Traffic drop by around 50%

1. 88

   Cardisaposted 9 years ago

   Is anyone else experiencing this very big traffic drop? I haven't had such low traffic for over a year.
   
   Does this have anything to do with the update on March 26? I am asking because it seems that update had more to do with backlinking. Any links i have to my hubs are usually from sources I don't know.

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   1. 96

      sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I fond five Hubs last night which had been nicked and for some unknown reason I thought I would check and see if the reason if your lack of traffic was somehow related.   I found that your hub Visiting-Jamaica-Things-You-Should-Know-Part-2 has been stolen - this after having checked only three of your Hubs - I chose this one because I thought it might be something a lot of people might be looking for.  The thief responsible is a Google member and he has had an extraordinary amount of traffic to his google pages.  You might like to cut and paste a piece of this Hub into Google and find the person responsible.
      
      Sally

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      1. 96

         sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Sorry for the typos, wish I had read this back properly.

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         1. 88

            Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks so much Sally. I had checked a few hubs last week but didn't check that one. I found a few of my hubs on Facebook, Wordpress and Blogger. They were removed. My traffic fell from around 1400 per day to 750+.

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            1. 96

               sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               You are welcome. I wondered if you could answer a question for me please.   I checked out the Hubs which I had stolen - looked on Who is and discovered that the offenders had already been shut down - is there any point in my still filing a DMCA?
               
               Also like Alistair - my traffic is very good - including my website which gets close to 7000 visitors each month.   I just don't like the thieves getting any that they don't deserve.
               
               Sally

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               1. 88

                  Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  If the site is already down, there is no need to file the DMCA.
                  
                  I am not sure if my traffic drop has anything to do with my hubs being stolen. I think my place in SERP has dropped.

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               2. 88

                  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  How do you know it's been shut down?  What does Whois say?   
                  
                  Type the URL of the website into your browser.  If the website doesn't come up, it's been shut down and there's no point in filing a DMCA.

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                  1. 96

                     sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     I did type the website into the browser and it did come up but when I looked on Whois to find the owner of the domains, they all came up with this:-
                     Status    clientDeleteProhibited, clientRenewProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited
                     Am I not correct is assuming that there would be no point in filing a DCMA
                     
                     I have also found some more stolen hubs on DuckDuckGo.

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                     1. 88

                        Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        No, you're not correct.    What that message is saying is that the owner can't make changes to the domain name for some reason - but it's probably temporary and doesn't affect his ability to run his website. 
                        
                        Anyway, you don't need to find the owner of the domain.  If he's a thief, he's going to ignore you anyway.  What you want to know is, who's hosting the domain?  Then you Google the name of the host + DMCA (e.g. "GoDaddy DMCA" or "Hostgator DMCA" to find their instructions for filing, and follow them.

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                        1. 96

                           sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                           As I understand it, one of the culprits is using blogspot but when I look at their instructions to file a DCMA list only one category, which is not quite correct = like impersonating myself - which is not strictly true - they are using my content.  One of the others appears to be hosted by Kiwibox, travelbox and something called experience box.  It is a mine field and I quite frankly don't know where to start - even going to the Hubpages guide - leaves me with a list of categories which I don't think apply. My self taught computer skills are lacking when it comes to this aspect of online writing.  I need a step by step guide showing me exactly how to do it.  Then I found some more on DuckDuckGo.

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                           1. 94

                              Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                              Check the box "I have a legal issue that is not mentioned above" then...
                              
                              "I have found content that may violate my copyright"

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                                 sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                 Susana = thank you so much.  I will have another go at filing a DMCA
                                 
                                 Sally

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                           2. 88

                              Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                              The HubPages guide is not well written, IMO.   The process really isn't that difficult, but I can understand your feeling overwhelmed if you're not confident with IT stuff.  The secret is to take it slow.
                              
                              For Blogger, the category you want is "I have a legal issue that is not mentioned above", then you will see an option for "I have found content that may violate my copyright".
                              
                              For sites which are obviously stealing on a big scale, use WhoIs to find out who their hosting company is.  Most hosting companies have a form you can fill in.   The easiest way to find it is to Google the hosting company's name and DMCA (e.g. "GoDaddy DMCA" or "Hostgator DMCA").  Or post on these forums and someone will help.   
                              
                              For community sites (where members contribute articles), the administrators are usually pretty good at taking down stolen stuff.  Look for a "contact" page and just explain what's happened.  You can do the same thing if it's an ordinary blog.
                              
                              And that's it.  Not too hard really, is it?   I like to report the big thieves to Adsense, which hurts them where it matters, in their hip pocket!  You can also report them to Google to get the site removed from search engine results.  But it sounds like you need to keep it simple so I wouldn't worry about taking those steps at this stage.

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                              1. 88

                                 Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                 Marisa, going off topic. Are you on FB?

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                                 1. 88

                                    Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                    Only under my real name!

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                                    1. 88

                                       Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                       I know you don;t want to share that here but I would really like you to link with me there under my real name too.

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                              2. 96

                                 sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                 Marisa - thank you so much.  Like you say, it is rather overwhelming when you don't want to get it wrong.  I have managed to get one removed.  I received notification this morning - how nice.
                                 
                                 I still have a few more to go though. 
                                 
                                 Thanks to everyone who has contributed thus far.

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   2. 72

      Alastar Packerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Gosh it's sad to read about yours and other traffic droppings. For what its worth mine just continue rising with practically no backlinks and only 40 hubs. Mean anything? Although they are connected to a website with 5k views a month and rising; could this at least be a possible answer?

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      1. 72

         Alastar Packerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Guess not.

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         1. 88

            Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I am not sure Alastar. Google is an enigma to me.

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            1. 72

               Alastar Packerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               I'm not sure about it, either. But I keep a link on the homepage to HP and have a lot of guest writers with HP links, too. Maybe it helps, maybe not? But there are a number of guest writers who say it does.

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      2. 86

         rebekahELLEposted 9 years agoin reply to this

           I'm sure that is very helpful! 
         
         I don't know about traffic trends at this time, but I know if I'm searching for something specific, I'll go to sites targeted for that topic.

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         1. 72

            Alastar Packerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            It is, thanks, rebekahELLE. And the best thing is 90% are unique viewers with new ones finding the stories more and more. This is of course good for the blogs and HP as well.

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   3. 94

      Solarasposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Mine's been down about 20% as well.  But the rate is a little higher, so it has evened out monetarily.

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   4. 72

      relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Not seeing anything off the usual season trends.

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2. 81

   Mark Ewbieposted 9 years ago

   My traffic has dropped noticeably over the last few days - perhaps 20-25%.

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3. 0

   Prosperity66posted 9 years ago

   I also experienced a traffic drop these past days but couldn't remember the exact time it happened. I also didn't hear of any update these past weeks...

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4. 96

   DrMark1961posted 9 years ago

   My traffic is down about 25% too, but when looking over my stats page I notice it is not all of them. Some are affected even more severely, and seem to be getting almost no organic traffic.
   I suspect the Google shuffle.

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5. 88

   Nell Roseposted 9 years ago

   Yep me too! I have lost hundreds of readers a day over the last week or so. Hey ho here we go again!

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6. 85

   CMHypnoposted 9 years ago

   My traffic always dips over the weekend and its rising back to normal weekday levels now it's Sunday evening

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   1. 88

      Nell Roseposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It does go down at weekends, but the beginning of the week saw my drop, and its got steadily worse since then, but going back up slightly now

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      1. 93

         Jean Bakulaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Mine has dropped really low too. Yesterday I didn't have ONE person on a hub! Today it's a little better. It is Spring finally in the US after a frigid winter, maybe everyone is doing yardwork and getting outside. I am!

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7. 81

   LeanManposted 9 years ago

   My traffic has followed yours, while some of my personal websites have see traffic increase by almost 1/3. I guess google is playing around again.. I will wait until next month however before I start making any changes just to see what happens as most of the time these dips correct themselves on the next update.
   I have noticed however that some of my traffic losses are very country specific, for instance my traffic to my Saudi hubs from Google SA has dropped dramatically while my google.com traffic has maintained normal levels.

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8. 97

   PaulGoodman67posted 9 years ago

   Two of my hub accounts went down, two went up.  The hit happened late March.
   
   I do have some concerns about the Amazon scheme being heavily promoted by HP, not so much because of the scheme itself, but because Amazon hubs are one thing that Google has come down heavily on in the last couple of years - not just here, but at Squidoo too.  They seem to be intensifying the clampdown.
   
   I am obviously not against the use of Amazon capsules, just concerned that there might be more appearing on HP that Google considers to be "low quality" and then the whole site is hit.

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      Greekgeekposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Paul, I don't think Hubpages has much to worry about on that front; its front page, hierarchy, and staff are not pushing minimal-content reviews the way SquidHQ is doing.
      
      I'm seeing a slight traffic dip on HP right now, but it's a bit like mutual funds: the usual ups-n-downs, nothing that would start setting off alarm bells for me. But Cardisa may indeed be having problems with duplicate content. (Although a couple of my top-traffic hubs have been copied by thieves, and unfortunately one of them is plastered over the net in so many places that I just don't have the energy to hunt them all down... I'm assuming that my Google authorship and Google's own records will show which is the original, and for now, traffic's steady).

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         PaulGoodman67posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I don't have a great deal of confidence in Squidoo at the mo.  Some of their recommended lenses seemed bad to me: there was even some personal blog type stuff they were pushing which certainly surprised me!  They seem to permanently ban decent material that just needs the number of keywords trimming, without tackling the lenses that are obviously low quality.  Maybe it's a technical issue, in that it's relatively easy to use keyword counting software and detecting other probs is harder (hence HP using MTurk).  I think Google are relatively sophisticated nowadays and Squidoo are struggling to respond.  They must be struggling financially too, given how low their payouts are nowadays!
         
         HP traffic hasn't altered a great deal for me overall in terms of numbers over my 4 accounts, certainly in the last 6 months (a year ago I was doing way better).  What has changed however is that I seem to have lost traffic on hubs that used to make me money, and gained traffic on hubs that don't make me much money.
         
         I saw some major swings at the end of last month.  This account fell quite a bit but another of mine rocketed.  I will carry on doing what I usually do, deleting the worst stuff and trying to improve the rest and hoping for the best.

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9. 88

   Cardisaposted 9 years ago

   I just want to thank everyone for their replies. Been busy with work and filing DCMA. I keep finding other hubs copied as well. Oh, I am so angry right now. I do see a slight increase today but my best performers are still down.

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10. 0

    Prosperity66posted 9 years ago

    I'm not sure these sites were taken down, as the one I found one of my Hub - and lots of other stolen Hubs one month ago is still live.
    
    However it seems that it was de-indexed by Google - or so low in the result pages that I didn't find it any more. But with a direct link typed in your browser you can still find it - now it even has some sort of pop up or pop under page that pops up when you want to leave it.

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