Hub traffic down by 90%!

1. 67

   Alex Addamsposted 11 years ago

   My hub traffic tanked by 90%! Anyone else experiencing any problems. It looks like some of my hubs have been removed from the first page of google for the key terms they were related too.
   
   These were articles that were on my blog for years, so I recently did a redirect to so not to lose my rankings in search, but appears Google has taken me out!
   
   Thoughts?
   
   Jacob

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      Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I noticed that you have only been here 3 weeks. You will find as time goes on that there are lots of ups and downs. Some depend on the day and others are caused by the season. Then there are the attacks from Google. The best thing to to is not worry about it and keep writing.

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      Thalliaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      A few of your hubs have been copied on to "illmixtapes dot com".  Your Effeminate Clothing  and Mens Jewelery hubs have been lifted and are on the previously mentioned site.  They are complete copies that mimic an actual hubpage but with non-functioning links.
      
      A google search of "Jacob J Morris HUBPAGES" brought up the two copies of your hubs (on the offending domain) on page 1, positions 8 and 9 when I searched.  I would assume this is where some of your traffic is going.
      
      This site has lifted at least one of my hubs.  When entering the tile of my hub, my real hub is nowhere to be found on google search BUT an identical copy is found on the  illmixtape domain. 
      
      janshares... I found your Humingbird Poem on that site.  A handful of other regular forum posters (and other hubbers) have also been affected.
      
      So... that's my theory as to why some us have may have seen a drop in traffic; our hubs are being viewed on a different website. 
      
      Time to send some DMCA notices.

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         Alex Addamsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Thalia! Thank you for this, yes I'm going to start my notices. Hate it when people steal my content! I guess it's time to sign up for one of those content monitoring services

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2. 66

   RelevantHelpposted 11 years ago

   I've had a pretty significant drop on several of my subdomains over the last two days. Something around a 60% drop. But that's after unprecedented traffic over the past week.
   
   Sounds like Google is doing another adjustment / algorithm update. But who knows? Just keep writing, it all works out.

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   1. 67

      Alex Addamsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This is what happened to me. My traffic quadrupled and then I tanked.

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3. 93

   jansharesposted 11 years ago

   Friday is always a day traffic plummets. I agree with RelevantHelp that we did just come off of a few days of unprecedented traffic. So what goes up, must come down. It will work out. I never know what Google is doing until it's over. I just keep writing.

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4. 51

   janderson99posted 11 years ago

   CPM is very disappointing as well!

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      agvulpesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I agree traffic has been fairly constant but CPM has dived

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         janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         My guess was that the recent viral surge in traffic somehow caused the advertisers to pay less and hence CPM fell. The viral flow-on boosted traffic but the fall in CPM mean that earnings did not rise much. Looks like the fall in CPM has been sustained now traffic has returned to 'normal'. There is a 'can't win' feel about this. More traffic means lower CPM!

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      2. 83

         Solarasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, my traffic is pretty much the same, but CPM is off by 30%.  Discouraging.
         
         I thought the rise in November and December was due to holiday advertising, and that this drop would be expected.  Is that not the annual cycle?

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5. 65

   nojazzposted 11 years ago

   My hub traffic decreased as well. It went down 50% compared to my last month's traffic. But I don't mind it at all. I just keep on writing.

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6. 91

   Will Apseposted 11 years ago

   I am down ten to twenty per cent.
   
   Seems a big but unannounced change all round: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-17935.html

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   1. 97

      PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I've not experienced anything dramatic on here, could be down, but difficult to say at the mo.  It's a bit depressing that every update seems to mean a drop nowadays.  I remember the days when we thought Google would reward HP for making improvements...

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7. 82

   healthbookletposted 11 years ago

   Sorry for traffic drops
   
   Here is the update which is effecting us ...
   "Google Updates Link Guidelines" -> Google it
   
   I lost more than 60+%+ traffic in last 2 days
   
   HubPages staff Please help us ...

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      IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Seems to fit perfectly with those awful floating links HP put on all our pages.

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         agvulpesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I have not seen these floating links that you mention

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            IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Related ads, they are called. Their revenue is not shared with hubbers.

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8. 62

   CASE1WORKERposted 11 years ago

   It's about the same as ever.........nothing to shout about! but some coming in which is about as good as it get's!

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9. 73

   pmarinovposted 11 years ago

   Well even if Google has changed something, we are back to HubPages normal traffic (see screenshot).
   
   No need to freak out, just keep writing and things will go your way
   
   

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      janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Long term the trend is a bit more scary. But hope springs eternal!
      
      

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         BristolBoyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Maybe I'm being an idiot but where are those graphs from? Are they for the whole of HubPages or just your sub domain?

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            janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            They are from Quantcast(dot)com and they are for the entire HP stats. You can get data for Squidoo and other sites as well, and even show comparisons. HP subscribes to this site which is very reliable. The best source of stats for your sub is Analytics via Webmasters.

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               BristolBoyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Janderson99 thanks for that clarification. I've relied on analytics for the last 5 years so knew about my stats but I didn't know about HubPages wide. Thanks!

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10. 73

    pmarinovposted 11 years ago

    Agree, however as we can see mobile web is starting to pick up and that is encouraging for the future of HubPages. Does anyone know if Google and HubPages work closely together? My initial thinking is that they do, but judging by the above posted graph doesn't look like they do.

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11. 82

    Better in Violetposted 11 years ago

    Just to join in on the conversation, my traffic has also completely tanked this weekend. Like others have mentioned, this came after a week of very excellent numbers (although a low CPM). I have had consistent and very satisfying traffic for months now so this is very worrying.
    
    My traffic on Thursday and Friday always takes a dive but over the past 48 hours I've lost about 70%. I'll definitely be checking out those links about a new Google update...

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12. 94

    Susana Sposted 11 years ago

    Nothing out of the ordinary going on with my traffic - just the normal weekend drop. CPM is good too.

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13. 77

    sabrebIadeposted 11 years ago

    No...my traffic seems to have actually gone up a little.
    But I quit focusing on Google a long time ago so maybe I didn't feel it as much.

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14. 61

    nutritionhubposted 11 years ago

    There's definitely talk of a Google update going on but I wouldn't worry too much at this point, as long as you haven't employed any spam techniques. If it's a major change then I'm sure hubpages will catch up. If it's nothing major then things should level out for you again soon, you may just have to be patient.

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15. 61

    hassannposted 11 years ago

    It is obvious that Google's doing something. All recently crawled hubs are being tossed to next google result page. My views are halved. We cannot know the outcome until it's all settled. Perhaps, we'll be better off who knows. What we can do now is to keep creating high quality hubs.

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       Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I wonder if it has anything to so with whether hubs are editors choice or not? I would expect EC hubs to be more stable in the SERP's and less susceptible to the whims of Google. Haven't checked and don't have time to...it's just a thought....my traffic is fine and all of my high traffic hubs are EC.

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          Better in Violetposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I'm wondering this also. I opted out of the EC program a few months back and was pleased to see my views continue to rise steadily. This recent dramatic drop in views seems to be affecting some writers here and not others. Maybe EC status has something to do with it... ? Anyway, I'll continue to stick around and see what happens next.

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16. 73

    pmarinovposted 11 years ago

    Going back to @janderson99's point: we can compare squidoo and hubpages via quantcast, and I truly hope we never get experience what squidoo is experiencing right now. They are pretty much getting crushed and have 1/4 of the traffic HubPages has.

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    1. 77

       Greekgeekposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Back when Hubpages tanked in early 2011, a lot of people were bailing on Hubpages or shaking their heads from afar and saying, "Thank goodness it's not happening to us." Sound familiar? Being contrary, I returned to HP and started writing hubs again to study why Squidoo came through the first year or so of Panda unscathed while Hubpages got thwacked. The sites were similar in design and content quality spread, so I was flummoxed why they weren't getting the same Google treatment.
       
       Since then, Squidoo has committed most of the errors I identified as possible reasons that Hubpages was struggling, while Hubpages has corrected those and implemented several of the things that I guessed were helping Squidoo stay afloat.
       
       Based on how HP has fared since 2011, I firmly believe that Squidoo could pull themselves out of this tailspin. There are feeble signs of traffic picking up on my own lenses, although I am dubious about some of the steps Squidoo has taken in trying to recover. Hubpages has righted its ship fairly well, although I don't think it's possible for it or any third-party content publishing site to return to pre-Panda traffic.
       
       Websites like Squidoo and Hubpages offer a service which is also their Achilles' heel: a platform for ordinary people like you and me to publish on what we know, what we love, or nearly anything we care to write about. A lot of that writing is going to be mediocre, or just not as good as the most expert, professional articles on those same topics on some other site. (Try writing about medical issues, for example: no matter how much experience you have with a particular illness, WebMD is going to dominate that query space, because it's maintained by doctors, not amateur writers). The web is now old enough that any topic for which there is wide interest now has sites like WebMD devoted to it.
       
       Which means we're very unlikely to dominate top spots on keywords unless we've written a really, really exceptional article on a topic for which there IS traffic but ISN'T much competition. That's tough to do! But that doesn't invalidate the role of Hubpages and its kin as content hosting platforms. They just have to juggle the flexibility to allow a lot of mediocre and some exceptional content with the need to keep their sites from being totally overrun by stuff that nobody wants to read.
       
       Babbling and meta-commentary aside:
       
       -- My Hubpages traffic sagged a bit at the end of December and has now climbed back to the top of its game. My daily earnings have dropped a little in the past week. But it's like the stock market: there's always gonna be daily, weekly and seasonal fluctuations; it's the long term trends we need to worry about.

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          Hikapoposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          

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17. 84

    Rock_njposted 11 years ago

    Sorry about your traffic loss.  I just checked Quantcast, and HP just had a spike over 1.2 million about a week ago (another one in mid Dec).  That's huge for HP.  Never been that high.  Now back to reality.  The holidays are over, people may not be surfing the Internet as much and getting back to work.  By comparison, HP competitor Squidoo had about the same traffic as HP a year ago and now has a measly 1/4 the traffic HP has.  HP has had a lot of problems over the years, but these are not the worst of times. Your traffic will bounce back if you write quality material.  If you are moving it from another blog, then Google may naturally take time to move it back up in ranking.

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       Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Those traffic spikes were due to single hubs that went viral on social media. Just letting you know!

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          Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Interesting, which ones?  I have noticed that with my account.  I have about 130 hubs, but just a half dozen are the work horses that generate most of the traffic.

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             Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             One was on How to Make a 5 Minute Cheesecake, Another on What Nurses Don't Want You to Know and the 3rd was on Why Diet Coke is Better at McDonalds. Now why can't I come up with something that would go viral?

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             Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Check out the Hubpages blog there are a couple of posts about it.
             
             There's also this forum thread http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/119332

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                Rock_njposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Thanks.  You know what is interesting about those two traffic spikes that occurred at HP in Dec 2013 and Jan 2014, they coincided with much below normal temperatures and bad weather in much of the U.S.  Perhaps a lot of people were home surfing the Internet at those times and came across articles at HP, including the ones that went viral.

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18. 76

    101Ways2Lifeposted 11 years ago

    My experience is that the traffic dramatically picks up in the lead up to the Christmas season, and returns back to normal level toward the second half of January. Wait and see.

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19. 84

    William15posted 11 years ago

    I don't have too much to compare this to, but I have more than one hub that each get over 100 views a day.

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20. 67

    Alex Addamsposted 11 years ago

    All, some great comments here.
    
    What stinks about this whole thing is the uncertainty. Google has been doing this for years now.
    
    There are articles I know ice written that were top in my category and when they suffer these kinda of fluctuations that take long periods of time to recover from, it can be very demotivating.

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21. 97

    PaulGoodman67posted 11 years ago

    It's quite possible that there is a Google update that is rolling out slowly and the effects have yet to be fully felt.  http://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-17956.html

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22. 61

    Anamika Sposted 11 years ago

    My traffic is more or less the same, but the CPM is now pathetic... Earnings too!

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       Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I don't know what happened yesterday, but that's the lowest CPM I've ever seen!  If that continues, getting thousands of page views a day is rather pointless.

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          PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Yes, I certainly expected a drop after the holiday period, maybe 20%, but the reality has been far worse than that.

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          janderson99posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I wonder whether the drop in CPM is a viral flow-on effect. During the last traffic surge (cheesecake) many people got increased views but the CPM was tiny for a few days. I wonder whether the drop is caused by the higher paying advertisers reaching their quota and dropping out, leaving the lower paying ones. Certainly CPM has been low since 'cheesecake'.

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             Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             I seriously doubt that the 'cheesecake' episode had anything to do with my CPM.  (I don't have recipe Hubs.) Also, my average cost-per-click hasn't changed in my personal AdSense account. 
             
             So many Hubbers have reported drastic drops in their CPM that I would very much like to hear what someone on the staff has to say, based on the history of CPM on HubPages.

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                Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                CPMs for January 15th must be so low that HP is embarrassed to post them. I can hardly wait.

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23. 67

    gitachudposted 11 years ago

    Did it have anything to do with the email I was sent telling me that I have not enabled third party content on my adsense account?

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24. 83

    Solarasposted 11 years ago

    Ugghh blue arrows everywhere and lower earnings.  Maybe I'll start writing on Mesothelioma...

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       DrMark1961posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Stick to your great hubs on names. I lost a Pitbull to mesothelioma back in 2010 and wrote a hub on it. It is basically a flatliner. Maybe my hub was exposed to asbestos?

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          wordscribe43posted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Haha- that's a good one!
          
          My traffic is down, too.  But, it always is this time of year.  It will start picking up here in the next few weeks again.  It's all about patience and persistence.

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          Solarasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks DrMark! Sorry about your pitbull - how would he have gotten exposed to asbestos?

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             DrMark1961posted 11 years agoin reply to this

             He was a junkyard dog when I rescued him. The junkyard had a lot of old sheets of broken up "tenite", the asbestos sheets we use here for roofing. He used to lie around in the asbestos all day, so no telling how much he breathed in.
             He was an ugly dog, but he never left my side when I walked him off-leash (only in the middle of the night, of course!).

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    alexadryposted 11 years ago

    I heard a while back that the keyword mesothelioma was one with the highest cost per click, but it must refer to mesothelioma in humans as it includes the word attorneys..

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       Solarasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Yes - last time I checked it was the top 100 most expensive clicks - Utah mesothelioma lawyer etc... one for every big city and state lol.  I know some tort lawyers pay $400.00 a click for their injury specialty.

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26. 86

    modern housewifeposted 11 years ago

    I feel a little better after reading these comments.  I too have noticed a decent drop in views, even though I have been actively working on driving more traffic to my hubs.  I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, but the timing of my drop in views is right after the google update.  It is very discouraging.  I do spend a lot of time researching and writing my articles and I feel like it is a constant uphill battle to try to get views. Please, hubpage staff, help us.  When we succeed, you succeed and right now you have great writers who are struggling to get half of the page views they used to get.

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27. 67

    Alex Addamsposted 11 years ago

    I still haven't recovered

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       Mark Ewbieposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       "How to shave your genitals" has a typo in the title.

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          Solarasposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          LOL

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       Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       There's nearly always a lot of flux with new accounts. You need to try and be patient! See how things are in 6 - 8 months.

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    TheAdmiralposted 10 years ago

    Jacob,
    
    Right now, Google is tweaking and peaking their search algorithm.  With the Hummingbird update, Google is now more effectively interpreting search queries, which changes what is shown to the user.
    
    Although this might not be why your traffic has dropped, I'd say it's probably a safe bet!  I know a lot of traffic to my hubs comes from Google in the first place .  I hope that helps!

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    Solarasposted 10 years ago

    Traffic coming back as is CPM over the last 3 days! I hope everyone else is seeing the same.  Weekends are always better for me though.

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    smartknowledgeposted 10 years ago

    Hey all, my views seem to have remained fairly consistent, give or take. I've been focused on improving my hubs' quality, including deleting old, low quality hubs. Most of my traffic comes from Google and Hubpages combined, so hopefully Google gives HP a little boost - that would be great.

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31. 67

    Alex Addamsposted 10 years ago

    My hub traffic seems to have returned and better than average. Anyone else having the same?

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       janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this

       traffic OK, CPM tanked over last few days.

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