Panda and Indexing Changes

1. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years ago

   Hubbers, I'm sorry that we can't tell you why your traffic is going down or why Google was showing Hubs on hubpages.com and now has reverted to showing them on the subdomain.  We are similarly frustrated. 
   
   We do know Google announced a panda update last week.  We also can see Hubs that were doing better on Hubpages.com fall once they're shown on the subdomain in the search results.  We also can see that many of the pages that reverted to showing in the search results on their subdomain now show a 404 for the cached pages.  It appears that this update isn't complete.
   
   I emailed Google, but don't expect to hear back since they're typically very quiet during updates. 
   
   We are looking at running a few tests to see if we can influence if Google indexes the page on hubpages.com or the subdomain and if that has an impact on traffic.  Our engineers are looking to see what it will take to develop the tests.  We would also like to see the update settle down so we can evaluate with a little less turbulence.
   
   Thank you for all the insights and reports.  We will be following thread to see if others spot additional items and we will keep you posted if we see additional changes.

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      rose-the plannerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for the update.  I must admit that I was slightly frazzled when I saw 80% of my hubs with blue arrows this morning.  I do get a few but never that many.  It is just a sea of blue right now, lol.  Take care!  -Rose

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      paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      .
      .
      .
      This is just a rant...
      
      As far as I am concerned, you are a living god. You have done what I failed to do. You just keep doing what you are doing. No joke. Not kidding. Be You.

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      Bendo13posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think we need to wait and let the update settle before we decide what's what.  I'm glad that hubs are being indexed correctly now, but it's going to be a while before you can definitively say if a hub does better when it's indexed incorrectly (hubpages.com) than when it's indexed correctly (subdomain).
      
      Only time will tell, if you allow it to tell you the truth before you start making even more changes...

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         Bendo13posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         My traffic is slowly coming back.
         
         See, it pays to wait things out a bit

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         Bendo13posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         My traffic has surged back as of today at least... anyone else noticing the same?
         I haven't changed a thing other than shifting some of my holiday hubs over to my personal site, so the new Panda seems like a good Panda.

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            jellygatorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Nope... went from 700+ per day to about 250-300 and have been there for more than a month now.

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               Bendo13posted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Hmm... I'm not sure what caused me to pop back up in traffic then.
               The only other thing I did was set up the whole "authorship" deal, as per HubPages instructions.

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      Cardisaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I actually saw a slight increase in traffic from the previous week(s) along with some red arrows. Hope the traffic keeps climbing. I also hope those negatively affected will see improvement as well.

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         Abby Campbellposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I too have received increases, and I have been very pleased.

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      brakel2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      All my hubs are now indexed on the subdomain. Very few have my authorship on them. My traffic has been down since end of May. I think summer and Penguin are my problems.

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         aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I think you either have google authorship on all hubs on your subdomain or on none of them.  Basically it is done through your profile page, so you can't select which ones have it.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Here's something to chew on:  After reading what Livewithrichard had to say, I went back and regrouped my hubs so that they linked with each other more realistically.  My page views almost doubled and my income for the day went up about 25%.    I'm still working on this project, but was really surprised to see this happen.  Maybe we all should take a closer look at how we're grouping our hubs?

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         wowtgpposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Hmmmm interlinking you say? Gonna give it a go once I publish more than  20 hubs. I am preparing for 18th now
         
         What's the best approach to interlink hubs?

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            NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            If they're related, you can put them in the same group through the group thing on the "my account" page; the other hubs in the group will show up at the bottom of a hub (two of them will) in the order you have them in the group. You can also provide links to relevant hubs in the text of the hub when they are relevant to what you cover; and use good anchor text that would be searched. This would give you more time on page as far as visitors go. Good for user experience.

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      Tom Voglerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      For what it's worth, my visits and pageviews are down about 10% vs.last month, but up about 60% vs July of last year.  Income is down about 30% from last year.

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   ziyenaposted 11 years ago

   Thanks for the update ...

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   mathomposted 11 years ago

   One thing to check: is there a traffic correspondence between accounts that have Google authorship set up (linking correctly to Google profile and back) vs those that don't?
   
   My own niche account seems to explode this idea, but with only eight hubs, it's a small sample size.
   
   ~ greekgeek logged in on the wrong account

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   Benjimesterposted 11 years ago

   Thanks for the update.  Time to deal with another "He loves me not" cycle again.  Strange that there's 404s and things like that showing up though.  Seems like their update messed up their algorithm a bit.

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   livewithrichardposted 11 years ago

   I am very happy that every single one of my hubs is now indexed through my subdomain.  Sure, I took a big traffic hit but that was expected since the Topics pages carried a lot of weight, similar to how the old Tags pages.  But  I feel that since our subdomains have to stand or fall on their own merit, then this will be a true indicator of how well we optimize our content for search.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      +1

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   Victoria Lynnposted 11 years ago

   Thanks for that update, Paul. I'm sure that many hubbers, myself included, really appreciate your looking into this. Thanks so much.

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   Glenn Stokposted 11 years ago

   Thanks, Paul, for alerting us to this.
   
   Over the past few weeks, I have been monitoring a few of my hubs that were indexed under hubpages rather than my subdomain. When checking today, I found that some are now indexed under my subdomain, but not all. Maybe Google is making the transition gradually.
   
   It's too soon to tell how (or if) this may be affecting my traffic.

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      Marsha Musselman1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      How do you find out how Google is indexing the hubs? I thought the changes to subdomains was changed a couple of years ago, or is it still being worked on? Do I google my name or articles to see how they are showing up?

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         Nitin Pillaiposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         this is the way to check it Marsha.
         type
         site:your url

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   Benjimesterposted 11 years ago

   
   
   The blue arrows of death!!  All my hubs are weeping

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      susi10posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Good one!

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      sunilkunnoth2012posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Funny!

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   vocalcoachposted 11 years ago

   Appreciate the update Paul.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Last week LivewithRichard checked my accounts and all of my subdomains were indexed on Google.  My traffic has been pretty good these past few weeks, but my cpms have been low.  I have no clue about what is going on with all of this, but whatever it is, so far it does not seem to be affecting my numbers.

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    summerberrieposted 11 years ago

    It seems Google has most to all of my hubs indexed under my subdomain. I do have Google authorship per advice of Glen Stok and Greek Geek. Views are up a tad.

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       Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks for mentioning me, summerberrie.  I'd be interested to know if everyone who claimed authorship is holding up with their traffic. My traffic is pretty much steady too.  And I also noticed that my picture is in the SERPs that are indexed under hubpages as well as those indexed under my subdomain. So that seems to make no difference with authorship status.

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          livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I have authorship confirmed and all of my hubs are featured and indexed through my subdomain.  I only have one hub that has my picture assigned to it in the SERP's and my traffic is down around 30%.  I expect traffic to increase over the next couple weeks as the update starts to settle in.

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          mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Well Glenn, for what it is worth I have had Google Authorship for many months now, yet my traffic has still plummeted so I am not convinced this is a factor I have to say.

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             wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Same here; authorship months ago and a 25% traffic decrease the last couple of days or so.  It had almost recovered to that of a few months ago and is not right back down.
             
             I love google SOOO much.

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          LuisEGonzalezposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I have authorship and my recent daily views have plummeted to about 75% less than last week same time.

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             Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Luis, Based on responses from others, I do not see any correlation between Google Authorship and maintaining traffic flow throughout this time. By traffic has stayed pretty much constant and I have Authorship. However, I did notice that some people who think they have Authorship - don't. You are one of them. You used your old HubPages URL instead of your subdomain URL. And when I tested your HP profile and one of your hubs, both failed the Rich Snippets test. Just bringing that to your attention so you can fix it.

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                LuisEGonzalezposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                So what you are saying is that I should edit my Google account and use the link for my subdomain (luisegonzalez.hubpages.com?)

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                   Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   Yes. And then check it with the Rich Snippets test to be sure your Authorship is working.

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                      LuisEGonzalezposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      I want to thank you for all your help. I followed your advice and finally did the authorship right. You always offer advice and never expect anything in return. You are a true gentleman!

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                         Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Thanks for the feedback and for your kind comments Luis. It's nice to be appreciated and I'm glad I was able to help. Congratulations on having your Authorship worked out.

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                            New Understandingposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                            Yes you have helped so much.  I wasn't even aware of Authorship or how to go about it!  Thank you Glen!

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                Victoria Lynnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                How do we know if we have authorship? If we don't, we need to, right? How do I check that out to see? And how do I fix it if I need to? Thanks. :-)

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                   summerberrieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   Here is Glenn Stok's directions for claiming google authorship....easy to follow step by step instructions.
                   
                   http://glennstok.hubpages.com/hub/compl … directions

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                      NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      That helped. Thanks, summerberrie, Glen, and misty. I thought I'd already had all that set up, but after checking I hadn't had it set up. I followed the instructions and got it all set up. I think it's good, at least, to verify ownership of the content, even if it doesn't seem to help traffic. Thank you, too, Susana for linking to this forum thread from another forum thread I was following. This informed me of Google indexing of the subdomains and the drop in traffic too.

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                         mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Thanks for the thanks Nate

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                            NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                            : )

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                         Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         You're very welcome Nate. Glad it helped.

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                         summerberrieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Glad it all helped

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                      Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      Thanks, summerberrie, for that reference. Much appreciated. Even though many who have authorship have said that their traffic dropped anyway, there are also some with authorship who did not have a drop in traffic. It's hard to figure out what Google is basing it all on and if authorship has anything to do with it yet.
                      
                      Some other things that may affect success for those who claimed authorship. ... (1) If a true head shot is used (since Google wants that to include in the SERPs).  (2) If we are engaging in Google Plus on the same topics that we write about. (3) How many G+ circles we are in (this can be displayed along with the search results).  (4) Other sites we write on and if we properly linked all those sites together with our  Google authorship.

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                         summerberrieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         You are welcomed~thanks for the useful hub....my views are up a tad. Actually, when they were indexed  on HP topics page my views were down....it seemed my keywords would act as a doorway to the topics page, where all the hubs featured under the same topic would appear but you'd have to dig through other hubs to find my hub on page 3 or 4 of the topic page. So IF authorship HAS facilitated the way Google indexes hubs, then I am a happy camper my hubs are on my own sub-domain~

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                      toptendealsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      Thanks summerberrie.  I didn't have google authorship until I followed these instructions.  Now I do!  I hope that helps me out lol.

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                         summerberrieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         

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                   mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   Enter your profile URL into this tool and see if the results shown (after you enter the captcha) show your image and a message saying 'Authorship is working for this page'. If it doesn't show this then you need to make sure you have added your HP profile URL to the 'Contributor To' section of your Google Plus 'About' section, and that you have edited your profile here on HP to show your Google Plus Profile link in the relevant box.
                   
                   Hope this helps.
                   
                   http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
                   
                   I should add that to do this even on one of my personal sites took me under 5 minutes the other day, and that involved using their html code which you won't have to worry about for HP.

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                      Victoria Lynnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      Thanks, Misty! I must have done something to set it up at some point, because it says I have authorship. LOL.

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                         mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Good news, glad the link helped

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    mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years ago

    My traffic and earnings are looking very bleak right now. I will give it a few months, but if things don't start to look vastly improved (or at least heading back to the good income and views I always used to get) I will have to begin looking at moving certain articles that had previously performed well here, elsewhere. I am already seriously fed up of all the massive changes that have been made (what appears to be every other week) on HP, and now it seems  likely it was all based on guesswork anyway which hasn't paid off. Right now (without giving actual figures) I have lost about a third of my income from here just in the last month or two (which used to be enough to give me a decent three figure sum each month). Over the last couple of years the percentage of income and views I have lost has been far higher still but I stuck it out here regardless. What used to be over 10,400 views a day across my hubs is now around 2000 (a serious drop by anyone's standards).
    
    I hate to be pessimistic, but after 5 years of ups and downs here I can't help feeling that things aren't going to get much better, and I am not really convinced HP will still be around in another year or so (unless it is sold on as a going concern which is always a possibility, but one that might involve major changes being implemented for everyone with content here).
    
    I would love to be wrong and things to change, but I just can't see it happening just because so many of us want it to. At the end of the day Google will make or break us (for the most part) no matter what changes are made here.
    
    Rant over

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       Marsha Musselman1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Don't forget that it seems as if the summer months tend to cause views to plummet some. If you wait until fall or sometime after that, hopefully things will be on the upswing again. If that happens, you may want to keep tabs on the times of year it goes  up and down. You may find that it's the same every year and that should help your outlook long term.

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          Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Misty has been here five years.  I think she knows when summer happens.
          
          Excuse my terseness but it is not a great time at present and it is NOTHING to do with summer.

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             mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Thanks Mark, you are absolutely right, I do know about the seasonal fluctuations and what is happening right now is way way beyond being that.

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          mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Yes, I am well aware of this (as Mark said, I have been here 5 years) and have experienced seasonal fluctuations a number of times, but there is no way what is happening now can be put down to simply being down to the season we are in.

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             Victoria Lynnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Yeah, no way. Views go down in the summer but not like this.My revenue hasn't been this low in a year and a half. 1/5 of what it used to be. Views down 2/3rds. I have been getting nearly as much traffic from Pinterest as I have from Google. This has been quite a hit.

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                Sue Baileyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Never in my almost 6 years here has it dropped so much at any time of the year.

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    rajan jollyposted 11 years ago

    Do you have any particular sites in mind where these articles would do better in terms of views and income, Misty? What other options are available? I'm sure a lot of hubbers would like to know!

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       mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Well my own existing site for a start would work well for a number of my veg growing articles. Other articles could go to Wizzley,  Xobba, This is Freelance, or even to new sites I could build using Wordpress purely so I would get 100% of Adsense income and also have only myself to blame if my content was not of a high enough quality for Google to feature it in their SERPS. To build a website using Wordpress is not all that hard if you have a few people to ask questions of who have done it before, and it can pay you well if the content is good (yes it costs you a small amount to buy a domain, and you might have to part with a hundred dollars or so for a year's hosting, but do it right and you will cover these costs and make an income). At least you will have no worries about issues like your articles being 'unfeatured' for various reasons such as 'lack of engagement' (plus if Google do have a problem with HP as a site, it will no longer be a factor that affects you). I do earn a small amount from my external two sites, and no doubt if I moved some more articles there I could earn quite a bit more (unless things drastically change here for the better).

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          rajan jollyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks, Misty.

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    Barbara Kayposted 11 years ago

    I suggest that until this is straightened out, that there are different guidelines for de-indexing hubs for lack of engagement. Otherwise 3/4 of our hubs will be out of commission.

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    Rock_njposted 11 years ago

    My traffic is looking quite good right now.  Above average.  No sign of a Google hit for me.  I did get a Hub unpublished for some mysterious violation.  I have no idea what the problem is.  Perhaps it was triggered by this Google update?

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    LeanManposted 11 years ago

    My earnings and views have been down a little for a few weeks but my position in the SERPs has not really changed all that much so I think some of the reduction in visitors is just seasonal fluctuation, for me at least. I have authorship enabled but I am not sure if that has any bearing on search position at the moment.
    
    The change as to where I am being indexed does not appear at first glance to have made too much of a difference but of course it will take a lot more than a day to be able to really tell. I noticed the change in indexing yesterday by accident when I was tidying up the 100s of tabs I had opened and I think I was the first to open a thread in the forums but I will not be running around saying that it has caused a drop or increase in views until things settle down.
    Google have been making a lot of changes these past few weeks and as with previous shake ups it tends to take a few weeks for things to settle - usually starting with a reduction before climbing back if previous experience is anything to go by....
    
    As Douglas Adams would say "DON'T PANIC"

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       mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I remain to be convinced, every update seems to impact on my traffic in a way that means it never quite recovers to its former glory. To go from over 10400 views a day to just over 2000 in under two years does seem to indicate that traffic does not truly recover after each update. I honestly think Google have it in for HP, and that no matter how good certain content is here, it is under a cloud that is basically the site it is published on. I would love to see this change though, and hope I can be proven wrong. Trouble is that many disillusioned Hubbers have left this site before, and they are rapidly replaced with new 'ever hopeful' people who stick it out a while, then leave, and are then themselves replaced by a new batch of hopefuls. This means that many writers here are grateful for the crumbs they get and the reassurances they hear from HP, little realising what has gone before their time here. I am sad to see HP going downhill bit by bit, but can't imagine what they can do about it (apart from make yet more bizarre changes that alienate hubbers and don't work) if Google won't actually tell them what they need to do (in spite of Paul asking them on the Webmaster forums).

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          TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Mistyhorizon2003:  I'm sorry you feel as you do, but I can well understand why you feel that way.  My view is entirely different, but this is probably because my experience here is so different from yours.  I have never had anywhere near the numbers you are complaining about, and I have been here 19 months.  My articles are always featured and people seem to enjoy my work, yet my views are nothing compared to yours.  Personally, I feel HP is doing everything to fix the problems they created originally by being so lenient in the type of writing they allowed on this site.  It is a lot to clean up, but they are making progress.  Once they reorganize, things should improve dramatically.  I do not buy that Google has it in for HP, I think Google has upped its standards and HP has not met them and is suffering.  Only time will tell which of us is correct, but I can tell you I would be thrilled to death to have the numbers you mentioned here.

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             susi10posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             I agree, TimeTraveler2, we need a little positivity! I personally feel that Google do not have it in for HP, as many of my hubs are in the top of search results, beating Wikihow, about.com and eHow. My traffic is going fairly well, it just isn't as easy to get a lot of traffic. I think this site is on the up.

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             mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Yes, but it takes several years for traffic to build and for articles to mature. I see you currenty have about 119 hubs, whereas I have 280, many of which have been published 4-5 years. If you had joined when I did and written the same amount of hubs there is a good possibility you would have been getting a similar amount of traffic (depending on the nature of the topics you wrote about).
             
             
             
             If they are making progress I am wondering why so many are having problems with dramtically falling traffic. Even Quantcast makes pretty dismal viewing right now.
             
              
             
             Well in time you may still get the same numbers as I have now, but I don't think many people at all (unless they have an astronomical amount of hubs) will ever see the 10400 a day figures I used to see. Thing is you say you would be 'thrilled to death to have the numbers mentioned above", and I assume you mean the 2000 that I am saying are what I now get. I honestly don't believe you would be so thrilled if you had previously had views for roughly the same hubs be in the region of 10000 a day and earning you a nice part time income, only to watch it gradually wither away over the next couple of years until the income coming in was a pittance compared to what it used to be. As it has pretty much steadily gone downhill for the two years in spite of all sorts of changes being made here, I am not expecting it to suddenly decide to start to rise again (apart from a small amount at the end of the summer when people come back indoors from the sunshine). I hope to be proven wrong though

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    Lisa HWposted 11 years ago

    For what's it's worth information-wise, my traffic has pretty much been the same "low" it's been for months now.  Somewhere along the way months ago my traffic had gradually become quite low.  Then I removed a couple of hundred or so Hubs and kind of cut my traffic in half.  So it's been at the same low now, which is understandable for a number of reasons, for months and months.  It's been no different recently.  It's generally the same "high low" when it's not the weekend, starts to creep up a little Sunday p.m., and creeps back up to "high low" for the business week.  It's "low low" as always on weekends.  In other words, nothing has dropped dramatically recently at all.  My traffic averages have been very consistent for months now.
    
    I do have Google authorship established.
    
    Although I haven't checked many of my Hubs, from what I've seen by sampling them just now, they're indexed to the subdomain on the ones I checked.
    
    Naturally, I appreciate that it's being looked into, but I haven't felt like there's particularly any new traffic issue for me anyway.  Well...  there's certainly an issue, but I've figured a good part of it's been my own doing combined with a general decline at some point in past months.

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    Sue Baileyposted 11 years ago

    Ok this is way too technical for me but all I know is I have experienced and am currently experiencing a massive drop in views and earnings.  I have Google authorship established as Sue Bailey which is the name I write under. However, most, if not all of my work is copyrighted as Susan Bailey which is my full name.  Probably an extremely stupid question but could this be affecting anything?

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       summerberrieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       It appears Google authorship is not playing a factor in the rise and fall of traffic related to Panda update nor the way hubs are being indexed by Google.
       
       I think Google authorship is more of a claim. You claim authorship by the reciprocal link you created between your Google profile and your HP profile~not sure the name really matters, although HP recommends using your real name to project authority.
       
       This is just a speculative answer based on limited knowledge.

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          Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          The thing that authorship does is it puts your picture next to your article listing in Google, which makes people more likely to click on the link.  Another thing Hubbers should be doing to keep their profile high on Google is to post links to their Hubs in Google+.  I noticed that links to articles in Google+ show up in the Google SERPs. Obviously, Google has an interest in getting people to use Google+ and this is one way to get them to use it.
          
          Although my Hub domain is doing just fine, I did notice that the stats show that the number of Hubbers going to drop below 100K soon, unless something is done to turn things around.  That's a big drop from the peak a couple of years ago, well above 200K. 
          
          It is true that summer is a traditionally slow time around here and elsewhere on the net.  People are on vacation and doing things outdoors.  This is a good time to revise hubs, make them SEO compatible, and think of some good topics for the fall/winter season.

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       Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Sue, Authorship does not seem to be effecting the issue. At least not as far as I can tell since some people who have Authorship are holding out and others have a drop in traffic.  This is not a scientific study, however, because there are too many variables.  Such as: (1) Some people say they have Authorship but set it up wrong and never tested it with the Rich Snippets test tool. (2) Some do not use a face image, which Google prefers.
       
       Unfortunately I don't have the time to dig through these things to find if there is still a correlation between those with full face images, those with correct Authorship linking, and those losing traffic and not losing traffic.
       
       Sue, you have Authorship is set up correctly and you have a drop in traffic as you said. But I'd have to see more like that to know for sure if Authorship is not helping.
       
       It would really be interesting to analyze this fully to find if there is a correlation or not.  I think HP can do this best since they have access to the entire database of Hubbers.

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       Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       It seems to be the writers that have been here for quite awhile are getting hit the worst. I have been here going on 4 years and my views keep plummeting too. The trend makes me wonder if Google likes all new content. I wonder if switching to another subdomain would help.

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    EricDockettposted 11 years ago

    All of my Hubs are indexed under my sub except one, and the stats for that one Hub are odd.  According it Analytics, it only gets a fraction of the traffic HP stats says it gets.  They don't even register as referrals or social traffic.
    
    I don't know what it has to do with anything, but it's strange.  What kind of traffic could it be getting that HP counts but GA doesn't?
    
    My overall traffic isn't terrible, except that it is July. Sales are slow. People have better things to do. Some of the topics I write about get a nice boost from TV shows that are not currently airing. Kids aren't in school, screwing around on the computer during study hall or whatever.   
    
    I guess I'm among the optimistic minority that thinks (believes?) once the de-indexing fully takes hold and the summer is over things will start looking pretty good around here.

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    IzzyMposted 11 years ago

    I did have Google authorship on this account until HP changed the profile pages, and I haven't bothered to put it in again.
    
    I did not bother claiming authorship for my others subs.
    
    Traffic is UP across nearly all of my accounts, except those that never garnered traffic in the first place.
    
    I am seeing hubs that have been published for well over a year on Google's front page, whereas they were completely ignored before.
    
    There seems to be a lot of flux going on as some hubs are drifting on and off the front page. Luckily for me, when one goes off, another rises to take its place.

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    Anamika Sposted 11 years ago

    My Hub traffic is now less than half compared to 3 days ago and 80% of my hubs are showing blue down arrows. My best performing hubs are tumbling down too. While I am happy to see more hubs indexed, this is so disappointing. I really hope that things get back to normal. Having said this, it is time we stand united and take steps to bring back our traffic.

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       Ms Deeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Am experiencing the same as Anamika S. This is even though I have Google authorship.

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    PaulGoodman67posted 11 years ago

    Not sure why people are getting fixated on Google authorship.  The issues in this case appears to be technical and relate to things like the indexing of the site.
    
    This sudden traffic drop is particularly disappointing and troubling because it comes after months of gradual decline in HP traffic.  Hopefully some sort of resolution will emerge soon, whether it is via Google update or through HP work, or a combination.
    
    Thanks for keeping us informed, Paul.

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       aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Google keeps promising to pay more attention to author expertise (the technical term they use escapes me).  So if Matt Cutts notices all the pictures of my beautiful frogs which I keep, Google can suddenly realise that I am an expert on frogs, and start sending traffic to my frog articles, wherever I publish them.
       
       Panda is a very inexact hammer.  On HubPages it crushes good writers as well as the bad.  So if they finally started paying attention to who writes what, rather than the site it is published on, good writers could benefit.   
       
       I guess the reason Greek Geek asked about authorship is because the fall hasn't affected everybody.  Some subdomains are actually getting better traffic.  I am mostly unaffected.

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          PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I understand what Google authorship is.  I also have multiple HP profiles, so I'm aware on a personal level that not all profiles are equally affected.  Although it's indisputable that the site as a whole has been hit, as can be seen at Quantcast.
          
          GreekGeek is usually a intelligent voice.  I've not seen her make any comment on  this thread, however.

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             aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             I had no doubt that you understood about Google authorship.  I was merely trying speculating why GreekGeek (posting as her alter ego mathom) was asking about a correlation.
             
             Google is hinting that in the near future authorship will be far more important than it is now.

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                PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Ah okay, my mistake.  I see GG now.  I still think it's very unlikely to be a Google authorship issue though. More to do with the structure of the site and how it's indexed.
                
                I am a little cynical of Google authorship, it was introduced at a time when Google were pushing to get everyone to have the same sign in and name for all their services (Blogger, Youtube, etc.).  I think it is more to do with their business plan to drive people to use more of their services and less of their rivals and further expand their virtual monopoly from search into other areas, than what they purport it to be about.  These unfair business practices are being checked in Europe, but in the USA they seem untouchable at present.
                
                I would still be surprised if Google authorship ever has a great deal of effect on traffic.  It would be a provocative act (especially when their tax affairs/avoidance are under such tight international scrutiny) and certainly be bleak for the internet and the business community, if everybody who wanted their work to be seen online effectively had to register a profile with a specific company.  But then I believe that Google should be split up so that its search engine is truly separate from its other business interests.

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    mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years ago

    Just checked my views for today and they are about 600 less than they would be on any other Tuesday. Right now they are showing more like the figures I might expect to see on a bad Friday or Saturday

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    livewithrichardposted 11 years ago

    It's easy to see why the entire site has taken a hit.  Before the recent update, HP as a site had over 2 million pages indexed and now it has a little over 800K which is about where one of the Pauls said it should be.  Those missing pages are now indexed where they should be, under individual subdomains.
    
    Overall traffic is down because those pages that were indexed on the main site were on Topics pages which carried a lot of weight in the SERP's since ALL of the Topics pages are between PR4 and PR6. Now that they are on subdomains, the weight they carry is through the Profile pages which most are PR0. My own profile is only a PR3, so it is easy to see why I have lost position in the SERP's. 
    
    For those that have taken a huge hit in traffic with this update and indexing to the subdomain, I suggest building up your Profile page, strengthening your categories and groups, and dropping the hubs that might be dead weight.  If I'm wrong, prove me wrong but it is my belief that a strong profile with strong page rank will definitely improve some traffic woes.

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       Judi Beeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Using the Google PR Checker I see that my profile is PR3.  How would I go about building it up?  All my hubs are featured - I've rarely fallen foul of idling. I have deleted a few less than spectacular performers and moved them to blogs.   
       
       (Incidentally, as far as I know, my hubs have always been indexed on my subdomain.  My traffic has been sliding for months (more markedly since mid-May) and it hasn't got any worse in the past few days.)

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          livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          This is off topic so apologies to the OP
          
          Offer to do a guest blog on sites with similar themes to the groups you write in the most.  Make sure the sites you write on are at least PR3 and that they will offer you a link back to your profile here on HP.  Most will allow 2 links, so make one a URL link to your profile and one a contextual anchor link to a similar hub.   Do this once a week and you will gradually build links and grow your reputation.
          
          Make sure that all of your hubs are grouped properly.  You will want at least 15 hubs per group that you use, this will show a bit of expertise in a niche... the more the better and if you have fewer than 15 in a group then this will give you ammo and reason to create more hubs.
          
          Go back to each hub and make sure you are targeting keywords that have decent search volume and little competition.  For me that means the main keyword should have at least 1000 monthly searches (Global if you are using the HP Ad program, and Local if you are more concerned with Adsense) then check if that term has less than 500,000 competing pages.  This is my benchmark, the fewer competing pages the better but I have gone as high as 2 million. 
          
          Your main keyword phrase should be in your Title (not so much worry in your URL anymore), your summary, your first sub-heading, and your first paragraph.  Then you will want to use variants and related keyword phrases in your remaining sub-headings and capsule headings.
          
          If you are not targeting keywords that have search volume then don't expect to get anything other than local HP traffic.

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             Judi Beeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Thanks for the comprehensive reply Richard - I'll see what I can do

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       janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       @richard  As far as I am aware the only pages that are affected are those published more than 2 years ago (before June 2011). Pages within subdomains are still listed on the topics pages + best, hot, latest etc. So I don't see a major structural change having occurred. The older pages have simply been brought back into the subdomain flock and reflect the flock's PR and authority. IMO

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          livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          The indexing has changed everything.  If your hub was indexed through the main Topics page it carried the PR weight of that Topics page.  Now that it is indexed through subdomains it is only going to carry weight through the PR of the subdomains.  Hubs are still listed on the Topics pages but are no longer showing in the Google index as having originated on those pages. 
          
          Your experience with 2 year old pages is not typical for everyone else here at HP.  I had many hubs published in the last year or so that were not indexed through my sub. HP as a site is now showing 800k+ indexed pages where a couple weeks ago it was showing 2Million+ indexed pages so I believe it has affected way more than the hubs published 2 years ago.

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             janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Most pages are still listed in the topics - that has not changed.
             The reason why the number of indexed pages has changed is probably because G has finally De-indexed the NOINDEX pages. All my pages more than 2 years old all were listed on my sub, but I have always submitted them to Webmasters.
             
             "Perhaps sites like us have done enough and just need to wait it out. We have 1.9 Million pages showing as indexed in our Webmaster Tools account, but only about 600K that should be. Clearly Google isn't dropping the pages quickly."
             
             http://pauledmondson.hubpages.com/hub/W … ogle-Panda

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                livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                I do know that the majority of ALL hubs on HP were being indexed through HP and NOT through our subs.  If all of your older hubs were indexed through your sub then you are a very lucky and rare hubber.  I pointed out some other Hubbers that have large numbers of hubs (Habbe 1000+ but only 600+ were indexed through her sub, Hal Licino 2500 hubs but only 9 indexed through his sub).  That was typical for most hubbers here.  Now, for some unknown reason, G has decided to index those hubs through the subs and not through the main site. The Topics pages were not de-indexed by G and they were not given a NO Index by HP though the origin of the index has now changed to the way it should be. 
                
                From Paul's Hub which you linked here:
                
                The advice from people that may know is to do the following.
                
                   - Rate all your pages and purge low quality content like crazy. Remove and no index. One section of content may be hurting the site, so you need to find it and get rid of it.
                   - Make a great site design that puts the user first.
                   - Build more links.
                
                As hubbers, we can do all of those things but the weight is on our Subs and no longer on the Topics pages.

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                   TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   I'm not quite sure where I am in this mess, Richard.  Didn't you check this for me a week or so ago and tell me all of my subdomains were indexed and not indexed as HP hubs?

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                      livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      That is correct.
                      
                      To check for yourself you would go to Google search and type in:
                      
                      site:http://username.hubpages.com/hub/
                      
                      Of course, change username to your actual user name and don't forget to put /hub/ at the end so that you are only getting indexed hubs and not your questions/answers/forum posts, etc
                      
                      To all of you that are doing this search instead of using webmaster tools, it may take a few days for the index to catch up.  You have to remember that though Google crawls this site every day, they do not crawl the entire site.

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                         Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         So I did that and saw my articles listed... what does it mean? What am I looking for?

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                         paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Thanks for this.
                         
                         94 hubs. 94 entries. Happy camper.

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                            Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                            Oh, is that what we're looking for? I have 81 hubs and 81 entries.

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                      3. 95

                         jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Hi livewithrichard, I looked mine up, 50 out of 50 hubs listed. So this is a good thing? Not completing understanding, no need to explain again. All I know is traffic is up and all hubs are featured and indexed by Google. If I jinxed myself, I'm coming back here for you.

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                            livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                              I'm not noticing the indexing as a problem for newer hubbers (those that started after the subdomain switch.)  Those of us that were here before the switch had a different indexing structure.  After the switch, our url's were redirected to meet our new sub structure but many of our hubs had already been indexed through the old structure and didn't change it to the new structure presumably because it already existed.  All of a sudden, most of the hubs that were indexed the old way are now indexed the proper way, which is why we are seeing a drop in traffic.   Newer hubbers that already had their hubs indexed the proper way are having a different experience, which is good.  Their traffic is unaffected or going up.  Those newer hubbers that are having a negative experience will just have to ride it out until we can determine what this new update was targeting.  Anyway... I'll be here.

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                               janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                               Exactly.
                               It is interesting what HPs real take in this is given that it implements the full allocation to subdomains. If HP could replace the Topic index pages, hot, best, latest etc., with internal Google searches or other 'soft' deliver on demand' listing options, the subdomains would be more independent. The umbilical cords from the subs to the mothership could be severed completedly. The subs would then be truly independent and in control of their own destiny and not subject to tainting via related links etc. While hubs older than two years have experienced a traffic drop, perhaps HP is happy that the structure they wanted has finally been implemented. Perhaps all this unfeaturing could stop?

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                               jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                               Thanks a bunch.

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                         NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Hey, thanks for that. Was able to see how my Hubs are indexed and understand better what's going on. Very helpful.

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       TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       A knowledgeable hubber told me awhile back that how your articles are grouped in Topics is not what Google looks at.  They look at the way YOU group them.  I often find those two things do not match at all, and always wonder why that is.  It may be glitch in HPs program?  Also, what the heck is PR and what do the numbers behind it mean?  When you people start talking "tech", I go deaf!

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          Judi Beeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          PR - Page Rank
          Number behind it is the weight given to your rank - 0 low, up to a high of 10.

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             TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             If that's the case, my rank sucks!!

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                DrMark1961posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                You have PR3, which is the same as mine (I was checking this when your message popped up on my feed!)

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                   Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   Where does one find this kind of info?

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                      Judi Beeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      Search "Google Page Rank Checker" - put your subdomain address into the search bar on the site.

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                   PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   PR was the old way of assessing web pages.  It is not as important as it once was.  Panda was designed to replace many aspects of it as an assessment tool.  That's why PR is updated so infrequently nowadays.
                   
                   My view is to give the Google update some days/weeks and see where we end up when the turbulence dies down.

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                      livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      Page Rank is and always will be the measure of a site's authority and it does not matter how often it changes in a year.  There are other measures that one should focus on, conversion rate, bounce rate and click through rate but without traffic coming to your page those measures are worthless.  G doesn't want you to focus on Page Rank because ii is only one of 200+ measuring factors in its algorithm.
                      
                      "How does Google decide which few documents I really want? It’s by asking questions – more than 200 of them. Like, how many times does a web page contain your keywords? Do the words appear in the title, in the URL, directly adjacent? Does the page include synonyms for those words? Is this page from a quality website or is it low quality, even spamming? What is this page’s PageRank? That’s a formula invented by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin that rates a web page’s importance by looking at how many outside links point to it, and how important those links are. Finally, we combine all those factors together to produce each page’s overall score and send you back your search results about half a second after you submit your search."
                                                                                                                              ~Matt Cutts~
                      
                      Page Rank should not be the major focus, the end user should be.  That said, if 2 people write similar posts covering the same keywords, density, user engagement, etc. etc. and one of those posts were linked to by a PR4 site and the other by a PR3 site then the post with a link from the PR4 site will outrank the other post. Page Rank does matter.

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                         PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Yeah, your actual PR matters at Google's end, because it's how the Google algo assesses pages.  As a user, it's difficult to know what your actual PR is however in practice.  The "visible" PR is updated very infrequently, so what you think your PR rating is now, may actually just be what your PR happened to be some time ago and you could have gone up or down since the last update.  So it's not much good as a tool nowadays for users.
                         
                         However, I suspect that this latest fall in traffic is not directly related to all that.  I think it will be resolved by something done by either HP or Google, or both of them.  We don't have control of the structure of the HP site as individual hubbers and in some circumstances, like this one I suspect, we have limited power to improve things.  There is no need to panic.  Give HP chance to work on it.

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                            Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                            I agree with this. Particularly the sentence, "We don't have control of the structure of the HP site as individual hubbers and in some circumstances, like this one I suspect, we have limited power to improve things."
                            
                            Right now is a time to sit tight and wait for Google to finish rolling out the latest Panda update as nothing can be accurately analysed with that going on. We also need to wait to see how those hubs that are being indexed differently perform in the SERP's over the next few months.
                            
                            When Panda has hit HP before the effect has been like Google hitting a "reset" button. Some Hubs/Subs behave in the SERP's almost as if they are newly published and need to prove themselves again. I can see signs of that right now.
                            
                            IMO the discussion about PR is a red herring.
                            
                            @Nate - you're welcome

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    PaulGoodman67posted 11 years ago

    Still hoping for a traffic bounce back within a few days.  If that doesn't happen, I will cry.

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    Mark Ewbieposted 11 years ago

    I feel sorry for Paul and the HubPages team.  Google are unfairly crapping on them.  They are delibrately targeting some content providers and being easy on others.
    
    We can move content, wander round the web looking for a way in, but this is HP's business.
    
    Google are an unnaccountable monopoly who don't pay tax but sell our secrets, they live off other people's content, they do not care whether it is copied or not, they serve up pornography to children - at least HP have tried to do the right thing.
    
    Perhaps one day when Matt Cutts has been shafted by others in a position of power - he will have a chance to see how it feels.

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       PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       +1  ITA - The Google approach to business has become increasingly cynical over the years.  But they dress it up in pretty language that is designed to make them appear altruistic.  If they want to demonstrate some social responsibility to mankind in general, they could start by protecting personal privacy and paying their taxes like the rest of us.

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          aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I completely agree with you about Google, taxes, privacy etc.  Plus the way they are trying to take traffic away from sites, by providing it in their knowledge graph and image search, using content that is not their own is evil.
          
          Also agree that their great proclamations about quality is a big steaming pile of bs.
          
          However, I think it is internet content providers who started the cynical approach.  With their "get rich quick" schemes, publishing rubbish, spun by computer articles, backlinking schemes, keyword shenanigans and all the other spamming methods.
          
          If some people hadn't aggressively tried to cheat the system and fill the web with rubbish in the hope of making a quick buck, there would be no panda or penguin.
          
          Obviously not everybody is guilty, there are plenty of good writers who try to earn money by providing good content, but there's been plenty of bad apples with their "SEO" tricks.

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             Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Yep I hear you.  But maybe Adsense started it and then everyone joined the game.
             
             Anyway...
             
             Just maybe, fingers crossed and so on, maybe this is actually the moment we have been waiting for.  The final split of subdomains into more discrete areas - indexed according to their own content rather than 'other' stuff.

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26. 61

    infosavvyposted 11 years ago

    Nice... Let me see what it would do to newbies like me...

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27. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years ago

    From our site wide data, new hubs are doing better.  Hubs created in 2013 are up.  Older Hubs have decreased. 
    
    The old hubs are the ones having the caching issue and are also the content that most likely reverted to showing on their subdomain.

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    1. 95

       PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks for the update.  Hopefully HP can find a way to resolve this, now that you seem to be homing in on what the problem is. 

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       Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I wonder if it would pay off to rewrite the ones that have gone way down and delete the old ones. This seems to be what I am seeing too. Google wants new material.

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       infosavvyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks for this update.It has motivated me to write my complete hub since I have taken quite a long time to publish my first hub and I guess I should stop waiting it to be 'the' perfect hub.

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    brakel2posted 11 years ago

    Beth. Go to webmaster tools and see if your subdomain has more hubs?  Or run your site on web?

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       Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I don't know what a subdomain is. Im hopeless.

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          Judi Beeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Your subdomain address is "beth37.hubpages . com"

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             Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Ok, Ill try that, thanks!

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          paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          That's ok. You're still my favorite.

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             Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             You should have told me! lol

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                paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                I checked a hub at random. Yep, you're indexed.
                
                I also found a typo. "I probably hadn't hear of them. "
                
                Think Whitney...

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                   Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   No, that's what I meant to say... it's a new style of writing... it's called the laid back approach. You can just wander off before you've finished and leave off punctuation if you're not into it.

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29. 0

    Beth37posted 11 years ago

    Web Page URL:    http://beth37.hubpages.com
    The Page Rank:   
    - N/A
    IMPORTANT: N/A (not available) - it is not possible to show any pagerank now.
    
    The N/A pagerank (grey pagerank bar) might be due to one of the following reasons:
    
    (1) the web page is new, and it is not indexed by Google yet,
    (2) the web page is indexed by Google, but it is not ranked yet,
    (3) the web page was indexed by Google long ago, but it is recognised
         as a supplemental (Supplemental Results) page,
    (4) the web page or the whole website is banned by Google.
    
    
    Either Im not indexed yet or Ive been banned.

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       Judi Beeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       You are indexed and you're not banned, so may be you're just not ranked yet (with Google, obviously - here we all rank you very highly   )

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          Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          haha, that's extremely kind of you... Im not sure what it means if Im indexed but not ranked... Im not even quite sure what it would mean if I weren't indexed, but I think I can suss that much out. Did you all take a class in this or what? lol

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             Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             We're making it up.  After six months you get a little code book - the wankers guide to SEO.  From then on you post one phrase per forum post.

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                Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Are you allowed to say wankers on here?

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                   Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   I guess I'll find out...

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                      Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      I guess we will both be banned then. I seem to be a ban magnet.

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                Judi Beeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                There's already a book?  I just thought I was making this stuff up intuitively - I was planning on my own ebook.  Damn.

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                   Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   You should write a hub... panda/google 101.

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    Greekgeekposted 11 years ago

    Paul Goodman: the switch to subdomains in Google searcb reaults suggests that Google might now be evaluating our hubs more according to what each of us writes. it's hard to be sure whether a change in how search results are displayed correlates to a change in how websites are evaluated, however.
    
    I do know that Google has been working on ways to incorporate social signals like author reputation into its algorithm over the past year or so.
    
    Therefore, when I saw a big change like this, I wondered if that might be a factor. However, that idea is nixed by the reports from people with Google authorship set up who are seeing big traffic drops. Rats. (I was hoping for a quick solution, in other words!)
    
    I am once again stymied. My traffic remains up slightly, even when I check Google analytics, both for this account and my niche account. This would be more satisfying if I understood why. I don't have much in the way of product-related widgets, but I'm betting some people who are reporting these drops also have largely informational / editorial / tutorial type hubs. What's the common factor? Argh.

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       PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       hi GG
       
       Paul E says in comments: "From our site wide data, new hubs are doing better.  Hubs created in 2013 are up.  Older Hubs have decreased.  The old hubs are the ones having the caching issue and are also the content that most likely reverted to showing on their subdomain."
       
       This fits with my personal experience (although I know that doesn't necessarily prove anything lol).  Across my profiles, I have some good quality old hubs that have crashed and some newer mediocre ones that are doing fine.  So I am prepared to accept that age is the common factor, unless a convincing argument is made otherwise, of course...

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31. 88

    IzzyMposted 11 years ago

    If I go to site:izzym.hubpages.com, I get 338 results.
    
    On webmaster's tools I am told that I have 102 indexed hubs.
    
    i have no idea at this point how many published hubs I have. I did have over 500, but I unpublished a whole bunch of them last year. I've since re-published some of them, but not many.
    
    My traffic suffered a huge drop (80%) in 2011 and has never really recovered.
    
    In the first year after the drop, I probably wrote about 100 hubs but they never garnered any search engine traffic.
    
    Then HP decided to put a noindex tag on low trafficked hubs.
    
    Most of mine were dead in the water anyway, so no difference there.
    
    There was a hope that one of those low-trafficked hubs had caused Google to slap my whole subdomain.
    
    Then HP changed the game again by taking off the no-index tag on quality but low-trafficked hubs.
    
    By that time, I had already unpublished a couple of hundred hubs. I re-published some and saw no change.
    
    Then this past week or two Google has started sending some traffic my way.
    
    About 100% more than it has been doing, so not a small number. Still small by way of what they used to send me, but any rise is welcome.
    
    It's got nothing to do with Google authorship, I don't think.
    
    I have noticed that Google is giving more weight to Blogger blogs. The other search engines don't agree, which is just as well for me.

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32. 73

    LeanManposted 11 years ago

    Well my traffic is down, although it seems that many of my hubs are in flux.. some are up some are down. But as misty says today for me is like a bad friday! That being said I am not going to panic just yet as we have all seen this before and often it is a temporary phase before things recover after an update.
    
    There are a couple of observations that I would like to make;
    
    Paul says that overall the hubs that are suffering are the older hubs while newer "fresher" hubs seem to have gained a boost. Which also corresponds to the way things were indexed before, the older hubs having been previously indexed under hubpages.com rather than the subdomains.
    
    But I think the indexing may be a "red herring" or at least not all of the story and that freshness may be the issue - the reason I say this is because I am seeing new/fresh copies of my hubs outranking my original hubs for some searches which should never happen. Google's algo should find the original and show that in the searches but it is not - so is something wrong with the freshness side of the algo and the copy checking??
    
    Also as Izzy says, the changes seem to be favoring blogger - not that Google would ever want to favour its own products!!

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33. 0

    excellasysposted 11 years ago

    I've seen a huge drop in the last few days as well, Hubs I had that were getting several hundred hits a day got less than 20 yesterday.   Something is very wrong.

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34. 0

    delleaposted 11 years ago

    All of my hubs have had very consistent daily traffic and I have noticed no decreases at all. My best suggestion is for all of you to not put all of your eggs in one basket. Try posting your HubPages links in social media sites where appropriate, submit your hubs and profile links to other search engines besides Google, use free self-promotion whenever you can with your friends, family and co-workers and urge them to forward on the links to your hubs that you send them. Last but not least, consider making up some business cards with your name and a link to your HubPages profile and hand them out to whomever, whenever possible. All in all, if you want real self-sustaining traffic, you have to push hard with self-promotion and make your hubs and your profile go viral!

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       DrMark1961posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       This might be easier to believe if it wasnt being written by someone who does not even have the 10K page view yet.

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35. 65

    Astra Nomikposted 11 years ago

    Google seems to have a reported bug and are showing old news in Google news as new or current news. Has anyone noticed it? You can read more of the whole debacle in here at Search Engine Land's new article here:
    
    http://bit.ly/old-Google-new-Google
    
    It seems that there are strange things going on with Google results showing up and the tinkering is having a weird affect on possibly a few things. The author of the above article suggests that Google are somehow benefiting from that issue.
    
    What it has to do with domains and sub-domains i do not know but I though I'd share it in case they are related somehow. I hope traffic picks up. Mine goes up and down anyway so we should just keep posting new content and hope for good things ahead.

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       Greekgeekposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       That news "bug"* has nothing to do with Hubpages traffic. It's specifically a problem with Google News Search, which is news-sources-only (AP, BBC, CNN and so on) rather than a general web search. Go to Google, click on the "News" tab at top, and you'll be taken to a special dedicated portal that combs major online newspapers. Hubpages hubs don't normally show up there.
       
       Nonetheless, that article piqued my interest when I spotted it this morning. I'm shocked that G's news portal has a loophole that was closed on the main websearch page long ago (tricking Google into thinking an article is more current than it is by republishing).
       
       *USA Today is being naughty naughty. I predict that loophole will quietly disappear within the week.
       
       Kudos on reading SearchEngineLand, however! I've learned a ton by following it regularly, although just like any site, you gotta take some of it with a grain of salt. (Danny Sullivan, however, is pure gold.)

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36. 65

    prettydarkhorseposted 11 years ago

    Oh, they are rolling the Panda again which started 18th of this month. It usually stabilizes after ten days G said. Roller coaster.

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37. 65

    prettydarkhorseposted 11 years ago

    Does anybody know what this phrase means  - "Stop advertorials that pass PageRank." I just got this from this video of Matt Cutts some two months ago. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/what-to-e … ng-months/

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       Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       HI PDH My understanding is that pages written to advertise products or services should have outgoing promotional links nofollowed.

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          prettydarkhorseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks Susana S. Seems Panda update is always mean to UGC sites

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       NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Informative video. Clarified for me what Google is trying to do and why.

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    agilitymachposted 11 years ago

    FWIW, my traffic has been up from Google about 150 percent.  I'm hoping it stays this way, but time will tell.   I do not have authorship.

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       sunilkunnoth2012posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I am little bit confused after reading all these comments.  In my case the matter is in a positive line as my traffic is getting doubled for the last two weeks.  I am zero in SEO and only concentrate in picking interesting topics and writing informative articles. I just forget the money factor and just because of that I have no worries on these things as feared by the fellow hubbers.

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          NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I like your approach to writing.

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             sunilkunnoth2012posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Thanks for your nice comments.

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    ajwrites57posted 11 years ago

    Sounds like a classic shell game to me. Seems like Google is trying to keep itself relevant or ahead of everyone and we will never really find the ball under the shell. Don't think this is one I will ever win at.

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40. 64

    beaddve1800posted 11 years ago

    In my perspective, people working in SEO needs to have some respect for resources such as Squidoo, Hubpages. There are many people lacks of SEO knowledge and respect in this industry. They have been word shuffling the articles and post it on Hubpage, Squidoo, etc websites, that leads to Google questioning Hubpages is a place for spam. All of these are beginning from these SEO people!
    
    I think Hubpages need to more restrict and kick these people out in order to build up a better trust to Google.

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    1. 77

       Greekgeekposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Google's Matt Cutts says that SEO is not a bad thing, and that Google doesn't penalize SEO. Do you know why? Do you know what he means by that?
       
       In order to get rid of SEO on Hubpages, you would have to get rid of:
       
       -- The categories that help people and search engines find hubs.
       -- Links between hubs showing related hubs, and any page on Hubpages that features or lists hubs. Good SEO is helping people navigate a site to discover what's on it.
       -- Page titles and URLs. All page titles would have to be vague, and all URLs would have to be strings of numbers. That way, people and search engines would have no clue what the link was about until they clicked on them.
       -- Member profiles and profile pages. Pointing Google and readers to your other work is an essential part of SEO, helping demonstrate your competence as an author.
       -- Capsule headers. They help readers and search engines understand the structure and flow of the page. That's good SEO, so you'd have to stop doing that.
       -- Links to relevant content that help the user understand more about the topic. Again, that's good SEO, so you'd have to stop doing that.
       -- Image captions. Again, they help readers and search engines understand the page, so that's good SEO. Can't have that, right?
       -- Spelling, grammar and proofreading. Google's algorithm notices whether pages are well-written or contain major typos and spelling mistakes.
       -- A good user experience. Making pages interactive, engaging, useful and fascinating are part of good SEO, because they retain readers and help the page rank better in Google.
       -- Share buttons encouraging readers to share the page on Twitter, Facebook, or Google.
       -- The comment section. Again, Google's looking for more ways to interpret reader input and user feedback into its algorithm, so creating pages that readers respond to and leave comments on is another form of SEO.
       
       I wouldn't want to be on a site that got rid of all those things, would you?

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41. 64

    theherbivorehippiposted 11 years ago

    What  a mess!

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42. 89

    Stacie Lposted 11 years ago

    Well I guess not all Pandas are cute and cuddly! 

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43. 63

    BahamasFinderposted 11 years ago

    Thanks for the update! That does explain a lot...

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44. 61

    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    Google wants fresh content? Fine, I'll give them fresh content. Updated 8 hubs today.

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       Victoria Lynnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       :-)

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       Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       A new Hub counts as fresh content.

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45. 85

    rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago

    My WMTools data is a mess.  It shows all of my hubs now indexed on my subdomain, but when I check 'links to my site', it has no record of links to the hubs that were previously indexed on the HP domain.  These hubs were my most linked hubs.  Have I now lost forever this data with the switch back to our subdomains?
    Has anyone else noticed this problem?
    It's so confusing and frustrating to me.  I'm glad I don't do this for a living, but I have worked hard on those hubs.  With the talk about PR of our profile, mine used to be a PR 4 before the site structure changed and the Google switch to being indexed on the HP domain.   Then it dropped to a 3.  I haven't checked lately to see what it is.  I know it is just part of the factors that are looked at.
    It appears that it's going to take some time to see what's going on.  But I'm sure freshness plays a big part.

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46. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years ago

    We are still seeing a lot of flux.  It looks like there is quite a bit left to update to me.

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    1. 95

       PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       That is my experience.  Mainly down, but also some serious spikes.  Fingers crossed there's a happy ending to this latest bout of turbulence.

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       1. 94

          wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          What I can't quite figure is that with the lowest traffic figures in 8 months and a sea of blue, I've still got 6 red arrows!  They're all on low traffic hubs, but still...

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          1. 95

             PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             I have about 3 hubs that are doing well, and the other 97 are falling off a cliff.  Surely there must be a bounce back soon?

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                mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Not holding my breath

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                1. 95

                   PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   For sure, I've had crashes where there has been a quick and strong recovery without any effort, and I've had crashes where I had to crawl back up the mountain on my hands and knees over many months.  Time will tell what will happen this time...

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                   1. 89

                      mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      Lol, I think my days of 'crawling up mountains' may be over. Crawled up too many only to be unceremoniously thrown off them again. Too little to gain with no guarantees of success. Not jumping through more hoops now, from next year planning on focusing more on growing veg plants at home to sell at local car boot sales (far better money and plenty of demand based on my very recent weeks of selling). Will continue to write veg growing articles here and there (especially on my own site) with a view to making a small income, but not going to get too obsessed with HP as I feel they are on their way out (even though I hate to say it and still don't know for sure if this is Google who don't like HP, or HP that are just doing too many things wrong).

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47. 52

    janderson99posted 11 years ago

    Its probably far too late to go back, but imagine what HP traffic would be like if the subdomains were sunk and we all re-joined the mother ship. There is certainly good evidence that the old pages tied to the host URL did better than when they were transferred to the subdomain. It seems Google counts the taint for the bad stuff across the entire site but only considers 'authority' vis the subdomains. Time will tell I guess. The drop in my 3-day average CPM is devastating.
    
    

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48. 61

    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    I think I may have discerned what the hubbers who have had their views destroyed have in common.
    
    Those hubs that haven't been tweaked or updated in over a year are the ones that are having their traffic disappear.
    
    But even the really old hubs that have been regularly tweaked/updated have not lost their traffic.
    
    I'm sure there are exceptions, but I think it's a valid observation.
    
    Is it too late to start updating those neglected hubs now? I don't see why it would be.

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    1. 60

       Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       er. Not me.  Pretty much everything tweaked this year.  Improved, etc.
       
       Lost traffic in this update.

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       1. 61

          paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Damn. I was sure I was onto something there...
          
          Those accounts that I checked (admittedly not many), who had stated they had lost a major part of their traffic, all had hubs that hadn't been updated in a long time.
          
          Oh, well... Was worth a shot...

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             Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             You might be right for some.  But I checked my hundred or so pages and apart from a few - all of them have been updated this year, some several times, some in July.
             
             I have lost traffic as a percentage across the board, slipped down the rankings a notch here and there.
             
             Google has reduced traffic to my hubs, shaving a percentage off them.

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          2. 95

             jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             I think you are on to something, para. The tweaking and updating does work. It may depend on the type of hub, the url, and how old they are. Being here under a year, it works for me, traffic fluctuates but is overall on the up and up.

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             janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Every one of my 900 hubs have been edited this year and I have still lost significant traffic from hubs older than 2 years.

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             jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             "Hubs over two years old," I think is the operative phrase here.

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                mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                If it wasn't for all the back links and possible copies out there I would be very tempted to try unpublishing all my Hubs that were published prior to 2013, de-index them and then publish them again either here, or in a different place completely just to see if they do better when viewed as new content by Google. That said, I am losing traffic across the board right now, not just on older Hubs, so not 100% convinced that the 2 year rule applies.

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                   jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   Interesting, not sure what to make of this, really. I wish you well whatever you decide.

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                      PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      I edit/tweak every hub on a 3 month rotation (more for the better-performing ones).  Still sank like a stone.

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                      1. 95

                         jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         I'm having the opposite effect as I edit/update constantly. Maybe it's just HP traffic but it seems to be helping. I know for sure that organic traffic has increased lately.

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                            PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                            Updating always helps.  But when your traffic has fallen by 2/3s, the help is only relative.

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49. 87

    moonlakeposted 11 years ago

    Old hubs should not be the problem. When going on the internet looking for something on first page you have to weed through old websites that google has put in first place. They don't seem to care about the age of any website. Those sites that should be pushed down aren't and have never been updated. At least on Hubpages most of us keep our hubs updated.

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       aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I agree.  It is particularly annoying with computer topics.  I keep finding what I think are good keywords for computer components, because the first page is all out of date articles, but I can't outrank the old stuff.
       
       You'd think google would know that with computer components, what was recommended a couple of years ago is completely useless now!
       
       Matt Cutts himself has repeatedly said that freshness is only important for certain topics, like current affairs etc. (not that I necessarily believe anything he says).
       
       But I've seen plenty of examples where old stuff (not mine obviously) is on top in the SERPs. 
       
       I suspect the reason old hubs are particularly tanking now is because they were the only ones to be indexed under the HP domain.  None of my hubs were ever indexed that way, they were always on my subdomain, and my traffic has not been hit.

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       1. STAFF

          Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          From what we can tell, you're right.  Hubs that were older were showing on hubpages.com and now they're not.  When they switched to the subdomain, the rankings/traffic fell.
          
          It's puzzling why google wasn't showing hubs on their subdomains all along, and if they were intentionally doing it, why the rankings would change for mainly those pages.
          
          We can see a few patterns, but still see lots of updating still going on....I'd really like things to settle down...

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          1. 74

             livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             I suspect it is because those older hubs were originally indexed through the root domain and since nothing really changed on the pages themselves, other than some minor tweaks, once they were moved to the subs they came across as duplicates even though they were redirected to the subs.  G only showed the original version and dismissed the duplicates.

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             1. 82

                SimeyCposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                I seem to remember that initially all my hubs were indexed on my sub-domain and then something happened in an update earlier this year - I saw an instant spike - this seems to have reversed that (with interest!).

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                   Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   Yep.
                   
                   These older hubs were indexed on the subdomain urls when we moved to those 2 years ago.  I don't have an exact date of when people started noticing that many pre-sub hubs were being indexed via HP's main domain, but I think it was around the end of March this year.
                   
                   So timewise they spent about 18 months on subdomain urls, then 4/5 months on main domain url's, now we're back to subdomain url's again.

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                      brakel2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      I already had noticed a real dip on Webmaster Tools in March. My indexed pages really dropped off at that time and said not found for many of my pages..

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                      1. 95

                         PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Yeah, as others have said, the indexing has shifted around over the last couple of years.  I am not sure if the shifts are entirely Google, or sometimes Hubpages trying to influence things at times to maximize traffic.
                         
                         I am hoping that like with March, when things settle, my traffic will bounce back.  Although, it did go on a gradual decline after that...

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             Victoria Lynnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Me, too! (the settling down part!)

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             paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             
             Not really.

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50. 61

    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    Today's plan, muddle along and update some more hubs. And I've instructed my subconscious to come up with my next, new hub idea; wish me luck on that...

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       PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Just when you think traffic levels have bottomed out, they go even lower.  That is my recent experience.  Grim.

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          TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          It is my understanding that Google plays with its algorithms on weekends to test out various scenarios.  This can result in highs or lows in page views.  Today must be a low day!

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             jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Yeah, really, really low.

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                paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                I have become bored with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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                   paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                   I just had a very delicious chicken ala king dinner. I am once again interested in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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                   1. 94

                      Rochelle Frankposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                      Some things are just that simple--- though the founding fathers, who expressed that concept  so eloquently, may have objected to a recipe with "ala king" in it.

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                         paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                         Low traffic and low blood sugar, bad.
                         
                         Good traffic and good blood sugar, good.
                         
                         

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                            TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                            Heads up everybody:  Check out this forum thread ASAP:  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/115054  Apparently someone has copied the entire HP website and has translated it into French!  I have emailed the team about this, but you guys need to take a look.  THIS may be the culprit that has been causing us all of the problems!

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                               Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                               Nope it's got nothing to do with that.
                               
                               French pages do not compete in the search results with English pages.
                               
                               (Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the French site was actually owned by Hubpages Inc.)

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