Panda and Indexing Changes

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   sharmapk752posted 11 years ago

   Thanks for sharing such a useful post. Keep it up!

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   adrianlawrenceposted 11 years ago

   LeanMan
   
   I don't say that quality has changed at all, its gone up on hubpages due to the deletions etc I've been a member here on hubpages for years and understand that 100,000's of hubs were created years ago, and that each day only a small number change.
   
   What I am suggesting is that Google has changed its scoring system.
   
   Lets say the quality score is out of 100% and hubpages score is currently 75.%
   
   If the Panda algo is pushing the threshold up with each run then the site was above the "threshold before" but is now below?  See what I mean.  Its Google that are changing not hubpages.
   
   That explains why Scribeb, Squiddo, Articlesbase and all similar UGC sites are all suffering in the same way.

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      Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      But Google results are getting much worse for the subjects that I search out.

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         aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         +1, also right now I am seeing a lot of flux in the SERPs.  It is almost as if Google is changing its "quality" standards on a daily basis.

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   aa liteposted 11 years ago

   It appears that HP is going to try a new trick to see whether some pages can regain traffic.  There will be Editor's Choice handpicked hubs, which will be indexed on the main domain.  Hopefully benefitting from the high PR and isolated from everything else. http://blog.hubpages.com
   
   It's an interesting idea.  Although in the short term the reorganisation can again cause havoc.  Also if all your best hubs are moved to the main domain, your subdomain is going to be weaker.  But if it helps traffic in the long term.......
   
   What I would hope is that the related hubs on the main domain are other Editor Choice's so that the isolation from potential bad stuff is complete.

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      drpennypincherposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the heads up!
      This sounds like a lot of work for the editors...
      I've removed my copyright notices from text capsules in accordance with the HubPages style guide to improve my chances of getting hubs picked.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      aalite:  This is going to cause the biggest mess HP has ever seen. I understand what they are trying to do, and I applaud their creativity.  However, what will happen to writers like me.  I have grouped my work into niches which are interlinked with each other under umbrella articles that link back to them.  If you remove one, you affect all...and if the one you remove is also the directory article, well...the whole bridge collapses.  It took me many months to organize my work this way, and now who knows what will happen!  I'm going to let it fly as is and not opt out, but I can see what is really happening here is that everybody's subdomains are most likely going to get decimated.  If this happens, HP can say goodbye.  This is the same thing Charter schools are doing to the public school system...take the cream of the crop and let the rest do without.  We better hang on to our hats because this could easily turn into a major disaster.  What is left will be good, and the site can rebuild from that, but most of the writers will not be able to do the same.  If you have 100 featured hubs and they choose 25 of them, they are telling you that the other 75 won't have a chance of making it .  I am physically ill about this news right now!

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         wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Yes and no.  A common comment is that 20% of the hubs get 80% of the traffic (and income) and my subdomain shows that to be true.  Given that it may be that taking 30% or so for "editor's choice" may negatively the remaining 70% quite badly, but going from 3 views per day to zero isn't going to affect things much.  Especially not if those choice hubs go from 20 to 50 views per day.
         
         Like you, I'm going to sit tight and keep a careful eye on both individual hub traffic (choice or not) as well as overall traffic.  We'll see what happens.

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            TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Wilderness: I have very few hubs that get even 20 views per day, even though all are featured.  If that is the standard, I might as well dump the entire site!  Yes, 20 or so percent do get most of the traffic, but the traffic is nothing like what you are suggesting. I think there are many people here in the same boat as me and if the standard is going to be x number of hits per day, well...I wish all of us here good luck!

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               wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Well, I just picked numbers out of the air as an example - I don't have many that get 20 views per day, either.
               
               But I trust you see the point; if those "choice" hubs see a large traffic gain, even though only a small part of the total hubs, it could easily override any loss the remaining, poorer quality, hubs might have.

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         Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I have opted OUT.  Option on your profile.  I don't need some sub QAP merchant 'selecting' any of my hubs.
         
         Not that they would anyway.

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            Bendo13posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Glad I saw this... I'm going to opt out as well.
            
            Dear HubPages staff,
            Stop it.  Leave it alone.  Let the dust settle.
            The subdomains were created so that we would rise up if we earned it, through the quality of our writing.  I know traffic is important (it makes both you and all of us money), but stick to your guns.
            Thanks,
            -Ben

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            TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I don't see anything on my profile that gives me an opt out option.  Where is it, Mark?

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               TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Mark...found it.  They hid it in the Edit Profile.  I decided to opt out also, and here is why:  I think we've confused Google enough and any further massive changes will only make things worse.  I may be wrong, but that is how I feel!

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   brakel2posted 11 years ago

   Traffic began dropping in March for me with subdomain change. That was when Webmaster Tools said they could not find my articles. Maybe this time no redirects will occur if they are moved to main domain.

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      Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      It's very important that redirects ARE put in place.
      
      https://support.google.com/webmasters/a … 3633?hl=en
      
      http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307 … -Care.aspx

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   brakel2posted 11 years ago

   Susanna Don't redirects slow page load? I know how sharp you are. So help us understand.

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   brakel2posted 11 years ago

   @bendo.  Did your traffic improve after the deal with WebmasterTools?  Did you submit a site map?

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      Bendo13posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Submitting the sitemap changed nothing...
      I saw a dip in traffic like most people did, with the recent Panda change, but now my traffic is back to how it was before the recent Panda change.
      
      I'm opting out of the Editor's Choice deal because I want my hubs to be indexed as they should be... on my subdomain.  I'm getting close to the same traffic I was before, which leads me to believe that having them indexed incorrectly (through hubpages.com) didn't really help all that much.
      
      I'd like to be in full control (or as much as I possibly can) over whether my subdomain rises or crashes... It's a good gauge to let me know if I'm doing better or not... having the HubPages staff reach in and give me a gold star for the day messes with that gauge.

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Bendo, I'm glad yours are up...mine are still on a roller coaster ride,and I see no rhyme or reason for it.

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   brakel2posted 11 years ago

   Time Traveler.  I cannot find the opt out. Help.

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      LCDWriterposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Go to My Profile/Edit Profile and it is right under the "others you might like" blacklist section.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      brake12: I was about to answer this when I saw that LCDWriter did so.  Sorry ... I was a bit late lol!

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   brakel2posted 11 years ago

   Thank you so much LCDWriter. I found it in that strange place.

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   Cheeky Girlposted 11 years ago

   This is interesting. The new update is having weird and interesting effects on my hub score. I rose from 65 up to 88. Google announced that they are more inclined to favor long form content, and since hubs fit that  quite a bit, perhaps that is why people with longer hub word counts per hub as with mine - are getting a boost. All kinds of ripple effects happening in hubs these days...

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      mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      It seems very unlikely anything Google has done is causing a rise on your Hub Score average. It has been said by so many hubbers over the years that their hub score (per hub) can be really high on a hub with very little traffic, and much lower on one with a lot of traffic. Ignoring both Hub Scores and Hubber Author Scores is generally the best course of action.

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         LeanManposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         except that now a hubber score of less than 85 will now cause all of your links to be no follow...

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            Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            what does no follow mean?

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               LeanManposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               When google sees a link with a "no follow" it ignores the link... So while a person may follow it, google gives it no value at all.

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                  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks Leanman and MH.
                  What does that mean, "gives it value"? How does it benefit you to have ppl follow links?

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                     Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     It benefits you if those links are to your own blogs, which you want to send traffic to.   
                     
                     If you don't use your Hubs for that, then the "no follow" rule needn't worry you.

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                        Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        NoFollow links are a problem in many ways.  So long as Hubs aren't linking to spam sites, NoFollow sends a message to Google that the content on the HubPages domain is not trustworthy.  Google has stated:
                        
                        "Parts of our system encourage links to good sites."
                        
                        To NoFollow links to valuable resources will hurt your Hub in search rankings and hurts the entire HubPages site in search rankings.  It effectively says that there are too many links to webpages that are not trusted by HubPages (the referrer) or are advertising.
                        
                        The NoFollow tag only belongs on links of that nature and HubPages has consistently refused to provide a way for authors to appropriately designate what should be a NoFollow link (advertising, advertorials and affiliates).
                        
                        To use this as some kind of punishment for authors with a low Hubber score is not just silly; it is destructive and hurts the entire website.  If a Hub is linking to spam, kill the Hub. If a Hub is poor quality, block search engines.  But to just slap a NoFollow on the links is very poor judgment.

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                           TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                           Writer Fox:  The more I read of your comments, the more I think that HP is trying to commit suicide!  I wish I knew what was going on in the team's minds that makes them think these things are not important enough to properly address.  I have always written featured hubs and done OK (not great) here for a person who is not tech savvy.  Today my views have gone so low that if this continues, before long I will have no views whatsoever.  Paul E keeps talking about the EC deal but appears to be ignoring the other issues here.  Like most of us here, I am at my wits end.  I love HP, but they are killing me off.

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                              Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                              The guy has 31 hubs and less than 100,000 views. And you you really think he has more idea of how to run a huge site like this than the founders?
                              
                              Good heavens...

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                                 TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                                 Will Apse:  He has not been on this site very long, and while he does make some mistakes here and there, I think he hits the mark many times.  I have been here 19 months and have NEVER had 100,000 view and doubt I ever will, despite the fact that all of my hubs are featured, I write well, etc.  So,I can't knock him for only having 31 views...I've got 108 right now and have had more!  My bigger concern is that my views have become so terrible these past few weeks that soon I won't have any...so how much faith can I have in those who are running this site?  Yes, Google has slapped us around,hard...but they clearly must be doing something wrong.  If good writers are getting man handled, it ain't the writing!

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                                    TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                                    I meant I have 108 articles right now, sorry.

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                                 Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                                 I only had three Hubs on this site until two months ago. SEO isn't something you learn from being on HubPages.  You really should get out more on the World Wide Web.  The present 'ideas' for the direction of HubPages aren't  working.  Look at the traffic:  it's down to 2009 levels.  There are sound reasons for that.

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                                    Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                                    Only three hubs until 2 months ago...
                                    
                                    So that was your level of investment in this site up until that point.
                                    
                                    I wonder what exactly caught your eye? What drew you to the site two months ago?

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                                       Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                                       Always trying to win the popularity contest.

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                                          Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                                          I have some weird attachment to the truth, lol.
                                          
                                          My patience sees me through.

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                                             Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                                             That's what the doctor said.

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                                       Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                                       I see.  And that is why you troll the forum and post untruths.  You sound like one of those old British men with a strange attraction to Thailand.

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               mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

               It means any outgoing links you place in your hubs e.g. to other sites you might wish to send traffic to, will be ignored by Google. HP must have changed the rules on the the score you need to have for your links to be marked as 'no follow' though, as it was always 75 as opposed to the 85 Leanman says it now is.
               
               All that said I am not really worried either way right now as I have lost hope for this site's recovery, things have just got too bad.
               
               Edit: Whoops sorry Leanman, I just realised you already answered this right below Beth's post.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      All of my hubs have longer word counts and NONE of them are getting any kind of boost!  I'm down 2/3 in both numbers and CPMs ever since this update occurred.

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    Beth37posted 11 years ago

    I love Thai food... and Englishmen.

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       jimmythejockposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Jealous, Beth I thought it was the Scotsmen that you loved, I got a kilt and everything.....jimmy

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          Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Oh I can be swayed.

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             Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             The idea of anything swaying in any connection with kilts sends me scurrying back to the lowlands.
             
             I just ain't your modern man. lol.

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                Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                lol

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    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    This Saturday's HP traffic was higher than last Saturday's HP traffic.

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