Traffic Dropped By 50%

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85
WryLiltposted 11 years ago
Bye bye traffic!

My account has dropped from ~3000 views per day to 1700 (and still dropping). At least 1/3 of that traffic is from Pinterest.

Google, what are you doing?
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1. 60
  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Same here Wry - even my dependable pages have dropped significantly. I am half what I was two / three months ago. My graph just shows a continuous slide.
  
  Beginning to wonder if it will go to zero eventually,
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  andromidaposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Only 20 percent of my daily traffic is coming from Google.I guess Google traffic will come back once the indexing stuff settle down.I've lost nearly 60 percent of my total traffic.
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  sholland10posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My traffic is down by 3/4. Like Mark, my big traffic hubs have almost completely tanked. Is it everyone or just some. I can't help but wonder what the deal is. It seems it was a bout a month ago that Google went through their technical changes. Traffic went down, but not like this. It gradually went back up then POOF - nearly non-existent. Doesn't take a techy to see that something is wrong. Why does it always seem to happen when I am at the peak of traffic and earning, too??? Frustrated. ;/
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  agilitymachposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My Google traffic is up 200 percent or more. It is not everyone. I can't tell you why except that my stuff is all fresh content, and I pretty much am a niche writer.
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  wowtgpposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  What's going on here? It seems as though Google dislikes HubPages.
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  Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Maybe part of the problem is that Hubs are getting old in Google and being replaced by newer material. Google likes newer things. What was a highly ranked Hub in Google a year ago may have dropped in ranking due to its age? Or perhaps the topics themselves are not being searched as much?
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Not true. One of my first and most successful articles is still on page one of Google...but the views on it have dropped by about 75%. It's a popular niche topic that many people normally search for...and yet...!!!
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  WriteAngledposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My hub traffic was never good, but it is now at about 15% of what it was at its peak about a year ago.
  
  On the other hand, my web sites have material that has not been updated for two years or more. They have seen either no change or a slight increase in traffic.
  
  So I do not think what is happening on HP is due to the freshness factor.
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I think it might be affecting newer accounts less severely? My account is less than a year old and I haven't had a decline like everyone else is talking about. *knock on wood*
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Good hypothesis which my testing corroborates... But at the same time I think that may just be a symptom not the cause.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  WryLilt: You are having the same thing happen that just happened to me. At first, my hubs were stable. Then suddenly, last week. they took a nose dive. All are featured, and while my traffic is nothing like yours and never has been, it still took a dump. I think Google is going through hubs systematically and nailing everybody...some just get it later than others. Sorry this has happened to you because if it happens to you, everybody here is at risk.
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  sholland10posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I agree with TimeTraveler. If it is happening to a top hubber, it is going to trickle down. I know I have been hit.
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  Faith Reaperposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, TimeTraveler, all of my hubs are featured, but the traffic is slowed and so my score went from 97 to 85 in just a matter of days!!! Wow, that is drastic to say the least.
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  lorlie6posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Hi, WL,
  Over the past few days I've noticed the very same thing, and though I am too embarrassed to give the actual #s, I would say mine's dropped almost 60%...Yikes!! Have any inklings regarding Google's M.O. this time?
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I think speed and adverts are becoming big players. And avoiding titles in the sense they were once used.
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  writing4actionposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Hubpages is losing traffic fast. I don't know about you but the hub that was fine yesterday is unpublished today. I believe that big sites with tons of content, such as article directories, are getting a serious hit in google's rank. maybe google figured out that people want more niche sites and blogs, where they can find more similar information with a click or two, than a huge mainstream website or blog with lots of unrelated articles and links.
  
  thats my experience, niche blogs get better search engine positions, especially on goolgle
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  Brie Hoffmanposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I've been writing for hubpages for over 5 years now and every single time I get close to making a decent amount of money this happens. I can tell you this..this is getting old.
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  Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I've only been here 3 years, almost 4 and I am getting really tired of it too.
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  barryrutherfordposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  my traffic has dropped to as low as the day i started with one hub six years ago...
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  formosangirlposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am not one to boast about traffic to begin with. Ironically, I have started to take the problematic articles off Hubpages and Squidoo and placing them on Blogger, which is AdSense compatible blogging site. I noticed that one click at Blogger is worth at least 15 days here. I also have 80 views versus 22. Maybe...Google is driving people to its own site, Blogger? That's my guess.
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  mary615posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I recently started writing on Blogger, and I think you may be right, formosangirl. I have taken Hubs that were not doing so well on HP and moved them to Blogger. It's been hard for me to learn, though....not as simple as HP to write on. That is sort of my game plan now.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  A couple of tips:
  
  1. Add your blog to the links section on your profile, so people can find it.
  
  2. Remember that Google wants 'authority' sites. If you're going to move Hubs to your blog, make sure they are all on the same topic. There's no point creating a Blogger blog that's a mixture of posts on different subjects, Google will not like it.
  
  You don't have to choose a narrow "niche" - your topic can be broad. For instance, I have a blog specialising in pointe work, but a blog on ballet or even dance would be fine, too.
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  Faith Reaperposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Hi Mary, good to know! Very interesting.
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  apartmentsinminskposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, blogspot blogs are ranking much more better than a hub..I see those blogs everyday in the google search..
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  maalarueposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I hear you,
  
  my average daily views were close to 1000 for 12 Hubs, and now only around 300. I thought it might be HubPages to blame, but the more I research I see that Google is to blame. Normally I would say that my pages have dropped 1-3 pages in Google search, but it has become more obvious that in actuality, other less important and low quality sites have moved ahead of me. The reason I say that it because for a specific search term that ranked me on the first page of Google, I now have about 10-15 sites that jumped ahead of me ALL promoting a book (the same book) with the almost the exact title as my article. So it appears that Google's change is less about finding quality, but more about selling products?
  
  People will stop using Google if they do not correct this problem. Search engines are all about getting quality results, and not about getting useless duplicate search results. If I search a term and get 20 results for sites hyping the same book, I will go to Bing or Yahoo. I'm sure they're smart enough to figure this out. In the mean time all we can do is wait. I'm sure it will turn around.
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  aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I have also seen low quality results outranking my hubs which used to be at the top of the SERPs previously. Now we have to remember of course that we are not exactly objective about our own work......but still.
  
  In some cases the results on the first page don't really match the query, so this goes beyond quality, surely the primary objective of a search engine should be to give a page that answers the search query?
  
  Unlike you the results that have outranked me aren't really selling anything. What I think happened is that Google introduced changes to its algo that really work against HP, not necessarily intentionally, so now our hubs are considered rubbish.
  
  The SERPs are so bad, that I keep hoping that Google will reverse the changes, but I've been waiting for a long time, and it just seems to be getting worse!
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I think there are a couple of reasons for the kinds of results you are describing.
  
  1. Sometimes what we think the searcher wants when they type in a particular query is not what they actually want.
  
  2. Google Panda is based on machine learning and it can only learn by assessing various user metrics from a wide variety of options. I've seen the search results do what you describe many times now. They start off really terrible after a big Panda update and gradually improve as more user metrics are collected. I don't know why, but Google seems to have almost gone back to the beginning with the latest update . It may also be testing and learning from new signals/metrics
  
  3. As part of #2 ,Google rates domains with a trustrank and they se.em to be giving this factor huge weight at the moment ie: the domain a page is on matters more than actually matching the specific query.
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  aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You are probably right, and there is probably some learning going on. That would definitely explain the flux.
  
  One thing that is interesting, is that Matt Cutts admitted to an update on July 18th (I think) because somebody tweeted him about a spammy site with 20k links ranking on page1. He replied that they were rolling out an update which would take some time. I wonder if it's possible that Google made big changes in the "learning" part of the algorithm, went to the beginning as you say, and are happy for it to digest all the data?
  
  I keep hoping that the SERPs will improve, because honestly I am outranked by pretty bad stuff (and it aint all wikipedia or edu stuff either).
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  The update was reported to last 10 days, so from 18th - 28th July, but what went in to it? I couldn't tell you!
  
  Here are some more clues about recent algo changes (I don't know how I missed these).
  
  http://searchenginewatch.com/article/22 … y-Examples
  
  http://searchenginewatch.com/article/22 … rom-Google
  
  http://www.hmtweb.com/marketing-blog/pe … -may-2013/
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  maalarueposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for the links - awesome information!
  
  From what I have read, the new algorithms are penalizing sites heavily that have unnatural links. Would the user profile links in our Hub's comment section be considered unnatural links? If these links are indeed an issue, at least HubPages is taking action to correct this issue. See below:
  
  "Comment Links
  We have found that Hubs with many comments were crossing Google’s Webmaster Guidelines for the number of links in a page. To address this issue, we changed the way that signed-out readers view profile links in comments: usernames are no longer hyperlinked. This change will reduce the number of links in Hubs and keep us within Google’s guidelines."
  
  Any thoughts?
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  Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You would need 100 links to go pass the guidelines. My traffic from Google is way down. I'll have to check a few of them.
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  Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  One of mine has 442 comments. This could be why the older hubs are getting hit harder.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Maybe we should all delete "comments" on our settings to see if that makes a difference? I only have a few articles with many comments, but still...
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My initial thought is that many Wikipedia pages have well over 1000 links on them.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  All external links on Wiki are NoFollow. Actually, Google's Matt Cutts has suggested that Wiki follow some of its external links, but I guess they don't have enough volunteers to edit the links.
  
  You can have a million links on a page, but Google will only follow the first 100 followed links.
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah but most wiki links are internal and I'm pretty sure they're all followed.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I have a screen shot on my SEO Tutorial Hub that shows which links on a Wiki Page are Followed and which are NoFollow. However many followed links there are, Google will only crawl the first 100 and in the order the bot finds them. Google bot starts in the top left hand column of a page, crawls down, and then starts at the top of the second column, etc. Bing/Yahoo starts at the top left hand column and scrolls horizontally.
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, I know. That's why as SEO's we always try to put the links we want to get the most juice near the top of a page.
  
  The question was, does having more than 100 dofollow links on a page harm it from a Google point of view? Will it get automatically penalised simply because of that one factor?
  
  I'm not saying a site will never get penalised for it (manybe when this is in combination with a lot of other much more important factors), but my initial thought is that there are many pages on domains that Google absolutely loves with many more than 100 dofollow links such as this one:
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy
  
  which according to this link counter has 1801 internal, links, and by doing a few sums, it looks like they are nearly all of them dofollow.
  
  Maybe Wiki has special dispensation from Google?
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You can have as many as you want so long as they are relevant to content, but they won't be followed by Googlebot after the 100th one and links numbered 100+ won't receive PageRank benefits.
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  jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Oh my, not a good idea to site Wiki as a source in hub text hyperlinks or link capsules?
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  She's talking about the number of links on a Wikipedia article, not on a Hub. It's OK to link to a Wiki article on your Hub.
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  Doodleheadposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I just made an "overlapping" post below. That is I agree about the searches being not so great.
  
  I had not seen your post, but the same things you describe are happening to me.
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  Nitin Pillaiposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  "Google's change is less about finding quality, but more about selling products"...this, I agree with Maalarue.
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  maalarueposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'm also hoping that perhaps what we are experiencing is a phenomenon referred to as "summer doldrums". It exists in the financial and investment community, so why not here. Perhaps more people are out on vacation relaxing on the beach rather than on the computer or phone. Just a thought.
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  Nitin Pillaiposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I hope it really is just that...
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  alexadryposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Don't think so, have been here for 5 summers and this seems more than a case of "summer doldrums" to me.
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  moonlakeposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Me too.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Are your Hubs ranking well on Google for their keywords?
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  Doodleheadposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am not that great on SEO but I am pretty good at doing actual searches.
  
  Recently I get search results that seem to lack diversity. I also find search results at the top of the heap that do not appear to be connected to the keywords for the search.
  
  Then I have to scroll down to find the results of interest....sometimes I have to scroll pretty far down as compared from before. My searches now suck and I am trying out other engines to see if I can find anything that is more efficient.
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  aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I, and other people, are finding the same thing.
  
  I have a hub on "types of frogs", which used to do quite well. Now it's outranked by "frogs in Canada", "frogs in Florida", "frog facts for kids" etc. none of these results are really about types of frogs.
  
  The hope is that Google will realise that the latest update made the SERPs worse and will reverse it. But we've been waiting for that to happen for a long time............
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  yougotmeposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My traffic is almost the same, but the problem is my CPM, it tends to get lower these past few days. Right now, it is 33% that what it usually is.
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  barryrutherfordposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Indded my traffic is from Pinterest right now down from 500+ per day to 70+
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  Urielposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am having the same problem. At first, I thought that it was the quality of my hubs that went down the hill and thought that it reflected through the traffic. Then I noticed that this is a common problem and the quality of my hubs were consistent with what I held to be good pieces.
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Carola Finchposted 11 years ago
My jaw dropped when I saw how low my traffic was this morning. I started here in March and had terrrrific traffic, mostly from Facebook and Twitter, but now am next to nothing. Another site I write for has been having the worst traffic since I started a year ago as well. Hope things pick up!
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  innerspinposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Some of my hubs have virtually no traffic. When somebody views them I think it may be a copier, there are so many rip offs. My best performers are still ok. Think I joined internet writing at the wrong time!
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Solarasposted 11 years ago
I unpublished my two worst performing hubs. They were still featured, but only got 1-4 views a week. My stats are up 50% (small number of page views to begin with so it's easy to make a big percentage jump). Ziyena on another thread had suggested it, and had a similar experience of improvement in stats..
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SmartAndFunposted 11 years ago
My traffic is the pits. Low and lower.
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Thelma Albertsposted 11 years ago
Mine, too. 50% down;-(((
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Fiction Tellerposted 11 years ago
Let's see. Tracking by Google Analytics...

I was hit by the first Panda on February 24, 2011. My traffic was cut by about 40%. That wasn't so bad, though it felt huge at the time. It still left us with a healthy income.

The next hit came August 30, 2011. Another 50%.

About a week later, on September 8, 2011, I became a "plunger" and lost another 50%. (You'd think this would mean zero, even less than zero, wouldn't you? Au contraire, it's like integrals in calculus, where you keep approaching zero but never get there.)

I recovered that 50% and more with the subdomains switch around October 20, 2011.

Friday, January 6, 2012, I plunged again, lower than ever. Experienced a few surges above water until February 26, when I flatlined until March 23, 2013.

Then, while I waited for the ax to fall, it was back to just 30% below pre-Panda levels for four months...until July 21, 2013.

Now it's not the lowest it's ever been, but it's close. Sad-making.

I would love to continue writing content for the Web using the HubPages model, but it's not working.

Despite the existence of social media, Google's in a strategic position of power because it's a major part of the still-in-its-infancy online commercial infrastructure. When it makes casual, sweeping changes, the infrastructure gets shaken. The old infrastructure's dying, so that leaves entrepreneurial ventures floundering to find a footing anywhere.

(Clearing throat and taking toastmaster opportunity...)

I think we're in a critical transition period between economic systems (car-based vs. digital). That means we're in a watershed period - a worldwide depression that won't be recognized as such for many years. Google doesn't have the power to stop the tumultuous conversion, but it does have the power to make it smoother, less devastating...or to hasten the "crash." It's (unknowingly) pushing at least sections of the world right into that crash - at least, the sections with strong 20th century infrastructure, which, though they have the most resources, also have the biggest investment in the withering economic model.

I'd love to focus my energies here, because I've thought for years that HubPages has a fantastic model - or at least, the seed of a model - for Internet expansion. Vision, in other words. But focusing on any one strategy is too risky right now.

So diversify, diversify, diversify...everyone says it, and it's true. But what does it mean? It means look elsewhere in this new model and see what our parents/grandparents/great grandparents saw in the early 20th century: niches that needed filling. Expect fierce competition but also an ever-broadening horizon. The Internet is the closest thing we've ever come to infinity and its potential for expansion is unprecedented.

(...stepping down from incomprehensible segue...)

Anyway, as I was saying, it makes a person glum. Wish there was something I could do other than ride the wave.
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  lorlie6posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Fiction Teller, if your post is any indication of your writing prowess, I am very impressed!
  Your prose has a unique flow that, well, 'wows' me. I went to your profile after reading it and was disappointed that you've no featured content at the moment. Have you deleted Hubs? Are you leaving HP?
  I'm not trying to be nosy-well, knowing me, maybe a tad nosy -but am very curious and concerned because HubPages needs writers of your quality.
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  Fiction Tellerposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you so much, Lorlie6!
  
  I haven't deleted my nonfiction hubs. I have featured hubs in other accounts, but use this one for the forums. My one hub on this account is a bizarre fiction experiment that was unfeatured or defeatured or however you say it because of lack of views. I didn't realize my profile wasn't showing it since the changes. I just fixed that. It's a weird one, it is. It's got angst, non-sequiturs, and no plot, like any good classic of American fiction, yet somehow it never took off. Can't fathom it...
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  lorlie6posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  FT, now that explains it! And by the way, I adore most everything weird and particularly the sense of Kierkegaardian (??) angst-my usual state of being, so I'm now off to read your piece with non-sequiturs and without plot...is that not life itself?
  Lord, now don't get me started on free-will! Plot or no plot, I have a feeling I'll find it personally comforting-we shall see!
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  lorlie6posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I still can't find it! Let me know when it's actually visible, okay?
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  Fiction Tellerposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Oh, boy. I edited it to fix a typo yesterday and - poof - it's no longer published due to quality reasons. Wow. That's all I can say.
  
  It's an epistolary piece. Simone Smith was actually going to feature that baby one time under her recorded stories project, before I chickened out. Not sure why it was whipped off the face of HubPages.
  
  I'll see if I can publish it on one of my blogs one day, then let you know how to find it.
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rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago
There are numerous threads on the traffic decline. Many are seeing significant drops. http://hubpages.com/forum/category/2908 It appears the recent soft and more cuddly Panda is not so nice.
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FatFreddysCatposted 11 years ago
Some of us would kill for 1700 hits per day. Just sayin'.

Seriously... my traffic has always pretty much been small potatoes, so I haven't even noticed much of a difference.
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Good Guyposted 11 years ago
My top 10 hubs still appear on first page SERP, but traffic continues to slide south. Something is not right.
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Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years ago
I must be only one voice speaking on the forum that is not really too concerned about traffic plunges at the moment. My drop is significant.

A 95% drop since the first Panda outbreak in Feb 11.

Stats can go up from here
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I've lost about 3000 views per day and I'm not worrying either Jase. Been here too many times to get all het up about it.
  
  I do like working out what's happened though and getting a better understanding of how Google's algo's are evolving.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  This drop has been particularly drastic for me. I am not panicking or whatever, but the loss of earnings does have an impact on my life. That's in part because Squidoo is suffering too, and generally I rely on one of them to be okay, even if the other is down in the dumps.
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Sorry to hear that Paul I know it's very tough when you're relying on the money for essentials - bills, food etc. I've been there.
  
  Luckily I'm on maternity leave at the moment so I'm getting an income, but even if I wasn't, I know I can get well paying freelance work easily enough if I need it (if you want any advice on that do get in touch with me through FB).
  
  Hoping that things pick up for you quickly!
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  Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Paul,
  
  To dramatically ensure you don't have too much impact on your earnings, you need to ensure you don't let other sites control or have hold too much over your work.
  
  If you haven't already, go and get your own websites. You will benefit better in the long term.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  +1
  
  And never make any website the same. Shake it up. Use different layouts, different word lengths, topics, layouts, images. Different advertisers and ad placement.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I have lots of different websites. Squidoo earned me far more than anything else, until recently. I am working in the "real world" a couple of days/week to make up for the shortfall.
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  Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Absolutely agree with your choices Susana.
  
  I just don't get worked up about traffic drops or traffic surges anymore. I have said this more than once in the forums.
  
  The main reason for why I do not get concerned about HubPages or too worked up is simply I have lots of eggs in lots of baskets.
  
  There are always going to be huge up and downs in many places in terms of traffic swings on any given website. I just don't worry because I DON'T JUST have ONLY Hubpages as a source.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Agreed. Although this is the worst drop I've had in over two years, so thought it was worth posting. I have other accounts still chugging away though, and this is a very passive account.
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  Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am still curious to see how this develops in 3-6 months on this account. This is, by far, the absolute worst drop of traffic I have ever received since day 7 of being on Hubpages.
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LillyGrillzitposted 11 years ago
You may want to check recent forums on stolen content from the entire HP site, including a mock HP in French, since our hoßt will not spread the word it is up to us to do so. The two most successful are car articles. Net and rank08. Com there is another one, I am to sick of heart to look. Good luck
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  PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  That's a separate issue, unrelated to traffic falls.
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for saying that. Sometimes I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall saying the same things over and over!
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  brakel2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I used to have hubs in the 90s
  But now I have not a one
  I keep on writing stellar hubs
  McTurk might even like some
  
  They have to wait till traffic comes
  and comments one by one
  I will never have a 90
  Those scores are all but done.
  
  Writing sure makes you feel better. I won't give up, anyway. Things will get better, right?
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Going on past experiences the best I can say is probably
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dilipchandra12posted 11 years ago
Too Many Ads --- Is a reason for the "FALL"?????

I see all well performing hubs of mine were coming down and down day-by-day. And the CPM, it is very down.

I have checked the SERP for every well performing articles of mine, similar articles (of those well performing articles of mine) from other sites have gone up and my articles were constantly going down.

I observed one thing in their sites, ADS ARE VERY FEW and VERY LESS ON THEIR PAGES...

Is that could be a reason for the HP traffic dip??
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  Solarasposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  How many ads would you say on average/number of words?
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  dilipchandra12posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Why not just leave that Words - Ads proportion...
  
  I recommend only two to three Adsense Ad units and
  HP should REMOVE IMMEDIATELY THE RELATED SEARCH ADS from the entire site.
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Solarasposted 11 years ago
On another thread started by Barbara Kay, we are experimenting with helping each other out by pinning and sharing hubs on FB. I think this is a constructive activity, not just for the individual hubs, but for the site overall.

Bubblews seems to be making money for its writers, by the writers helping each other out. They are connecting maniacally, reciprocating views of posts, likes and comments. I think this is making much of the money for individuals from what I can see. I have over a hundred connections there in 4 days, when my 53 followers here have taken 8 months to garner.

Maybe a community push create solid backlinks to HP would be beneficial to all hubbers.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Bubblews works on a completely different principle. Followers here are pretty worthless.
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  Solarasposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Do you think that sharing links to hubs is worthless? Not trying to be confrontational, I just think that it could improve the whole site in Google's eyes.
  
  I had a blog post go mini-viral through reddit. After that stats across the board doubled and a month later are still up. I think Google uses visits to help determine the value of a site.
  
  I am no expert. Just what I think I saw. Your thoughts are welcomed.
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  agilitymachposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'm wondering myself if Google isn't starting to rate social media links higher as well....
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I was talking about followers, not the sharing thread.
  
  How many of your actual followers share, let alone read, your hubs?
  
  And social sharing is based on your network quality, trust and demographic.
  
  For instance I have a Facebook network that gives me access to between 200 and 20,000+ INTERESTED people depending on my topic. I network and build trust. Just posting links without trust and networking is worthless.
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  agilitymachposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  There is truth in that "trust and networking" statement. My FB fan page is where I post my articles because people who "like" that page really do want to read my stuff. I've branded myself, and they want to read my niche articles. While sharing hubs with my personal FB friends may get some views for other hubbers, the real way to go viral is to find a group of people who are totally interested in your specific topic. Then you have hundreds to thousands of likes and shares to spread instead of maybe three of my personal friends interested in that specific topic.
  
  I'm not saying sharing links on FB isn't a good idea, but the best way to get views from social media is to, as WryLit said, build up an audience and build trust within that audience (network and trust).
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Exactly!
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theherbivorehippiposted 11 years ago
I had this message when I just logged into AdSense (as if I didn't know).

"Your earnings were 99% below our forecast
Your earnings on August 2 were 99% below forecast. This may indicate an issue with your site that you should investigate. We detected the earnings drop by comparing the money you earned to a forecast for your account."

And, the earnings I did have were almost entirely from my sites. To say this has killed my income is an understatement. I'm removing almost all my hubs from all my profiles tonight and creating new sites this week with them. I'm leaving a just a few on HubPages....for now. I can't deal with this any longer. So sad....almost 4 years here.
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  jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  So sad to hear this, theherbivorehippi. To see a veteran leave for these reasons is really bad. I wish you well on your other sites.
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  theherbivorehippiposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks. It's sad...I hate to leave, but it's just too big of a blow to my income to keep all my Hubs here. I'm going to leave a few Hubs on this one profile so I can still lurk and mingle. Who knows, if HP ever fully recovers again, then perhaps I'll publish more in the future.
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  LeanManposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  If you are earning through the HP ad program then you will be earning very little through adsense even though you are having many impressions registered every day.... Hence the message from adsense indicating that your clicks and earnings are lower than they would expect.
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Shadow Jacksonposted 11 years ago
How do you promote your hubs on pint rest? I thought you could only post pictures on there...
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  Solarasposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  The pictures link back to the original post or hub. So even repins come back to your article.
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  Solarasposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I don't know if it works with Pintrest, but I understand that you get 10% of the earnings when you refer traffic to a hub (via FB or other social media). You take the link from the bottom of the hub, and it has your referral tracker in it. SO for social media links,its a win win.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I use MFP images to encourage people to both pin and click.
  
  You cannot use referral trackers - Pinterest marks them as spam.
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  Solarasposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Wrylilt has a nice hub on creating MFP images. It has been very useful to me, especially the picmonkey suggestion. It helps people to understand what the picture links to.
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writing4actionposted 11 years ago
Google is gettign really tough now. Based on my experience, only ever green topics maintain the same level of traffic. Other topics seem to demand more freshness.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Not so. Just about all of my hubs are evergreen and I've taken a terrible hit this time.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Some of my hubs are evergreen (baby/birth) with some of the best content on the net. So doubt it's that.
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  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah, I'm guessing people still have babies. Or maybe Matt Cutts stopped all that.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Too busy growling at him to make babies?
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  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'm not sure how it works Wry - you're the baby technician guy.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Made me think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Vs06Z1Du8
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Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years ago
I've checked my queries on analytics and I'm still showing the same queries as a month ago, as well as pretty much the same placement, and I've been checking since I first started losing traffic last weekend so what ever is going on is not normal, otherwise I would have lost some queries and my placement would have changed drastically I would think in order to see about a 90% drop in traffic.
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brakel2posted 11 years ago
I had added. It sure feels good to write. And never give up.
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jansharesposted 11 years ago
Same with me WryLilt. Of Course, I don't have near the traffic you do, but yes, 50% drop, especially on the weekends when I'd get most of my traffic spurts for recipe hubs. Summer may have some to do with it but when I hear that you and others are experiencing the same, it's definitely a Google/Panda thing.
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Mark Ewbieposted 11 years ago
So. After months of QAP and Mturk - can we now assume that the content is about as good as it is going to get? I mean, you are not going to get people pouring effort into a site that is going backwards.

So what else could be a problem?

In my opinion...

Related ads. Spammy.

Too many ads generally.

Way too many links - especially away from an authors subdomain. It is of no use to me that my pages might appear in among all the spam on someone else's page. I want my page to have my posts on it. Just the groups.

Links used to be the way. I suggest they actively work against the site now. Same for Squidoo. Old style content farm layout.

No related authors. zzzz waste of time.

Seriously, someone should take a look at HP with all its wonderful content and then look at Bubblews.. The simplicity of the page layout, the lack of links, the lack of adverts, and certainly not the related garbage.

I am a bit hacked off. The authors mostly have done their utmost to improve content, put up with changes, suffered QAP even when sometimes it is stupid beyond belief - and then we are hit with MORE adverts when the web needs LESS adverts.

QAP and the rest of the hoped for improvements could take months, years. There is not that much time left.

Removing links and adverts would take five minutes.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  For a comedian, you're very astute Mark.
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  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Hi Wry, and others. I just say it like I see it. We all here to write and get views? Social is great, site is great - but we are being slowly strangled.
  
  So rather than confuse with some flowery words in a subtle way - I try to say what I think.
  
  My income (and HP's cut) has dropped over fifty per cent.
  
  Sliding since March I think - they have the stats. What happened around then?
  
  Time to experiment and quickly.
  
  How about allowing Hubbers an option to opt OUT of Related Ads or interlinking with other people's content or tune down the ads? So we have the option of becoming a more independent subdomain.
  
  Would that make any difference? Don't know.
  
  I don't see it would risk much done on a test scale. Something needs doing and I don't think QAP is the only problem now. They have got rid of a lot of pages, improved content and we are still dropping.
  
  Experimenting on my own site proves it is not my content and that Google search still works. It doesn't make any money but I don't have the YieldBuild deal.
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  HollieTposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  But Mark, when it comes to Bubblews, we have no idea whether this site is going to be a success or a flash in the pan. I'm writing there, but skeptical about its future. Their quality standards are even lower than HP's.
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  Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Hollie T, At Bubblews, it is make quick money while you can. You need to write so little there that it is crazy. It won't last, but you have to put very little time or effort into your content.
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  HollieTposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I agree, Barbara. I'm writing there, and to be quite honest, it's refreshing just writing about whatever pops into my mind. But honestly, the only way I can see the site surviving in the long term is if they can garner organic traffic.
  
  But hey, they might
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  WriteAngledposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  The related "search" scam must surely be dragging this site down.
  
  Another reason is that Indian auntie hubs and other Engrish tat is still allowed to stay. I have flagged numerous such hubs that have not been deleted. Presumably they are still earners in their seamy little corner of the Web and thus are allowed to bypass the MTurks; or maybe they are typical of the content that is loved by the average MTurk.
  
  Either way, that sort of junk is another factor that would bring down this site's overall standing.
  
  Interesting that there is no response whatsoever from HP owners to the numerous comments on this topics.
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  Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  +1
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  earnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I've no idea what Indian auntie means.... is that a euphemism?
  
  I HATE Engrish tat.
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  'Indian Auntie' hubs were really tacky hubs that used to be on here unchallenged, and were full of photos of Indian women (slightly more mature than girls), and apparently meant to be ''sexy' in nature (little or no text at all in the hubs, just images).
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Some of those are still here. I reported one I stumbled upon which even had contact numbers for some of the 'girls.' That Hub is still on the site!
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Exactly, these kinds of Hubs dragged the site quality down but brought in traffic at the time. HP turned a blind eye to them for far too long because they were making money out of them, it looks like that was one of many factors that came back to 'bite them' via Google algorithm changes (Panda). If they are still on the site as you have found it seems like the MTurkers have not yet got that far in terms of checking earlier published hubs for quality. Right now I do believe anything HP does now is too little too late.
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  Muttfaceposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Intriguing... I had to go and have a look for these 'Indian Aunties' hubs. They are alive and well. The author also has an accolade of 1 million views, so they're quite popular.
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Oh there used to be many authors (if that is the right term for all photo hubs) that had Indian Auntie hubs on here. I am surprised you only found one author in fact (maybe there are still more out there or they were removed).
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  moonlakeposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Are they still on here? I thought they took them down.
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  WriteAngledposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Five seconds of Googling brought me to:
  http://toactress.hubpages.com/hub/Hot-N … an-Actress
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  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  She gets my editor's choice! That's quality content right there.
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  PoeticPhilosophyposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Wth.. How did she get so many views haha.
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  maalarueposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  That Hub has a total of about 300 words. They must know someone at HubPages or maybe even work for them.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I think that navels are considered more interesting in India than in other cultures.
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  Muttfaceposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Even the matured aunties are exposing them!
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Apparently some still are as 'Muttface' above says he found some when he went looking for them here earlier.
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  Muttfaceposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I really must find a more feminine photo, ha ha!
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Whoops, sorry about that. I assumed from your username you must be male, and the photo was too distant to see the sex lol.
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  Muttfaceposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah, when I signed up I didn't realise I couldn't change it.
  Lucky for me it sounds professional...
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  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  +1
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  LCDWriterposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I don't think I have laughed all week and that made me laugh!!
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janderson99posted 11 years ago
HP Staff Response - Deafening Silence. Hear It! Sad!

Ah yes, we'll get back with something in two weeks.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  They're probably working their butts off, just like after '11
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  agilitymachposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I agree. This is hurting them more than their writers, I'm thinking.
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  ologsinquitoposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  They must be straight out. If it's affecting us, it's affecting them.
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Melissa A Smithposted 11 years ago
Anyone here NOT experiencing a problem with this (that has been here for a least a few years)? This is unnerving to read.
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  Greekgeekposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Not yet.
  But here's the thing.
  
  Those people who aren't affected by the current traffic drops can't post without sounding like insensitive jerks, which I have just done by replying.
  
  So if there's anyone else who's doing okay, they're probably staying quiet.
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  DrMark1961posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Sounding like insensitive jerks, and then there is the "Mark Ewbie wrath machine" to avoid.
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  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  OK - fair cop. Hey, I'm not happy....
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  Melissa A Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Haha you have a point. I also just don't want to jinx myself.
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  Greekgeekposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Those people who aren't affected by the current traffic drops can't post much without sounding like insensitive jerks.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I take it as a sign I'm doing something wrong and/or that there is hope
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  GreekGeek: There's one person in particular who has been posting all over the place about how wonderful she has been doing, blah, blah, blah. Talk about insensitive!
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  Sherry Hewinsposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My traffic has been pretty steady for the past 5 months. It's not a lot, and I haven't added any new hubs or even done much editing. I look at my analytics and I have my little rises and dips, but overall the line is straight across.
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Paul Kuehnposted 11 years ago
My daily views have been in a steady steep decline since around May 10. They are down 50-60 percent as well as my monthly earnings.
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paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago
My views are still higher this year than last year. And I'm going to keep reminding myself of that. Over and over and over and over... Here's hoping we make it to September...
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paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago
Well, I see the stats have been frozen for 10 hours. Actually, it's probably for the best.
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BigJulesMagsposted 11 years ago
Does anyone have any suggestions for an internet newcomer? I'm trying to make a career out of this. I believe I can do the work/ generate the content but I have no startup cash for my own hosting. I was trying to use squidoo/ hubpages for that. Is there another method you would use to get started?
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  paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  These days I think one's only possible hope is to start the right niche website. And even that is a real longshot.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Hosting is $120/year or less (and you can usually pay monthly).
  
  I use revenue sharing sites to:
  -Test out article ideas before making websites.
  -Write on topics that I only have a little bit to say about (loose topics.)
  -Drive traffic back to my websites.
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Winterfateposted 11 years ago
My traffic's down about 30% or so from the norm (60% if I feel like comparing to my record views day). It's maddening, to be honest.
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2uesdayposted 11 years ago
The thought springs to mind of mini-versions of him running the creche and changing the rules daily.
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2uesdayposted 11 years ago
On a more serious note than my above comment.

If our traffic has dropped how long is it before once active hubs drop into none featured status through lack of visits ?
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  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My guess would be they have temporarily switched that off. Maybe things will settle down in a month or so.
  
  And I liked your Matt Cutts crèche idea. Poor kids.
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  janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this
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Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years ago
When your traffic has dropped, do you check your analytics to see where the drop is coming from? If so what are your analytics telling you? I ask because my analytics are showing hardly any change in my position and no loss of key search terms, yet my traffic has dropped 90% in a weeks time. Does that make sense? Not to me, I would think that for a traffic drop like that I must have lost my placement for at least a key search term or two. Please let me know what all your analytics say.
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  One of the best ways to get useful info from analytics is to use the comparison feature.
  
  Compare the days from when your traffic started to go down until yesterday, with the same amount of days before your traffic started to go down.
  
  E.g. for me I'm comparing stats 19th July - 3rd Aug with 3rd July - 18th July.
  
  Probably the most telling thing in my stats is when I look at:
  
  content -> overview -> scroll down and click "view full report"
  
  Most of my keywords are still getting traffic but they are nearly all showing losses by percentages ranging from 83% - 5%.
  
  EDIT: another interesting thing is that some hubs are getting get traffic for related, but new phrases. This tells me that Google is re-testing my hubs to see what phrases are most relevant and analysing how visitors from search are responding. Like I've said before it's as if Google has pushed a "reset" button.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I agree: Google is experimenting. They do this most weekends, but this time it's a major experiment lasting several weeks. They are looking to see what they can change or improve, while the world waits and watches. This is why I think things will do a sudden turnaround at some point...but when that will be, who knows?
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Do you have any links from reputable sources that show Google experiments mostly at weekends?
  
  Google certainly runs lots of A/B tests which extend to A/B/C/D etc tests as well.
  
  From the link above:
  
  "What percentage of Google users are getting some kind of “experimental” page or results when they initiate a search? Google employees I spoke with wouldn’t give a precise answer—”decent,” chuckles Scott Huffman, who oversees testing on Google Search. Use of a technique called multivariate testing, in which myriad A/B tests essentially run simultaneously in as many combinations as possible, means that the percentage of users getting some kind of tweak may well approach 100 percent, making “the Google search experience” a sort of Platonic ideal: never encountered directly but glimpsed only through imperfect derivations and variations."
  
  Another thing we do know is that Google Panda is an algorithm that learns, so the "experiment" is actually continuous. There is no end to it.
  
  As for sudden shifts, it's definitely possible - it's happened before, but there's no way to predict really.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Susana S: I was told this by a very reputable SEO expert who owns a company that deals with everything "online writing".
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Fair enough. Personally I don't take much heed from what someone told someone else about SEO.
  
  Stats, figures, tests - that's what floats my boat!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  SusanaS: I cannot argue with that, but when you are a person like me who does not understand all of that technical stuff, you have to trust someone...and this particular person really seems to know his stuff and is very successful. If I knew what you know, I wouldn't have to trust anybody else lol!!
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I know we have to just trust some people and can't double check every fact and figure, but do your best to. It will help you learn
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DigbyAdamsposted 11 years ago
My traffic is now ZERO. I am officially fed up. I made $50 on Bubblews last week. How many hubbers can say that on HubPages? It's not worth the effort to delete my hubs. I'm just letting them rot.
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  IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Stats are stuck!
  
  Check Google Analytics real time to see if you are still getting hits - https://www.google.com/analytics/web/?# … .type%3D0/
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  Brie Hoffmanposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Who cares about stats..it's the income I care about.
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  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Nice Bubbling...
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  susi10posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Digby Adams,
  Of course your traffic and earnings are zero if you don't have any hubs. Write some hubs and you might start getting some traffic.
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cornwall_UKposted 11 years ago
I just want to register a general moan and loss of income without going into specifics.

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Nell Roseposted 11 years ago
I am going to start calling my hubs the Titanic, they are sinking so far I will need a submarine to darn well find them soon, traffic cut in half, and going down down down..........
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EmpressFelicityposted 11 years ago
My cats' litter trays are getting more traffic than my hubs at the moment.
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  HollieTposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Lol!
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paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago
Even without the Google fiasco, August is traditionally a grim traffic month. Throw in the Google mess, and it's really bad. I've decided to distract myself elsewhere for the time being.
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HollieTposted 11 years ago
Another hubber has just pointed out that the SERPS (in some instances) are not matching the queries properly. Strange.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  The titles, summaries or cache?
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  HollieTposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  All. The content in general. Search types of frogs, or different types of frogs- whilst some of the content is relevant, they are offering pages on bizarre frogs, or frogs from specific countries.
  
  The titles are not matching the queries, whilst they've replaced types with species, which is fair enough, they've also included results for kids- no mention of types or species, but there is mention of kinds of behaviour. Titles, summary and cache appear to be mismatched.
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  Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am having problems finding the info I want on searches too.
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aa liteposted 11 years ago
One thing that I find rather strange, that I have not heard anything from other websites about major drops in traffic. Usually when there is a major Google algo change, lots of people come on different forums bewailing their loss of traffic. Has anybody seen that this time?

Squidoo obviously has terrible traffic problems now, but that's been going on for months.

It's very difficult to believe that there is a big algo change that only affects HubPages.
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  rebekahELLEposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I haven't paid too much attention, but where I have checked, I've seen no major news.
  I'm thinking it may have something to do with the reindexing of hubs that were once indexed on the root domain. There is some mention of it on one of these traffic/Panda related threads. I know that when subdomains were first introduced, it took a while for Google to index our hubs onto our subdomains, some took longer than others. It could be the same thing in reverse.? At this point, I think we're all guessing.
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  aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Those were my thoughts as well. The thing is.....I joined early in 2012 and my hubs were never re-indexed on the main domain, yet my traffic is now also in free fall. Although that doesn't exclude the possibility that Google has become "confused" about this site.
  
  I tend to think that this might be a positive thing, as in we might recover when things settle down. But maybe not....
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Solarasposted 11 years ago
My stats have been frozen since last night, which is nothing new, but could this all be a glitch they are working through in the system, combined with Google and the last week of summer before kids start back to school. A perfect storm of sorts, that will unwind itself over the coming week?
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sparksterposted 11 years ago
60% drop in traffic here too. Not impressed as I have just had some major life changes and was about to update my earnings settings.
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HollieTposted 11 years ago
I really think there might be a number of reasons why traffic is in free fall. There's the re-indexing issue, which when you think about it, would affect a large number of hubs because the authors have been here for some years? They''ve possibly written a large number of hubs overtime?

Then, there's this new cuddly, nicer and more affable Panda thing going on. I really think you may have a point aa, when you said that maybe we've not been panda'd, but previously panda'd sites might be getting their 15 minutes in the limelight- this would surely have an affect on the rest of the subs here.

Then there's the confusion about this site, which Susanna mentioned. One size may not fit all.

I honestly don't believe that this will continue for any real length of time. Surely, some writers will come out of this the other side. If and when they do, we may have a better incite as to what's really happening.
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Dale Hydeposted 11 years ago
I am sure I am not missed here, lol, but for my two cents worth....well, maybe I can still afford to offer that MUCH with my income dropping here on HP.

My views are the norm for what is being spoken here by the majority. A minimum of a 50 percent drop over last month. I am at yet another all time low on views.

I continue to publish on my blog and am enjoying some success at Bubblews. A dollar here and there is what is needed to offset the loss I am having here at HP. I do recall the days of 100.00 payouts for several months here for me...... I think those days are long gone. It now takes a minimum of two to three months to make the minimum payout here.

Well, there you go, my update....based on the facts I see on my account. I have done all the tweaking, shifting, rewording and such that I will do on HP to garner views. I pop in a few times a week to move my unfeatured material from the site. I no longer even consider publishing new material here for the time being.
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paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago
Stats have updated. Mine dropped some more.
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  Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Mine stayed about the same with this recent 3 hour old update.
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  paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I've just got too many hubs sitting there with daily stats of 0, 1, or 2 to even consider writing more hubs. And my updating of existing hubs isn't doing me much good either.
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  HollieTposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  PDS, I really can't see this sinking thing lasting. Not this time.
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  paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Your post got me to go compare August 2012 traffic with September 2012 traffic. If this year is the same, the nightmare should officially end the first Monday in September.
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  Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am looking at the same types of numbers...the zeros and the ones..... simply not worth the effort these days to continue writing here. That is for me anyway. For those who have hope and/or for those who continue to do well here, good luck and keep up the excellent work.
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  sabrebIadeposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I just checked my stats and they are lower than they were after the first big Google slap.
  So that means since what...July 18th?...my traffic has been cut more than in half.
  600 some odd views now compared to 1400 to 1500 then.
  600 is my ripcord level.
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  paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  For me it is time to break out the crystal ball and figure out what the next Big Thing will be; and get there first.
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DigbyAdamsposted 11 years ago
Hollie people are making money every day on Bubblews. I made $50 in one week. How many Hubbers made $50 on HP last week. They are thinking long-term? For what so their hubs can get idled. That's not long-term solution either.

My traffic is so low now, that I'll never see the money HP owes me. What kind of future is that? I don't know why so many Hubbers are so anti-bubblews, when HP is sinking.

I get if you've got a huge investment, but don't go negating a site that's paying people more than HubPages ever has.
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  Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I have seen money on Bubblews that I have not seen on HP in quite some time. I think along the same terms about long-term earnings on HP. That used to be the focus, but nowadays, as mentioned, as you wait long-term, the hubs will be idled, lol.
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  HollieTposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Digby, honestly, I'm not. I'm writing there myself. I just don't believe that we can hold it up as a successful site, not yet. For me, it's not a Bubblews vs. HP thing- Suppose I'm distrustful when it comes to new sites who are offering easy money. I know the posts do not require as much effort as HP or Wizzley or Squidoo, but will we all get paid? And if so, for how long?
  
  Have you been paid out yet?
  
  I was merely pointing out to Mark, that we don't know how successful Bubbles is going to be- that's not negating the site, or suggesting that HP is better, but keeping two feet firmly on the ground. It may be the next FB, or a complete timewaster, that's might point.
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  DigbyAdamsposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I have been paid every redemption I am due. I do have much more faith in Wizzley than Hubpages. I love Chef Keem and think the best of everyone there. I have 200 Wizzles and will keep writing more.
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  HollieTposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'm really fond of Wizzley too. I will write more there in the future, I think Wizzley has great potential for the future and the owners have integrity. Can't say that about all the other sites I've engaged with. lol.
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  livewithrichardposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I just started there a couple weeks ago and made my first redemption today. I think it is great that I can get 200 - 300 page views in just a few hours of posting. I also started a new account here 9 days ago and have 6 featured hubs. What is amazing is that the new account already brings in nearly as many page views as this account with 100+ hubs.
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agilitymachposted 11 years ago
FWIW, my Google numbers are now up 300 percent and rising from pre Panda. IDK why, but I'm lovin' it. I never tried to get Google numbers in the first place, and I had all of my eggs in the social media basket. Google numbers are nice because I don't have to work (ie post) for them.

I've been here exactly a year, and all of my content is fresh and wasn't involved in the indexing issue. I'm wondering if that's the real issue, but those who understand it and Pandas will know more than I.
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  PoeticPhilosophyposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'm glad your always positive like me agility My stats are also fresh and rising each time I love it!
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  agilitymachposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  LOL!! Thank you, but I have to admit I doubt I'd be positive if they were dropping like others. I get their worry, but I'm wondering when the reindexing thing gets fixed if they won't do well. Like I said though, I don't understand and haven't read about the reindexing thing as it doesn't affect me at the moment.
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jericho911posted 11 years ago
My only problem with Wizzley is that if your adsense is "content pages only", then it has zero value for google impressions. You have to have your own blog, etc. to earn thru adsense.
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  aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am very confused by what you said. Can you explain please?
  
  If you have your blog you earn 100% from Adsense, if you write on Wizzley, you earn 60%. Other than that I don't really see what difference it makes where you write.
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  jericho911posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'm referring to your individual adsense account. I can only use mine on content or hosted accounts, so wizzley is worthless to me because it's not recognized as a content site at this time. You get 60% of the money if you have your own adsense account that is not limited such as mine. If it is limited to hosted content sites, then wizzley generates no adsense earnings for you.
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  aa liteposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  ok, I didn't even realise that there were limits to some adsense accounts. My problem is that the kind of informational hubs have a truly abysmal CTR, so being paid by impressions is excellent.
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LeanManposted 11 years ago
Down and down and down.... I am going to need a submarine soon to check my stats... The odd thing is that having checked my serps positions for a few of the hubs I appear to be unchanged which would indicate that the search volumes themselves are down - is it a holiday weekend/great weather/something good on TV/someone made a fuss about google stealing our info????

Well whatever the reason I don't intend to panic too much just yet, we have seen this before with google and it usually settles down and picks back up within a week or two. Often resulting in improved views!

It does however seem that this time around it is hitting those of us who have had hubs published for some time, i did mention a week or so in one of the various threads that I have seen some strange "freshness" results with new copies of existing pages outranking originals when they should not be able to do so and would not have done in the past.

Anyway, back to work............... lol
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  Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  There definitely could be some seasonal factors causing less searching and less Hub views. You should have seen the highway I commute on last week. What is usually a parking lot during rush hour was smooth sailing, because a lot of people are away on vacation. They are enjoying their vacations, and using the Internet for limited purposes.
  
  A lot of people have said their Hubs are still ranking well in Google, but traffic is down. That points to seasonal factors, rather than Google factors, as the cause of the drop.
  
  One thing everyone should keep in mind is that Google provides results based on your past search profile. I learned through SEO work I did over the past year that when an article you write ranks well in Google when you search on it, that does not mean it ranks well generally. Google may just be tailoring their searches to you and ranking your article higher when you search for it. Try searching for it on a 3rd party computer, without logging into Gmail or anything, so Google doesn't know it's you, and see how an article shows up in the search results.
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  IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  That is why you should either sign out of Google when checking the SERPS, or choose the option to 'hide personal results'. I get quite disappointed when I do that.
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  Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I first go off of what my analytics say regarding position, which before the drop was 9.5 for search term I was getting the most impressions on before the drop, a week after the drop it was 9.7 and now 2 1/2 weeks after is 11 even though my views haven't gone down anymore since last week. So I am finally showing a bit of a position change but to go from 950 views down to 50 I would think that the position change would've been bigger then 1.5 and would have shown in that first week. Now of course they did close all the Embassies due to terror threats, maybe the threats also have something to do with the drop in traffic.
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IzzyMposted 11 years ago
On a brighter note, one of my other subs is probably keeping HP afloat at this moment in time.

I say 'brighter' because obviously the whole site has not been slapped to Hell, and that one account seeing a huge number of hits (even if it is only in a short space of time), means that there is hope for us all.
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  LeanManposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am just glad I don't wear a hat or I would have lost it on this rollercoaster ride..... lol..
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  IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Traffic is right back up according to - https://www.quantcast.com/labs/real-tim … bpages.com
  
  Everyone should be seeing a gain.
  
  Well. most folk.
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  paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for posting this. Darn good numbers there!
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  Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Well how about that? My views are up about 33 percent overnight. I wonder what happened. Let's hope it continues to move in the upward spiral.
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  WryLiltposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I have seen an increase of about 10% so woot
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  PoeticPhilosophyposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My stats haven't come up yet
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  Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  This longer term view shows the decline in traffic (about 10% a drop over the past month): https://www.quantcast.com/www.hubpages.com Also note that HubPages is no longer in the top 100 sites for page views. This decline could very well be seasonal related, but the drop out of the top 100 indicates that other sites are doing better during this seasonal lull.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  This morning I saw no increase, but later in the day I started to see things moving again...several red arrows and higher views. I hope it continues...just wish I knew what happened to cause all of this!
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  jansharesposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Definite increase in views on Sunday, today looks pretty good, too. I'm hopeful.
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Winterfateposted 11 years ago
I have a ~ 7% increase, but I'll hold for a few days before I celebrate.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My numbers dropped by about 2/3 last week and are still about the same. I really believe this is all has been caused by a glitch that needs to work itself out. My numbers dropped towards the end of the time when everybody was losing views, so I suspect they'll be the last to come back up. I am anxious to hear from the team about what they are doing, etc...it's been about two weeks since they said they'd tell us something in two weeks! Their silence is deafening.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Paul E wrote the "2 weeks" comment 4 days ago!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Paul. Sorry. I confused that one with the forum post he made 13 days ago. Seems like this is taking forever to straighten out!
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  susi10posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  He said he would give us some 'options' as to increasing traffic etc. I wonder what those options will be, only time will tell I guess.
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  janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you for your patience.
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  Scribenetposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yipes...it just keeps getting worse...I won't even bother for now. Wait till the dust settles and see if there is anything worth reviving.
  
  Time for a Hub vacation....Happy Hubbing!
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paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago
Great minds think alike. I also shipped a hub to blogger today.
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Ella Quirkposted 11 years ago
Things have picked up a little for me...nothing stupendous but an improvement on the drought that was last week.

Feeling faintly optimistic.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Today my numbers are up to the lower end of where they were prior to the big drop. We'll see if it lasts!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  It didn't last. Numbers are up one day, down the next consistently...and none of them are good numbers. Sure wish we knew what was happening and whether we can fix it. A lot of people have put in a lot of work to try and comply with all the rules, etc...and this is a really crappy payback.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  http://blog.hubpages.com If you haven't seen this yet, you had better read it. HP plans to move all of the best hubs back to their domain...I was shocked when I saw this, and think you will be as well. Better take a look...I'd like to hear your thoughts on this one.
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  maalarueposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  It says you may opt out. But I wonder if the link address changes when a Hub is moved? If so, that would destroy your Google position. Otherwise, it appears that HubPages may be doing few things to improve HubPages quality and help us rank better with Google. We can only wait and see.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Think about this. You don't opt out and they take all of your big earners and move them to their domain. What's left on your subdomain you might as well put in the garbage can. At least that's how I see it...especially if your articles link to one another, which many do.
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  Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  With the option for more or different 'related ads' wherever. MY stuff was supposed to be a set of pages - Mark Ewbie Groups - that people might like. That's why I welcomed subdomains - our own little mini site.
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  earnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'd not seen that before .... I've always found the forums/blog navigation of this site impossible to fathom out.
  
  Thanks, I'll read it.
  
  Traffic's dropped another 10% today .... I've not seen figures like this since my first year .... 7 years ago.
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