Worse Traffic Loss I Have Ever Experienced

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David 470posted 12 years ago
This is very, very, unfortunate, but it seems I have been penalized by a Google Alg or something. I have OVER 100 HUBS that have BLUE ARROWS. My traffic went down earlier this year a bit, but stayed consistent for several months.

Now it has dropped by 50%. Not sure if this occurred today or yesterday because I was not on last couple of days.

I used to make part-time income on here and saw success (although it took over a year), now it seems I have failed..

I do not understand what Google wants, what I have done wrong, and am doing wrong....

A lot of my work is going to waste now and I feel anything on this account will go to waste even if a topic I write about has potential...

Has anyone else experienced massive drop similar to mine? And is there anything I can do?
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  lovebuglenaposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Do not fear those blue arrows. Things change on a regular basis so hubs that have blue arrows may start to show red arrows or no arrows at all. And just because there are no red arrows next to your hub doesn't mean your traffic is going down necessarily. What's important are not the arrows but the actual number of views you get for your hubs on a daily basis.
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  Chip6posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  This one might help.
  
  "ATTENTION: HubPages Success Stories Graphs are GONE"
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/103890
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Oh, wow.
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  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  David, Chip is a banned sockpuppet, and I do believe that is one of his alter-egos who started that other thread, and about a dozen before that.
  
  All of them argumentative and rude and with a centre theme to blast against Hubpages, probably just because they banned him.
  
  Don't let him draw you in.
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  Taurus2posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  How do I know you are not a sockpuppet yourself? How do you detect a sockpuppet? Your comment constitutes a 'personal attack', not to mention your rude and infantile hate speech.
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  fpherj48posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Izzy...LOOK! You've gotten the attention of one of chip's alter egos!! Great. Just what is needed in the midst of this chaos.
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  Chip6posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Taurus..LOOK! You've gotten the attention of one of Izzy's alter egos!! Great. Just what is needed in the midst of this chaos.
  
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  iamalegendposted 12 years agoin reply to this
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  My pageviews dropped by 2/3 on Aug 20 and have only come back partially. I, too, am usually rated in the 90's, have had no zzz's, etc and yet, my views aren't coming back to where they were in July. Since I don't do this for the money, it is only frustrating, but not devastating. However, it still is a downer.
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  soconfidentposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I have experience the same thing I'm trying to figure out what went wrong maybe you should update them
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  Johnny2Ballsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Have you tried Cialis? I've heard it gives excellent results.
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  
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  Johnny2Ballsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  The man is sounding desperate. I only want to help.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  My traffic is down by two thirds and it might have started on the 27th Sep but it definitively took the biggest nose dive on the 28th Sep and has stayed there all week following much the same pattern as it did before the nose dive. I am still ranking for my main keywords with my best hubs as far as I can tell.
  
  This means to me that two thirds of my traffic was not coming from my main keywords so must have been coming from secondary keywords and they must have been lost in some way. I think that this extra traffic was coming from tags and so perhaps there is something wrong with the tagging on the pages or Google is discounting them which might amount to the same thing.
  
  From the 28th Aug to the 05th of Sep I had traffic from 1303 keywords but from the 28th Sep to the 05th of Oct I have had traffic from only 471 which is about a loss of two thirds.
  
  So the investigation needs to be around why the sudden loss of these words which I think is related to the tagging module or aspect of Hubpages or it might be Google are narrowing their synonym database down into narrower groups which will give them less of a relationship to my main keywords.
  
  I do not know why this might be but I do know that my stats are showing this loss of traffic from a loss of two thirds of the keywords it was previously coming from.
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  soconfidentposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  How do you figure have been penalized by google?
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  Pavlo Badovskyyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  If you go Warrierforum you find some posts telling that people having blogs lost their traffic. Somehow this new update is aimed at hubs and evidently blogs. So it is not just our problem.
  http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-ppc … works.html
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Mandeeadairposted 12 years ago
I saw a huge drop as well. At least 50 % but from what I have been reading it may have to do with hubpages being down earlier today and unavailable. Hoping it will bounce back.
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  HubPages was down earlier? Wow, looks like I made a fool out of myself (if this is the case).
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  isenhower33posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yesterday it was down for more than 5 hrs just letting you know.
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  lovebuglenaposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I was on hub today and never experienced any issues or noticed it being down... That is weird.
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  soconfidentposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  It shut down on the last day of september
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  soconfidentposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I agree that with the site being down could be the problem
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Doodleheadposted 12 years ago
I tried getting on Hubpages around 8 am Pacific Time. It was down at least a half hour, maybe more.
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Do you think that is relevant to this? A half hour is not long, however, maybe it messed something up.
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Anamika Sposted 12 years ago
Same here! I have been quite lucky through out the Panda phase, but now I have lost 80% of my traffic. Majority of my hubs now have blue down arrows. Hubs which used to have thousands of visitors now have less than 100. My revenue also have gone down drastically. I may now move some of my hubs to my niche based blogs if this trend continues.
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  While I am not 100% sure if this is due to Google, if it is, then maybe I need to use my other hub account. This one is filled with so many hubs anyway -- with many I unpublished or deleted because they were bad or "non-performing...
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Marie McKeownposted 12 years ago
I had a big drop today, but before that my hubs had been doing better than ever. I think it is just a temporary dip...
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relacheposted 12 years ago
People might want to read the official site announcement concerning the downtime,

http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/104137
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for the link relache, appreciate it.
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  Anamika Sposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I would be really happy if the HubPages downtime was the cause of my traffic loss. But my traffic started going down from Thursday.
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  Rik Ravadoposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  My experience was just the same - mine has been sliding for 2-3 days. It has gone from around 5000 views a day to 340 ish. I wonder if there was a problem before the crash and it kept getting worse until the system went down? My main encouragement (hope) is that I have had this happen before, at least 3 times in the last year or so, and traffic recovers after a few days. Certainly many of my big hitting hubs have currently almost disappeared from Google SERPs.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  It's difficult to work out what is happening with all the technical problems. The traffic counter on HP stats was stuck for some time before HP went offline yesterday. Hopefully the stats will return to some normality tonight. My traffic appeared to be heading upwards (from a low base) before HP took some unexpected downtime.
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Rik Ravadoposted 12 years ago
I've just been locked out of HubPages and my sub-domains again for at least an hour - during this time I could see a few people getting in on analytics - I'm convinced that there is a continuing problem accessing hubpages at present and that is why so many of us have low traffic. Perhaps it is sub-domain dependant?

At the moment, I'm not buying the 'everything's fixed' story.
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  My traffic is still down overall. It went up because of the weekend, but that is it. I still have tons of blue flags...
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  cryptidposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  My traffic is way down on all accounts. My hubs don't seem to have lost any ground in the SERPs. In Analytics it looked like traffic rebounded after the issue yesterday then dove again this afternoon. Something doesn't seem quite right.
  
  Maybe everyone in the world is watching football.
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hecate-horusposted 12 years ago
This isn't just you. I'm very frustrated with this HUGE drop of traffic. This summer I was averaging .40 a day, now I'm less than .20 per day. I didn't even write much this summer and I was making more money THEN. My traffic has been dropping steadily for two weeks now.

With 103 hubs, it's like I'm back to square one. What the heck is going on???
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againsttheoddsposted 12 years ago
you're mad over 20 cents, just realize this is a game of luck and a little bit of strategy, i'm so amazed how everyone is tripping because a website was down, guess what that happens, and worse, for most of you it had nothing to do with the traffic drop
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  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I'm so amazed people come out with comments like this when their fellow hubbers are really hurting.
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  againsttheoddsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You're right, that came out too mean. I just meant that it was Google fluctuations. I wish everyone the best.
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  Gordon Hamiltonposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Outbursts are easy, against theodds - admitting the error and effectively apologising is more difficult and always admirable What a lot of people genuinely don't realise is that this online writing game is for many of us our bread and butter - it's our living, not pin money. This is the day job! That's one big reason why tempers get strained and emotions run high but there are many other possible scenarios. Here's hoping this is just a little hiccup (I honestly believe it is) and we're all laughing about it and dismissing it ASAP
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  scoopposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Honestly I don't think the traffic drop was due to the outage Other sites have suffered a drop in traffic too. Google made changes to their algorithm on Friday, the same day many sites noticed a drop in traffic. This is unfortunate.
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  Greekgeekposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Really? The only news I've seen of a Google update this week is one penalizing exact-phrase-match domain names with poor quality content.
  
  That wouldn't apply to hubpages. What news have I missed?
  
  I am surprised that Hubpages traffic hasn't bounced back since the brief outage yesterday. Maybe stats aren't refreshing quickly?
  
  FWIW, my traffic also dropped nearly in half about the time of the outage. Quantcast data for Hubpages looks quite dramatic on Friday across the board.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I hope you will write one of your informative hubs (or lens), analysing the latest changes, GG?
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  soconfidentposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  What kind of changes
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  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Google fluctuations are hard to take too.
  
  Thanks for re-wording
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  hecate-horusposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Wow. Sorry I wanted to vent my frustrations. Excuse me all over the place.
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againsttheoddsposted 12 years ago
thanks for understanding. God bless.
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againsttheoddsposted 12 years ago
there is a thread for that LOL
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hecate-horusposted 12 years ago
har dee har har.
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Angie Jardineposted 12 years ago
Just wanted to add my two-pen’orth …

Yes, I noticed quite a long break down in comms as HP had its outage but I have also noticed a gradual slide in my page views and my earnings over the last two weeks.

As my authorscore is quite healthy - usually somewhere in the 90’s - I take that to mean I write quality content so I am at a loss to understand if it is a Google tweakette or gremlins at HP.

What I can say is that it is very frustrating and sort of makes it look as if I am wasting my time writing hubs.
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  wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  We just have to accept that Google is no longer our friend, they are no longer interested in giving a unbiased service based on people's interest. All they are interested in, is who pays them the most money. You can read more about this at.-
  http://www.fairsearch.org/wp-content/up … -Search-3.
  20.pdf
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network … ompetition
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  Hollie Thomasposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  The first link isn't working Wabond. I read the Guardian article, however, and it does make sense. I also suspect that adwords has not been making as much money for Google as they would have liked. I am I the only person who thinks that it's odd that google have been *giving* their advertising away?. Free adwords vouchers given out randomly, why?
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  wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Sorry about the link not working, It seems there is a update on this Google is being investigated.
  http://www.fairsearch.org/wp-content/up … rutiny.pdf
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  Doodleheadposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hollie Thomas---when I had my own site a few years ago I used Adwords. It was very easy and very successful for me. Today is a different story. The Adwords (from my perspective) seem much more expensive and harder to achieve good results.
  
  Google is constantly calling me and sending me coupons for the free Adwords. They are not going to get my attention because for me as a tiny businessperson it is a losing proposition. There are ways for me to get business that don't cause as much where the customer is more serious than those I would find with Google Adwords. Just my two cents.
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  Hollie Thomasposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Well, Personally, I've never used Adwords but it does strike me as very odd that Google, who let's face it are in the game for maximum profits, are giving their vouchers away. Sounds a bit like the News of the world in the Uk before their demise when they couldn't give advertising away. I'm not saying that G is in the same dire position, but I do smell a rat!
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  theherbivorehippiposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I've been receiving their vouchers for years. It's nothing new. It is smart on their part. It's just like handing out samples at a store in hopes that you buy.
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for this, Wabond. The first article is no longer found; the second supports what many are saying, that Google is acting to further its own commercial advantage rather than fairly to help searchers find the best information. This is predictable when the same company that provides the searches for potential buyers is also one of the main sellers and advertisers. It's a clear conflict of interest so there should be a law that they can't do both.
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janiek13posted 12 years ago
I am extremely disappointed by my google earnings. Ever since the ad program was implemented by Hubages, my earnings are practically zero. I did not expect to be an overnight success, but I felt that if I worked hard and was patient, the success would come. I am starting to think that poring all this effort into Hubpages was a mistake. Does anyone feel the same or does anyone have any suggestions? I am open to almost anything at this point.
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  Doodleheadposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Even though I have been on HP for a year, i have only really been active since June. For that reason I my Hubpages earnngs have always been more than Google. Lately though I actually get something from Google almost every day.
  
  I have wondered what would happen if I turned off HP and kept Google. Would I then earn more on Google? Anyone know?
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  Rik Ravadoposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Experience varies but most people do far better with Hubads than Google, including me. My problem is loss of traffic - I'm happy with Hubad payments per 1000 views. I just need my views back!
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  janiek13posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  don't know if I would chance that. What if you can't turn the ad program back on?
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  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You can, and Hubpages actively encourages us to find out which program suits us better by trying one, then the other.
  
  As we all write on different topics, and have individual mixes of topics, there is no set rule to say that one program always does better than the other.
  
  Most, but not all of us, do better with HPads.
  
  But you have to check for yourself, and that means turning HPads off for a while.
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  LucidDreamsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I have tried both in the last couple of years. Each time with somewhat different results. Before this latest mess, I am making 3 times as much without Hubpages ads. That is just my experience. It does depend a lot upon what your topics and keywords are.
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  truebluewriterposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Personally I think hubpages ad program works better than adsense unless your writing about stuff that have high paying keywords which might make it a better idea for you to risk those extremely unpredictable clicks to the more reliable $$/1000 views.
  
  Naturally your adsense will be reduced or disappear coz from what I understand, hubpages ad program competes or replaces your adsense adblocks. So you don't really get that many chances for a click anymore since you're running o hubpages impressions campaign instead of the google pay per clicks.
  
  So as long as you can drive traffic, hubpages ad campaign should be able to get you more money in a predictable manner. I like adsense and use it on my blog, but I don't really write about extremely profitable niches and I mainly target local searches on my blog, personally I like HPs ad program .
  
  And regarding original posters issue, I'm experiencing the same loss in traffic on my main blog. Happened just a couple of days ago. I think there was an update on the 25th maybe. I experienced an almost exact same drop on the start of the month though but gained back my traffic the next 2 weeks. I'm hoping the same will happen again. But I will be building links through guest posts anyway to try and speed recovery up a bit.
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I agree. The HubPages program should work better for most people who are targeting niches that are less profitable. Adsense alone may give lower CPM compared to the HubPages program.
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Mark Ewbieposted 12 years ago
Just to say that my traffic is also the worst I can recall. US and UK down by nearly 50%.

It is a pity that the HP outtage coincided with the EMD Google algo change as it is difficult to know what is going on.

Not just HP either - my blogs, website also at lows.
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  Gordon Hamiltonposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  The widespread nature of this "update" is starting to make me think it's a mistake. Maybe some young lad on his first day on the job with Google on Friday accidentally spilled his coffee in to one of their servers/gadgets/"make or breakers" and didn't like to tell anyone? Tomorrow, the accident will be discovered, the poor boy will be fired, an engineer will be put on the job and everything will be back to normal? (Or maybe I should start writing fairy tales and try to be the next Hans Christian Andersen... )
  
  HP traffic down 80%, Squidoo traffic down 60%, traffic on three of my four blogs gone - but on one of my blogs (on same platform) traffic almost doubled! I have decided that trying to analyse it is pointless, just to keep doing what I'm doing for now and see what happens over the next few days. Fingers and toes crossed for all of us...
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  LMAO!!!
  
  "Maybe some young lad on his first day on the job with Google on Friday accidentally spilled his coffee in to one of their servers/gadgets/"make or breakers" and didn't like to tell anyone?"
  
  Maybe that is the case
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  truebluewriterposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  lol usually these updates tend to go beyond what they're intended to do so a lot of sites get hit that presumably should not have been. But google I think tries to refine these as time passes so there's a chance for recovery. But then again there's also the possibility of permanently being slapped way back to the dark recesses of google search so you never know lol.
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  vespawoolfposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I've been browsing the forum for about an hour and this is the best response I've found so far. The problem is across the board, not just on HubPages. It will get worked out eventually, and I have faith in the staff here that they're working overtime to find a solution.
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Michael Willisposted 12 years ago
Very concerned about a huge traffic drop this weekend. Weekend is my best time for views. Google had already started dropping after Yahoo and Bing traffic went through the roof. Now, after Fridays "outage" I have seen a major drop-off with Yahoo and Bing.
Is this just a weekend issue, (I hope from the site problems) or is it time to venture elsewhere? I know changes on a site can be good, but too much all at once can do harm.
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  truebluewriterposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I dont think it's a site issue. Two updates came out of google, one last week which coincided with the outage i think so people are confusing the drop in traffic with that and the other one yesterday but the second update shouldnt affect hubpages too much IMO.
  
  Give it a week or two and see what happens. Google is still stirring the pot so we don't know yet where things are going to settle.
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  Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  My traffic took the drastic turn after the outage though. Traffic was still running normal Thursday night.
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Ethan Greenposted 12 years ago
well at least most people are in the same boat. Probably best to give it some time and see what changes overall for hubpages and don't get caught up in a knee jerk reaction. Maybe a good day for a break from the computer and come back when hopefully the smoke of battle clears from the algo change and the outage:-)
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David 470posted 12 years ago
As Mark Ewbie pointed out, it is difficult to tell if our traffic loss was caused by EMD google or the power outage. I would have thought traffic would returned by now if it was due to the power outage. But now I am beginning to suspect I myself was hit by this EMD.

I'm researching the Google EMD, but do not understand how it has affected HubPages.
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  truebluewriterposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  dont think it's the EMD. I don't really understand how that one can affect hubpages but then again the updates have always been unpredictable. Prolly something else.
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Take a look at this...
  
  http://expertscolumn.com/content/anothe … thm-change
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  truebluewriterposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  hmmm well its still too early to make any conclusions so I plan to wait it out for a week before I decide where to focus on. I'll either be working on HP, my main bog, or my new one. Lucky for me that each update seems to have a different effect on each one lol so I tend to focus more on the ones that do well while waiting for the ones that tanked to recover or settle in the SERPS
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Well if that post is true, then I am basically screwed because I have been successful in the past with basic SEO on HubPages.
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  Southernmapartposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Is appears to me, a newbie at HP, that G is doing what I accuse corporate television of doing. That is, determine who will pay for advertising and what they sell, then structure programming around the ad income. In the case of G, it will be similar if the searches are now based on who is advertising and that the advertising content matches G's priority placement on the page.
  
  Changes that justify my position have surfaced recently where sites I have long had bookmarked are suddenly either gone or linked through to a new site. These new sites are structured around sales based on the content of my bookmarked sites. An example is "cheese-making" where the new sites are matter-of-fact recipes with tabs for sales of cheese-making equipment and merchandise. The old sites, now unavailable, were homey, how-to descriptions with amateur videos and pictures that were informative with much more explanation than the new sites are giving.
  
  We are in a changing paradigm. Those with the right contacts appear to have bought into the new paradigm and were already set up as G rolled over on its former policies and practices.
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  So your saying that Google is focusing on companies that are paying for advertising, rather than independent people who make their content without paying for advertising?
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  Southernmapartposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I am suggesting that the focus of Google's priority placement process is biased toward its advertisers. Whether that is true remains to be determined. The up-side of such placement bias may cause substantial sites like Hub Pages to function reasonably well. Once some of the changes have settled out, Hub Pages may place well compared to small personal web sites. The way I see changes rolling, the small guy no longer has a chance on the web if he is looking for traffic from search engines.
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I never had high numbers of page views but over the last couple of days it's dropped to virtually none. If what you say is correct, it could stay that way, and only commercially viable hubs will get views. There would be no point in writing hubs other than those appealing to advertisers if this is the case. That would change the character of Hubpages - but is this what you are suggesting?
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  Southernmapartposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hub Pages will be the one to answer questions about appealing to advertisers. I do not know if Google's new practices will continue to allow HP reasonable priority on the search engines across all searched hubs regardless of whether they are commercial. The difference to writers will definitely show up on the Zzzz hubs, which we have been told are not being searched. A huge shift has happened in the way we perceive and use the internet. Trying to figure out what is happening and what to do is one reason I've come to Hub Pages. It is looking to me like individual effort is out and corporate effort is in.
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  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Paul Edmondson has already posted on another thread why they think we have suffered traffic loss.
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/104227
  
  I don't know why he didn't sticky the thread to reassure hubbers.
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  sabrebIadeposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I like this part....
  "We believe it's possible that one of these two changes started impacting traffic late last week, but aren't sure which one, or if it's the cause at all, but to be sure we are going to make some changes to test."
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  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah it could still be Panda, but it could be their changes too.
  
  We'll just have to wait and see.
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hopefully it was one of those issues. Although I am not sure how...
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  Mike Daleposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  If they are doing this they are signing their own death warrant. I seriously think they are too smart for this. They must serve results that people want or they will be a has been soon enough.
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  Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I read the article. I do not have keywords in my Domain name and do not do keyword research. I make my titles as I would look up information on the web, such as a phrase.
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  truebluewriterposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  It's prolly another update that hit you. If it's anything like what happened to me in the beginning of September (blog dropped from 350-400 to about 50 hits a day) you might be able to recover in the next couple of weeks. The same exact thing happened to my blog again at about the same time your hubs took a hit. So I'm hoping that my traffic will come back in the next week or two. I'm back to 40-50 again after recovering to 400 last week.
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  truebluewriterposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Surprisingly though this hub account of mine is steadily rising since the drop of my blog so i don't really understand what factors the new algo is considering for rankings. Might be that this one is over a year old PR 2 site and my blog is about 5 months and still just a PR1. I might have to do a lot more guest posts to bring the authority of that blog up.
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brakel2posted 12 years ago
I wrote an article on the very same technology solution as a writer from EHow. Does this fit in the problem with exact match domain? We are both on page 1 with our keywords. It is my highest earner.
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Rik Ravadoposted 12 years ago
I don't mean to be optimistic but my traffic may be coming back. I've been getting from 0-3 simultaneous visits according to Google Analytics 'realtime' for the last 3-4 days. I'm now getting 12-15. This would suggest a big increase in reported traffic in 24 hours time. But who knows in this crazy roller coaster world of content writing!
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  hecate-horusposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I'm getting a tiny increase today too. *Shrug*. I wish I understood all this. Oh well, just another reason not to put all my eggs in one basket.
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Bills Placeposted 12 years ago
I agree with Izzy, we just have to wait and see, don't give up! I have noticed the past 2 days 25% of my hubs have had blue arrows, however I have had 1-2 red arrows as well (only have 15 hubs right now). Bu last month I made the most in a month I have ever made since I joined (a whole $7.28 go me). It's gave me to inspiration to attempt the 30 day challenge.
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Healthy Pursuitsposted 12 years ago
I was so upset this morning that I posted a thread asking if it's time to move to Wizzley. But if Google is messing with everyone - again - what would be the point? My traffic has been sliding the last few days, and that is without the HP outage. I had about 200 page views per day, and it went down to 17. Now it's all the way up to 20. Big whoops. I know that there has also been a problem with the Amazon capsule. I think I'll write my new articles in Wizzley for a while, and if I see my HP counts going back up, I might do more here, too. I need to diversify anyway.
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  janiek13posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  What is Wizzley? Do you get much traffic there?
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  Healthy Pursuitsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Wizzley is a fairly new website of writers that have come from, I think, both HubPages and Squidoo. The general quality of writing on that site is supposed to be better, because it's still small enough that the articles can be reviewed by humans. I joined last night, but haven't put anything there yet. However, other hubbers have.
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  janiek13posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks, do you have a link? I'd like to look it over.
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  truebluewriterposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  if your interested in alternatives you can give infobarrel a try as well. It's a pretty quality site from what I've read. I was intending to join there before in order to diversify but I ended up creating my own blogs instead.
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  Healthy Pursuitsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks, trubluewriter. I was wondering about infobarrel. I'm really looking for a site that isn't overrun with low quality writing. That's why I settled on Wizzley. I had started a blog, but finally shut it down. I need to read a lot more about choosing a blog topic and having a blog before I do that again.
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  janiek13posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, I agree, my blog didn't work out either, thanks for the info.
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  Healthy Pursuitsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Just type wizzley into Google. It's the first listing that comes up.
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I tried searching to find out what the new algorithm had done. All I could find was that they were penalizing sites which had more reports of copyright breach. Looking at the figures on the Google Transparency Report site, I found Hubpages had 57 reports - not high compared to Tumblr's 1,616 and obviously much higher numbers for torrent sites - which logically should be the main target for this. Incidentally, Squidoo had 45 reports and Infobarrel and Xomba had only two each. Wizzley had none, but there is a huge difference in the size of these sites. Of course, the site where most of us come across copyright content is YouTube, owned by Google! I don't see why Hubpages would be hit by this. Does anyone know what else this new algorithm does? I only have 19 hubs but have 9 views overall in 24 hrs and 6 of those are on the same hub. I would like to know what's going on.
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  wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I should imagine that Google makes a lot of money from Youtube, so it leaves it alone. Hub pages apparently doesn't make enough money for Google, so Google supports web-sites which will make them more money. It all about the money and nothing else.
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for this wabond. You may be right but it still doesn't make logical sense to me. One of my hubs that was on page 1 of a Google search has now disappeared completely, even if I search for the exact title! I don't understand why.
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  wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Probably your hub was in competition with people who are paying Google money, so they took you out. You might of been a victim of your own success.
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  A nice idea, but I'm not sure it's the answer:) The hub never got many hits, it wasn't on a subject that was highly searched-for. It was just nice to see it got on page 1
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Just another small point, I put a link to that hub on Xomba - the link DOES turn up on a google search, though on page 4, but the original hub does not! It's not a major disaster in itself, I wasn't making money on it, I just want to understand what the heck is happening!
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  wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I don't suppose that Google looks at individual hubs or blogs, it might be more of a scatter gun approach. Advertisers pay for certain keywords and if you happen to use the same keyword, or a variation of it, then you get taken out.
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks. I didn't think it was an individual hub thing, I wondered what the algorithm was targeting; I just used that as an example. I can't see there even being any keyword in that hub that advertisers would pay for, but I guess I'll never get to the bottom of that particular one. I just want to know what's going on in general so I know if there's any point in writing hubs at all, or perhaps we need to write only specific types of hubs.
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Doodleheadposted 12 years ago
Have you heard anything about earnings?
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Redberry Skyposted 12 years ago
I'm wondering if the EMD algo is targeting not just exact domain matches but exact page title matches for some search phrases.

When I search for the exact title of Hubs, like Mazzy Bolero said about her Hubs, my Hub doesn't appear in the results, but I'm still getting traffic for other phrases. And on a webmaster world forum a few other people have noticed the same thing.

If this is right, surely this algo can't last - I searched for a friend's health blog this morning, and the website in the top position of page 1 was a website about shoes!

Worst. Filing. System. Ever. #GoogleFail
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I searched google for "mazzy bolero on hubpages" and got results listing only one of my hubs. However, I just did it again after about 90 minutes and this time got 5! I have 19 altogether - are they returning one by one? It's very confusing, but I guess those hubbers are right who say we should wait a few days at least to see the way the land lies.
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Angie Jardineposted 12 years ago
Just as I was beginning to think the new EMD algo should have been called the WMD algo I noticed that my view figures have been ever gently edging upwards at least two weeks of having taken a nose dive.

Today they seem to be back to normal … as do my earnings.

So the way I see it is that we should all just hang on in there (yet again). Keep a watching brief and if you were earning before it should come back once the ripples have settled.

By the way I am far too dim and far too impatient to bother with SEO or keywords … maybe that has been a plus this algo round?
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  ocbillposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Good thing you aren't thinking of SEO. It surely helps and looks natural.
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Doodleheadposted 12 years ago
I had just got so I sort of had my little hubpages "deal" on a roll. Now I'm not getting any traffic. Very depressing.

I think eventually only existing (no new) corporations will be able to do well on the internet if they continue to suppress everyone's earnings this way. Let's face it...this is only helping the big boys.
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  Southernmapartposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I mentioned earlier not being able to find certain bookmarked cheese-making sites with good amateur video and instructions. My link was re-directed to a corporate link on the first page of Google search. The second link on the first page of the search was oprah.com with Winfrey pushing cheese-making equipment and kits. That is bad. How do we resist such over-bearing corporate control of information?
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  Southernmapartposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  In recent weeks, working at my computer, Google has been giving me a few of the broken robot logo and a 404 instead of connecting me to requested search sites. Tonight, some thing except that I got the 404 on a site that had already loaded on my computer, and was then advised me that "googleleadservices.com" is not available.
  
  An attempt to find the "services" site sent me here: http://productforums.google.com/forum/# … BOhu8xpTsc where bloggers are complaining in April, and again in September, that they can't get their blogs to show up. The first complaint is, "error happens when i click related posts with linkwithin."
  
  The September complaint states that some, but not all the blogger's domains have an issue and he gives the following additional information:
  
  ">> Domains: www.pnoproperties.com / www.pnotimes.com / www.novians.com
  >> Hosting: GoDaddy.com
  >> Configuration: www ghs.google.com (even tried Google's automated configuration with GoDaddy.com for custom domain) but no lock at all.
  >> Google Webmaster Tool: successfully verified all of my domains.
  >> Blogger custom domain redirect "check box" is always unchecked. Tried many times, blogger is saving the information, while viewing the setting again the status is "unchecked" again & again.
  
  Detailed information / Step by Step Configuration / permanent FIX for 404 error would be much appreciated."
  
  Hope this is helpful.
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Do the original sites turn up on a Bing search?
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  Southernmapartposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I bookmark favorite sites by category and don't have search information. The publishers of the two sites I can't find never "branded" themselves and I don't recall sufficiently to look for them other than the bookmark link. The re-directed link sent me to a sales site. When I made a new search for new cheese-making sites is when I discovered that all popping up first on Google were sales sites. I used Dogpile with little more luck.
  
  Before replying on the forum, I searched using Bing. Now I'm upset. Bing showed my Facebook profile picture on the search page! I never open sites through a FB link, and now I'm being followed through my IP address on my searches. Bing darkened the search page forcing me to click off the following:
  
  "Search just got social
  Go from searching to doing by getting ideas from your friends as you search. See how it works in four quick steps.
  Tour the new Bing"
  
  Dimmit! I don't want my searches "social."
  
  Bing did have a decent information site listed seventh on the page, after the sales sites.
  
  Now, a question. For Hubbers, is Google giving low priority to Hubs which do not have a Facebook link? Surely not. I hope.
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  JayeWisdomposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  If it requires a Facebook link to get traffic, I'll never regain mine because I will never go back to Facebook.
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  Doodleheadposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Jaye-I also do not use Facebook...but I would like to ask the reason you also do not use Facebook...just curious..
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David 470posted 12 years ago
How do I know if my Account was penalized or if my traffic is just in decline because of the way Google tweaked it's algorithm?

Would making a new account help? Besides, this account is too hard to manage newer hubs or just in general. It's not that bad, but I feel like I might just want to focus on the same niche on another account.
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  wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  In my most successful blog, it is now happening the the hits coming from Yahoo and Bing is starting to outnumber the ones coming from Google.
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  Doodleheadposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  One the one had that ought to make Google a bit "stretched out"; on the other hand you have to wonder if the money for searches has been "paid off" by the big boys to get the results they "need".
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Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years ago
It has to be an algo update because my percentage of search engine traffic has dropped by 5%.

It just makes me so frustrated.
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  LucidDreamsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Only 5%, that isn't really enough to even consider a serious problem. Most have lost 70 or 80% over the past several days. Did you mean 50%?
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bdegiulioposted 12 years ago
Just wanted to add my 2 cents to this. My traffic has all but disappeared. I was steadily increasing, up to 150 to 200 views per day and I am down 80 to 90%. My Google views have all but disappeared. It's pretty disappointing. I feel like I am back to square one. How does one know if they are being penalized by Google or if it was an algorithm update?
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  hazelwood4posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  The same story here, mine is down 75%. Hopefully, we will see a bounce in traffic soon.
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  Healthy Pursuitsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Same here. I was just over 200 views and am now down to about 25-30. It's been there, in the bottom of the bucket, for days now. I'm really disgusted and discouraged. I don't do any but minimal keyword searching, and I try to write informative articles.
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leakeemposted 12 years ago
just when my pageviews were doing great. . . blam! I'm back at below 100.
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snobletposted 12 years ago
Whoa I have more blue arrows than hubs, I don't think that's good but than again people always say it will always get worse before it gets better.... so far there is no better but maybe this is not the worse? Is everyone else still losing traffic or is it just me with more blues than hubs?
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  It's not just you snoblet. And it is so frustrating. I'm pretty sure google rolled out another algo update. My traffic just keeps falling and falling.
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  snobletposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hope they fix it soon, the blue arrows are making me blue
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I feel your pain. With those blue arrows comes a huge drop in income for me, and I just became the only source of income for my family. Things are tight enough as it is!!
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  snobletposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Oh sorry to hear that, i hope it gets better soon, i know there are quite a few using this as a main source of income, i lost all my sources of income last year
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I don't have all my eggs in one basket, but this was the site that was making the most. If you've lost all your income as well, you have to be just as frustrated. Unfortunately, on top of all this, my hubby can't work because he's injured from the last job he just lost. (Ya as if it could get any worse... knock on wood).
  
  As an apprentice, I was seeing quite a bit of traffic increase. But now that's all gone. Two months hard work down the drain, and I have yet to get a response on the apprenticeship forum.
  
  Such is life I guess.
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  wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Google is not the only search engine out there. Hopefully people are going to realize that Google is no longer a unbiased search engine and use others like Yahoo, Bing and Ixquick. On my blogs I am finding that the Yahoo and Bing traffic is growing all the time.
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Oh I wish bing and yahoo liked me lol. I get very little hits from either of them.
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  snobletposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Things should get better. As for my eggs, I think I cooked them before checking if they were expired, my lost, but as for as search engines go, only one I see that I get traffic from is google, I try reddit and digg but I'm not sure how to use it correctly.
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dhannyyaposted 12 years ago
traffic is falling falling...getting frustrated...will they be restored?...are they working to bring traffic back?...why then nothing positive is happening........
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  hazelwood4posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Must be down across the board. Hopefully, we will recover soon!
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Doodleheadposted 12 years ago
I was just figuring this whole game out and was pretty into it. Pretty much i've lost my momentum and cause as I no longer have confidence that this can provide any level of financial security at all. I have been on straight commission 30 years and I've had all kinds of tricks played, but this takes the cake. it's actually like the boogie man except it's the Google man.
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  hazelwood4posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I know how you feel Doodlehead. Hopefully, my traffic will rebound sometime too.
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I like that... The Google Man got me...
  
  Gotta laugh, otherwise I'd cry...
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  lol
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hazelwood4posted 12 years ago
My traffic is down 75%. I do hope we see a rebound soon, but who knows when. Frustrating for sure.
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  soconfidentposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Im starting to see a small come back.
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Rik Ravadoposted 12 years ago
I feel everyones pain - I'm down 90% in terms of traffic and at least 75% in terms of earnings.
I'm also frustrated that there are no clear answers from staff. I've survived several plunges over my 4 years or so here but now I'm battle weary
But I do have a day job - my real sympathies are with those of you who are trying to make a living on-line.
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I never made money from Hubpages, so I haven't suffered in that way, and have enormous sympathy for those who have - but I'm still pretty angry - it's like they punch you in the face but don't tell you why, and you can't punch them back. Research tells me the new algorithm was intended to penalize sites that allow plagiarism, and EMDs - exact match domains where the domain name exactly matches a search term. A lot of quality as well as spam sites have been hurt with this latter one. Neither of these seems to apply to Hubpages, or to Squidoo, which has also been hit. Yet both Hubpages and Squidoo still have the same Google rankings. I don't get this - if the rankings are the same, why are the views so down?
  
  Google may say they are supporting authoritative specialist sites, and maybe sites like ours are too diverse to fit, but as people have pointed out, some pretty dire sites are still coming up high on searches, presumably because they've paid for this?
  
  Dealing with things like this is like shadow-boxing. If you don't know what's wrong, you can't put it right. Maybe Google will tweak its algorithm to make it a bit fairer. Personally I don't like being controlled by the whim of these faceless people with motives which appear to be largely commercial.
  
  I did wonder if I could start trying to do SEO and choosing search-worthy subjects, to make at least a small income, but this has made me realize that, even if I did the best SEO and chose all the right subjects, there is no reliability in it, so I'm glad I learnt that at this stage.
  
  "Like flies to wanton boys are we to Google: they kill us for their sport". Writing on the Internet, Shakespeare would have starved to death:).
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I always had a goal to make at least a part-time income with HubPages. It took me several months to a year to start. I stuck with it and reached my goal which I thought was nearly impossible without paying for advertising or something, but then the Google Algorithms (not the only reason for traffic losses, but main) took all that away.
  
  Of course I could try and write new hubs, but at the moment, I don't think my keywords will be nearly as successful as they were in 2011 to early 2012.
  
  I might write some hubs on another account and see how they do,..
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Rik Ravadoposted 12 years ago
I like this Mazzy:
"Like flies to wanton boys are we to Google: they kill us for their sport". Writing on the Internet, Shakespeare would have starved to death:). Good one!
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Redberry Skyposted 12 years ago
Matt Cutts fencing questions fudgily on 1) 'low' quality sites, and 2) why were non-EMD sites hit by the EMD algo. ->> https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/252484514486575104

I know it doesn't say much, but it's interesting that he admits 'topicality' and 'quality' are traded off each other in google's eyes.
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  Ethan Greenposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  What a joke. You could interpret what he is saying there as meaning that there is no point trying to work out if your websites were hit by a particular algo, because there are so many happening (1-2 a day?!) that it could be affected by another unknown algo which hasn't hit the public discussion domain. What a cop-out!
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  Southernmapartposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Who determines the "quality?" What are the guidelines?
  
  If I search for a homeopathic cure, I don't want to see peer-reviewed AMA (American Medical Association) articles at the top of the page.
  
  Wiki: "Within the medical community homeopathy is generally considered quackery.[6]"
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khmohsinposted 12 years ago
The time to time change in algorithm can't be understand easily. There can be many reasons like over activity or no activity on the hubs.
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Why not be transparent about it, then?
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hazelwood4posted 12 years ago
I have been doing some research on the Google Panda Updates, and here is an EXTREMELY useful article that I found. http://www.dripfeedblasts.com/google-panda/ Check this out!
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  This is very helpful and informative, so thanks. However, it describes Panda in general and does not explain why this most recent change in particular has been so disastrous for many people who have played by Google's rules.
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  hazelwood4posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hi Mazzy, You are welcome. I do know the feeling about the recent changes, I have seen my traffic go from the best ever, down to when I started Hubpages. I hope there will be a an answer soon!
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  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  So do I! In the last 24 hrs I got zero views from search engines. I never got many views and did not expect to, but to get no views at all is demoralizing. I would have been prepared to write hubs about how to fix a faucet and how to bake cupcakes if that was what was required, but even people who do that seem to have lost a lot of traffic. I guess it's back to the drawing board:)
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  Redberry Skyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Mazzy (and everyone else) see this thread - http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/104371 Mike Dale spotted that G admitted last night that there was a big Panda Algo on Thursday 27th September.
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Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years ago
Did anyone notice that the beginning of that conversation started with Matt Cutts saying:

"Minor weather report: small upcoming Google algo change will reduce low-quality "exact-match" domains in search results."

So there was an algo update and that's where our traffic went.
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  Redberry Skyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  DoM - it's not the EMD algo we need to worry about, that only targets exact match domain names trying to rank for the keyword in their domains. It's this 'other' algo he admitted was rolled out in response to the direct question as to why some non-EMD domains tanked on Friday. Our traffic losses could be due to this unannounced algo, or they might not, and that's what we're trying to figure out - is it a google thing that's decimated us or is it a problem with the site (HP) itself (eg the new profile, idled Hubs etc).
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  It may actually be a combination of the two. I was mainly pointing out that there were several simultaneous algo updates at the same time. The EMD might not have anything to do with our site, but I'm sure the others do. Plus if Google and HP are having problems with indexing, that would just exacerbate the situation.
  
  I wonder if there is any real fix to this, or if we're all just doomed.
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  Redberry Skyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Awww... I don’t think we’re doomed best case scenario is that the SERPS settle and all our traffic returns; worst case is that we have to test out new Hub-writing strategies. Or HP might find a fix if the problem is on the site itself. Or G might actually make an announcement and tell us what was in this mysterious algo. I think you're right that there's probably a lot of elements to the traffic crash, and it's maybe a combination of factors (better for us because there's more chance to fix things
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  wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  The best fix is to tell everyone that Google is no longer a unbiased search engine. It now only supports those who pay them the most money. If Google finds people switching to other search engines and stop using Google, then they will have to change their ways. People power is the only way to do it.
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  Redberry Skyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  For those of us with a vested interest (writers, webmasters, photographers etc) in the Internet this might work, but for the other 90% I don't think it would. My housemate is an IT manager and knows a bit about the web and computers and stuff, and he's seen me working hard on writing for the Internet for the past 4 months, and last night I was trying to explain to him the recent traffic loss I've had and G's part in it and how the SERPS have gone really weird and rubbish. But he just glazed over, looked at me like I was a mad old soothsayer, and said I should write in-print stuff instead. G's bias doesn't mean anything to people who don't write content or have a website or have some other first hand experience of the devastation G's machinations cause.
  
  It's like getting people to drink ethical cola or eat fair trade chocolate - they'll nod and agree, but they'll grab whatever's handiest in the corner shop.
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Doodleheadposted 12 years ago
Well, between September of 2011 and May of 2012 I made $0.08 with my ONE AND ONLY hub. I guess with 18 hubs from here on it's negative infinity.
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Doodleheadposted 12 years ago
You know what? Fine, Google. Go ahead and do that to us. Some other search engine company is going to come along and be looking for the other 90 percent of the traffic you don't want. That's what entrepreneurship is all about.

There will be two sets of search traffic: one for the big guys and one for the rest of us.
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  Redberry Skyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Doodlehead #GoogleFail
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Eloquently said!
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Doodleheadposted 12 years ago
Redberry---what could also happen is the public will figure out they can get more interesting searches by using Bing, and Yahoo and so forth. The there is "backlash" to Google. I know I will use alternate search engines way more often now.
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  psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I work as a researcher and in my experience Google is still the best.
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  WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I have to research terminology for my translations, and also research many topics for diverse other reasons.
  
  I now find with Google I often need to plough through at least the first 100 search results to find reliable information.
  
  I studied for a postgraduate qualification in library and information studies in the mid 1980s. The principles we learned then for ensuring good quality in searches cannot be used at all with Google.
  
  Google is fine for someone who wants to shop for a specific product and also for those who think Wikipedia provides reliable information. Unfortunately, people who need authoritative information from properly qualified sources can no longer find this on Google unless they are prepared to dig through many pages of search results.
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  Doodleheadposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I liked it when Google state how many search results they got for the search. As far as I know that no longer exists. If it does, can anyone please tell us?
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Doodleheadposted 12 years ago
Redberry---what could also happen is the public will figure out they can get more interesting searches by using Bing, and Yahoo and so forth. The there is "backlash" to Google. I know I will use alternate search engines way more often now.
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Doodleheadposted 12 years ago
Redberry---what could also happen is the public will figure out they can get more interesting searches by using Bing, and Yahoo and so forth. The there is "backlash" to Google. I know I will use alternate search engines way more often now.
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1. 89
  Redberry Skyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I hope so, Doodlehead, if nothing else I think G's stranglehold is incredibly unhealthy.
  
  Psycheskinner - up to a certain point you're right, but for academic research I just go straight to the relevant database I want on my uni library homepage, and there are a lot of other portals for specialist research. For everyday searching there's much of a muchness to the search engines and I think for most people G is habit more than anything.
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  WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Unfortunately, individuals not linked to a university can no longer access these specialist resources, even if they are prepared to pay. The assumption is that if you do not have access to a huge academic library, you do not really need the data!
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  Redberry Skyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  That's true WA, but there are large quality databases available for those not connected to a uni - PubMed for medical research - a lot of availables are only abstracts but there are a good number of full-texts too; The Physics Society has a lot of info, and there are some really fantastic things at the MIT website. these kind of sites offer a portal to information that G doesn't, because I think you're right in what you say above, G's offerings on serious stuff is paltry and superficial at best. For ordinary websurfers, the difference between G and the other engines is minimal, but if G starts to offer nothing but adverts and manipulated results, people looking for ordinary things might start to switch to Bing, Yahoo, Dogpile and all the rest.
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  WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Oh, I use PubMed, obviously. However, it only provides full-text access to a miniscule percentage of publications. There are many other occasions on which access exclusively to an abstract does not give the required information.
  
  In the old days, it was possible to get individual subscriptions at a reasonable rate to pay-on-demand database providers. Nowadays, they are only interested in library-based subscriptions. I do not belong to a university library and my public library does not provide access to any worthwhile services. Thus I am denied access to potentially useful sources of information.
  
  I am very glad I took the route of freelance translation rather than trying to set up as an independent information consultant! The latter profession no longer appears to be viable given that independent professionals are denied access to sources of reliable information.
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jezebellaminaposted 12 years ago
Would exact-match keywords in Hub titles be penalized the same way as exact-match domains? That would explain things a bit, perhaps... It's not just HubPages it's my personal blogs and I've heard the woes of many others without EM domain names too. As a habit most of us tend to use our keywords in all our post titles and headings...

I never felt like I was gaming the system before, but now I feel like I'm being punished as if I had been scamming The Goog or doing something horribly wrong by being conscious of keywords all this time!

I wonder what difference it would make if we all boycotted Google's search engine in favor of Bing or Yahoo, or heck even Swagbucks. Show them what it feels like when THEIR livelihood starts to dwindle and they don't know why or how to fix it. Just daydreaming out loud.

Off to write a hub about The Many Benefits of Ramen Noodles AKA How to Survive on only $15 a month
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1. 89
  Redberry Skyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  jezebellamina - I thought this at first, but reading the forums on webmasterworld and a few other places - there's a lot of SEO experts believe that another big algo was rolled out at the same time that's done something else - some really thin (some even totally empty!) sites have risen to the top of the SERPS and some older and good ones sunk without trace. I looked at the first page of G for a few terms I ranked for last week just to see what was there now, and brand names, very thin and not often updated blogspot blogs, and forums seem to have taken over for certain terms.
  
  Ramen noodles? <<jealousy>> I'm having beans on toast. Without the toast.
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  jezebellaminaposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Lol! I had beans on toast for breakfast...without the beans
  
  I'm adding that to the rotation. Haven't had beans on (or off) toast in ages. That is another poor writer's meal for sure!
  
  I am hoping we'll have some real answers soon; I'm driving myself crazy trying to analyze what I could have done better or what I can do now. Unfortunately, judging by everyone else's similar experiences...the answer is probably "nothin'."
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Xenonlitposted 12 years ago
"I hope so, Doodlehead, if nothing else I think G's stranglehold is incredibly unhealthy."

--- Redberry Sky

I agree.

The hundreds of thousands of us who produce content, AND use Google for research need to let Google (and Hub Pages, if they are tweaking and hurting our views) know exactly how we feel.

We bloggers are, collectively, a major force and a major source of income for Google. We need to use our clout and demand some regularity and expanations!

It is entirely unacceptable to have dropped views out of nowhere, then to sit in the dark and speculate for hours on end.
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Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years ago
I just tried to fetch one of my most successful pages that has lost a ton of traffic with google webmaster tools and each time I did, it came back as an unreachable page....

WHY???

It's never had a problem before...
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1. 46
  Doodleheadposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Daugher of Maat --did it say "unreachable page"?. That is a "new one" on me. I am not famliar with that. Oh.....maybe I will be soon ...as it will happen to us all....
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yes. It had a little white exclamation point and an orange triangle next to it and said unreachable page. I thought it was quite weird myself.
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  Doodleheadposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Daughter of Maat-------that may be what is affecting a great number of us then....does Mr. Edmunson know about this?
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  68
  Mazzy Boleroposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Could it have something to do with Hubpages moving recently?
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2. 86
  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I suggest this would be worth posting in the Technical section where a staff member can see it, including a link to the Hub in question. Sounds like a serious problem.
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3. 60
  Michael J Rappposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I had this same issue last week when I tried to do a fetch as Google. Had to try back later until it would work.
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Victoria Stephensposted 12 years ago
I am suffering the same problem. I think it has something to do with the new google change. Now they don't want to show up any URL's that contain a relevant keyword in. So yes folks, absolutely everything you've learned about SEO has just gone out the window a bit. I'm hoping enough people will complain and they'll consider changing it back again. If they don't then this change might actually be here to stay and traffic loss is only the begining. Start backing up your work because hubpages can't survive without our income and no traffic = no income.
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Trinity Mposted 12 years ago
Yes David it's happened to me too! And this is the 2nd time in 2 months! It is forcing me to stop writing for HP, it's not worth all the hard work and effort really... Sad though, I like HP and all the hubbers.
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1. 73
  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I am going to write some hubs on another account and see what happens. I am going to target keywords that were very succesful for me in the past. However, I don't know if I can get hubs that go to over 1000 views during these times, but I need to at least see what happens.
  
  I would be writing a lot more on this account, but I don't want work to go to waste...The other account will be an experiment/clean slate.
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