranking and I will regain at least some of my positions.

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   2. 86

      moonlakeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      My traffic was down at first but seems to be coming up some now. As far as the google ranking that seems to be the same. Just checked a some of them and they are in the same place. I wish you luck in finding out what is wrong.

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   3. 66

      relacheposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I can't say if my traffic changed due to the new profile or the fact that it usually shifts around this time of year, but regardless of why, my traffic moved in an upwards direction.

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   4. 84

      nanderson500posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I haven't switched to the new profile yet, this makes me even more hesitant.

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   5. 85

      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Google and I are friends again, it was only a brief tiff and apparently my hubs are now "high quality" again and G is sending punters to see them.  I don't know how long this will continue, but I got used to being able to buy a McDonald's meal once a month courtesy of HubPages, so this is a relief!

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   6. 76

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      There was another Panda update on August 20.  I've lost between 50 and 75 per cent of my views and my income.  This really sucks!

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      1. 85

         aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         It might possibly come back, Panda is not the only game in town in Google world, there seems to be a lot of flux in the SERPs, people here are losing their traffic and then seeing it coming back.
         It's as if Google is testing taking some subdomains out of their good rankings, seeing what happens, and then deciding that maybe they shoud have beein on the first page after all, and putting them back in.  So your drop might be very temporary.  Fingers crossed.

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2. 59

   paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

   My traffic has actually improved.
   
   As to "rel=author"; you put in the G+ address, HP will put in the "rel=author" for you.

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   1. 85

      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for that paradigm, I am sure the profiles were tested before being rolled out and HP would not do something that would wipe out Google traffic.  It's just that what happened to me is so freaky, last night things going quite well, today everything's disappeared from searches.  I know people have had wipeouts of 50% or even 70% but total, on all the hubs is seriously freaking me out.
      
      Incidentally I had a look at your profile, and one difference I've noticed is that you have much shorter blurbs on each of your hubs.  I have a paragraph on each hub, maybe that made Google angry.  Will now see how to make my hub blurbs shorter.

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      1. 59

         paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I have no idea how HP extracted mine.
         
         Some, HP just chopped off. Others have a "continue".
         
         I do generally write very short paragraphs in my hubs though. I'm one of the believers in the theory that internet readers have short attention spans; and are more likely scanners than readers.

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3. 82

   rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

   Do you have duplicate articles on other sites?

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   1. 85

      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think so, I keep Googling bits of my hubs to find them, I think if somebody had stolen my content they would show up that way, but I can't find anything.  I can't find my own hubs either, which is the very worrying thing. 
      
      One of the other things I did recently, is I published a couple of hubs on a different topic from that which I have been writing on lately.  However I have seen people saying here that they don't think a subdomain is hurt by not having just one focus and my hubs so far had covered a few topics which didn't seem to hurt them.  As with other people who've suddenly become disliked by Google it's probably never going to be explained. 
      
      I'm going to do some small edits on a few hubs, dividing the text into more paragraphs etc. Maybe Google will index them again and start sending me some traffic again.  Just in case it got confused by the profile change.

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         paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Since nothing else has seemed to come to light, the probability of your hypothesis is not zero. As such, you could very well be back-in-business in less than a week.

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         1. 85

            aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Amen to that!

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4. 90

   Will Apseposted 12 years ago

   I would definitely shorten your summaries and also make sure that they are unique ie not copied from your opening paragraphs.
   
   Wonderful frogs, by the way!

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   1. 85

      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for that advice Will.  I guess I need to improve my summary writing skills.  I don't think it used to be so obvious with the old profile, but now the summaries are really highlighted I will put more effort into making them pithy.  I much prefer the way your and pardigmsearch's homepage look.

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5. 82

   rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

   I just checked and your site is not showing as indexed.  I entered:  site:http:// yoursubdomain.  All that came up is your profile.  It should list all of your hubs also.
   
   I don't think it has anything to do with your content or content quality or mix of hub topics.  Plenty of us have various hub topics on our updated profile.  It sounds like some kind of glitch.  Your hubs look great to me.
   
   I would try resubmitting them in Webmaster Tools.
   You can submit your URL to Bing also and see what happens.
   Hope it turns around for you, soon!

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   1. 85

      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for doing that rebekah, and for confirming what I suspected.  Everything was fine till yesterday and suddenly-nothing.  I do hope it's a glitch, then there is hope of things going back to normal once I remind Google of what is here.  I'll let you know if things improve.

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   2. 87

      WryLiltposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I just checked a few random hubs and they seem to be indexed fine, Rebekah...

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      1. 85

         aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Wrylit,
         
         They were not indexed yesterday, but are today.  I did various tribal dances at midnight with a full moon both on this site and in webmaster tools, to convince Google to index em again.  However they are nowhere near their previous position in the SERPs.  Whether that is temporary or permanent, I will see.

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         1. 87

            WryLiltposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Why don't they say they've only been crawled in the last 24 hours then? They've all got earlier dates than that.

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            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I checked your site yesterday when everyone was agreeing your hubs weren't indexed, and they were all there under site: your profile url. That was Google.co.uk, not dot com.
            
            You may be suffering from a 'plunge' that many of us have experienced. This was a traffic shift to hubs a few days ago, with some subs going way up, and others way down.
            
            I suspect you were hit by that, and it has nothing to do with the profile change.

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6. 61

   Anamika Sposted 12 years ago

   Though I have not seen any improvement in the traffic after switching to the new profile, I have not seen any decline either. Anyways, I think the new profile looks better than the old.

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7. 76

   Barbara Kayposted 12 years ago

   There was another Panda Update. http://www.westhost.com/blog/2012/07/31 … -rankings/
   
   Could that be it instead?

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   1. 59

      paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I followed your link. Good link. A very good link.
      
      In fact...

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   2. 65

      urmilashukla23posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks.

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   3. 65

      urmilashukla23posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks.

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   4. 65

      urmilashukla23posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks.

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      1. 81

         IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         That link referred to July's update.
         
         Panda 3.9.1 confirmed August 19th. http://searchengineland.com/google-pand … 9-1-131284
         
         I got hit again
         
         I give up!

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8. 94

   Glenn Stokposted 12 years ago

   I checked your subdomain and I see the same thing, only your HP profile is listed. Not your Hubs.
   
   But all your Squidoo articles are indexed. And I see your authorship status is approved too since Google is displaying your image in the listings. So this problem is only happening with your Hubs. Now with the new HP profile you should have your image along with your Hub listings too, once you get this resolved.
   
   On your Google Profile the reciprocal link back to HubPages only needs to be in "Other Profiles" and should not be duplicated under "Contributor to." Maybe this is causing trouble. You did it right with Squidoo.
   
   Hopefully things will improve once you make this change. It's the only thing I see that may be the cause.
   
   But also check your Google Webmaster Tools to see if they sent you any notices or alerts. Good luck. I know it must be frustrating for you.

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   1. 85

      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Glenn,
      
      I did look under Webmaster tools, it is not unhappy about anything.  Strangely it  is saying that my my hubs are indexed, where they don't appear to be.  I think the indexing status is not updated in real time, it might be reporting on what was happening a few days ago, so I might need to keep checking it to see what happened.

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      1. 94

         Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I sure hope you get this resolved quickly.  The thing about the duplication of summaries that was discussed in this thread is important. Google could very well see that as duplicate content. It's important to enter a summary every time you publish a Hub.
         
         Google uses your summary to display in search results. Make it different from any text in the Hub. Also keep it short since you want the entire summary to be used in search results. Google will truncate long summaries, even though they would appear in the HP profile at full length.
         
         Also don't forget to remove your duplicate reciprocal link from your Google Profile back to HubPages. I'm not sure, but it's possible that Google Bots might see it as a duplicate site with all the same articles.

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         1. 87

            WryLiltposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            To check if a hub is indexed, copy and paste the URL of the hub directly into Google.

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9. 83

   Healthy Pursuitsposted 12 years ago

   If you don't have improvement in a few days, you might try writing Google about your hubs. I was de-indexed about a month ago and wrote them. They fixed it for me. I didn't receive any replies to my email, but I was suddenly indexed again about 24 hours after my email.
   
   Basically, I found my error, fixed it, then prostrated myself flat on the cold stone floor in front of the Google shrine mumbling abject apologies in a terrified tone.
   
   Of course, as you've made no error that you know of, you could simply kowtow three times and send the Google gods a request for clarification. 

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   1. 85

      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      LOL.  Well I seem to be getting indexed again, without the kowtowing.  I've been editing the hubs, mostly redoing the summaries, which might have possibly induced google bots to visit again.  I've also done somethings on Webmaster tools, not sure what it was, but for whatever reason I can find my hubs on Google again.
      
      The problem is, they are now ranked in much worse positions than before.  I'm not sure if this is further Google torture, or if they are treated as newly published hubs, and will regain their previous positions.  Time will tell.  I am getting some bing and yahoo traffic, which was unaffected, but Google was my main traffic source.

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10. 76

    psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

    I think it might be a coincidence.  My swap to new profile had no affect on traffic or ranks.

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11. 87

    Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

    Ok I've been away and just found out that profile pages are changed.
    I like the new look and don't know if it'll help yet..

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12. 62

    Lisa HWposted 12 years ago

    I switched a few days ago.  My traffic has pretty much been the same in numbers and pattern -not its greatest pattern  but the same one -- for months now.  It looks the same today as it does on most other Thursdays - gradually starting to head down through Sunday when it starts to creep up and be at its most decent Monday through Wednesday.  It's probably worth mentioning - though - that my old profile didn't have any more outside links than the new one does; so I didn't lose outside links.  As with most of HP-related stuff..   Everyone's situation; stuff; and profile are different.

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13. 69

    Woody Marxposted 12 years ago

    Sometimes I think Google is making paranoids of us all.  There seems to be no cause and effect working with what does and doesn't 'work' so I have given up trying to figure them out.  I rather think behind the Google curtain is a little man that Toto will reveal to us all eventually...

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14. 63

    indian cookingposted 12 years ago

    I am looking forward to try the new Profile too. It looks so nice. I am not a member of any social networking sites to put on my profile. So I will make them first and then switch to new profile.

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15. 83

    Melis Annposted 12 years ago

    I'm still on the old profile and have seen an extreme drop in traffic since 2 days ago. Looks like from the postings in this thread that I need to check my summaries as they may be too similar to my first paragraphs. Other than that, I can't figure out if there is something I should be doing to remedy the traffic drop. In my 6 months with HubPages I have not experienced this before.

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    1. 85

       aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       My traffic has just come back.  I think it's a good idea to work on the summaries in any case, I really don't know whether they had anything to do with the Google hate.  I did a few other things, removed a few affiliate links etc. In one of my hubs I realised I kept repeating a word way too often, not consciously keyword stuffing, just lazy writing.
       I also removed the full-width images I'd recently put at the beginning of all my hubs.  This was actually recommended as something that helped get them pinned and driving traffic from Pinterest.  I liked how the hubs looked, but was worried about "content above the fold", on a small screen you could hardly see any text without scrolling down.  On the other hand there is the argument that images are "content" so even if all you can see when you land on a page is a big picture, Panda will not penalize that. 
       To be honest, I don't think anything I did had an effect, I think it was just Google randomness, and it seems to be happening to a lot of people on HubPages right now.  But you can treat it as an incentive to try and clean up some hubs.  Usually if you write something and then come back to it after a while, you can always see ways to edit it.  It is hard to be objective straight after writing something. 
       Hopefully your traffic will come back on its own.

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16. 63

    indian cookingposted 12 years ago

    I just started using the new Profile and I love it! My page looks awesome!

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17. 82

    formosangirlposted 12 years ago

    My traffic also decreased once I adopted the new profile.

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    1. 85

       aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       My traffic went back to its normal levels one week after the dive.  Amazing, hubs that were on first page for their keyword were nowhere to be found, then a week later they were worthy of the first page again.  I don't know whether it had anything to do with new profile or if Google just wanted to remind me who's boss.

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