Significant Traffic Change for Imported Accounts

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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Looked at the 1-year Q chart I did. I'm beginning to wonder if Janderson's quota theory may actually have some merit. And for that matter, traffic is lower now than during the dog days of summer. If HP doesn't increase their revenue very soon, there are going to be some layoffs. I have an idea as to an immediate and substantial revenue increase for HP. Those who have been following this thread probably already know what that idea is...
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  Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  You said it. I never took it seriously, but looking at that graph ...
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Maybe if HubPages changed their name to WikiHubPages... Actually, as to the concept, I'm only half-joking.
  
  Edit: if only HP could somehow convince G that HubPages is an alternative to Wikipedia...
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HomeArtist1posted 10 years ago
Hmmm, not seeing where your chart is, presently; it sounds interesting.
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
Here is a 12 month Quantcast graph - US Page Views. Overall traffic has increased about 10% over 12 months, despite all the extra pages added etc. And you can't get over that!

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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I figured my post would bring you out of hiding... I just took a look at my stats for last year at this time versus this year. Yep, substantially lower; less of the pie to go around per your theory. At least I did get the expected Fall increase, just not nearly as much as last year. Because of other reasons, I will not be posting any more new hubs on this account; in fact, I'm going to start removing many of the existing ones. It will be interesting to see how Google reacts to my new account. Plus, I'll get to experience the joys of HP boot camp.
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makingamarkposted 10 years ago
For the theory about a quota to be real, the theory would also have to apply to other sites.

Unless of course this theory only applies to HubPages and runs to the notion that ONLY HubPages deserves to be singled out.

Try plugging in sites such as Blogger.com or About.com into Quantcast and then explain their profiles according to "the theory of the quota" - if you can.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  LOL, my post was meant in a light-hearted way.
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Neither Blogger.com or About.com has authorized metrics. I will look for others.
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Lynne-Modranskiposted 10 years ago
My posts have plummeted in the last four days. I always go down a bit in October because every one is searching for Halloween; however, I haven't been this low on my top performing page since I created it.

I was averaging 110-200 hits per day on Squidoo. Made it up to over 300 one day on HubPages and thought this might be absolutely tremendous. Now I'm at 57 on a good day...
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
The 6 month comparison for Hubpages and Findthebest shows similar patterns of regular pull-backs to quota. Remember that Google can, and does adjust the quota periodically. Both sites have similar traffic now to what they had 6 months ago.

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  makingamarkposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  You really are determined to ignore the numbers on that y axis aren't you? Those are MILLIONS!!!!
  
  Just take the numbers and then calculate the percentage INCREASES over time, even with your notional "pullbacks" it's still significant.
  
  Do you have any notion of what a normal growth rate looks like for most businesses? I seriously suggest you go away and study some data about economic growth.
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  Lynne-Modranskiposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Not only that, but shouldn't you really compare the traffic of HubPages AND Squidoo when doing these kinds of comparisons?
  
  At first I was going to say we have to take into account all the pages that didn't move, but I'm guessing those pages got zero traffic anyway. All of hubpages should have all the traffic that BOTH sites had six months ago. Which means those stats are extremely skewed and even more dismal than I thought before.
  
  Up until about three days ago, I assumed it was a seasonal fluctuation, but this is more than that. I assume it "Panda", but I get very frustrated that Google has that much control over what people see on the internet.
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
Another comparison showing changes in quota for Yourtango vs hubpages.

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Anthony Altorennaposted 10 years ago
Well, I have no idea if the traffic drop is a result of the Panda update, the influx of my 'new' 140+ Hubs that were imported from Squidoo and required a lot of editing / republishing, a reporting issue, or if there are other influences at work. My traffic has drop from 10,000+ weekly visitors down to just 1400 weekly visitors, which is a significant change. Hopefully, this is just temporary drop and will sort itself out in the coming months.
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Well, Monday traffic is less than Sunday traffic. Looks like Google is going to mess with us some more this week...
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Kierstin Gunsbergposted 10 years ago
I have to say that as of Monday (yesterday) my traffic IS slowly starting to recover. No where near the numbers I was at before all of this went down, but I'm feeling positive about the little gains!
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
From my real time for this account,

"Right now
6
active users on site"

Not exactly awesome, but sufficient for hope to continue.
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SlydeDracoposted 10 years ago
My views are almost non-existent, now. I have a hub that has almost 1000 views in the last month - that's about 30 per day, on average. It is just shy of 23,000 views in the 19 months since I posted it. That's a total of about 40 per day, on average.

In the last day: 3. I think that is pretty indicative that there is a serious problem for me, and obviously for a lot of other hubbers, as well.
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  HomeArtist1posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Why is this, I wonder? I'd love to hear from someone in authority. It's not as though we can email or phone Google to get an explanation, though, so we're all left to wonder. Hmmmm . . .
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  PegCole17posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Ditto - Everyday it seems like a different hub that rarely made it out of the weeds in the past is showing up with the number one highest score and my number one for five years has tanked. What's up with that? Last report from HP, my views dropped 51 percent in one week.
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  jansharesposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Ditto. A deadly combo of a change in algorithms, a change from Google's ranking of keywords (I think, not an authority on this), and being branded as a "content farm." Again, not an authority, what I've read from veteran hubbers in the forums.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I think what Relache meant is
  
  1. Google has said the latest Panda is designed to give a fairer chance to small and medium websites. Obviously that's got to be at the expense of larger sites - we're a larger site.
  
  2. For Squidoo members, the 301 redirects create an additional problem. The trouble is that multiple 301 redirects are a bad thing - and while HubPages did only one redirect per lens, Squidoo had played around with their structure a lot over the years so some lenses already had several 301 redirects before the transfer.
  
  3. As you say, Google doesn't like content farms. That's been the case since 2011 but it could be that the latest algorithm has additional processes to penalise them - there's no indication of that but we don't know.
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Well, now. Tuesday higher than Monday for both HubPages and for my own wonderful self. Not a unique occurrence, but also not the usual pattern. I feel possible stirrings of happiness...

https://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com?country=US
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  Jayne Lancerposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Same here, Paradigmsearch.
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AaronBurtonposted 10 years ago
Stay strong!
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Traffic unusually steady last 4 days. I mean seriously, no standard weekly pattern at all. Can't wait to see what Thursday is. It's as if Google is trying to make up its mind. If it continues, next week could be banner.

This chart analysis is based upon my former day trader experiences.

Obligatory link, https://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com?country=US
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PaulGoodman67posted 10 years ago
Yes, traffic has definitely flattened out since late September. I tend to see that as a bad sign though, it is like Google is tempering traffic.
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  The normal pattern is for it to drop as the week progresses. This week it has not done so. I submit that something good may be afoot.
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Thursday traffic is out. It dropped, but still within my theory realm. I have decided to ignore the 1.7 million monthly traffic drop and the 5+ reduction in ranking.
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  neosurkposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I am literally ashamed to look at my stats right now
  The traffic rose a hundred this Monday, and that's when I thought this mess was over. But no, yesterday and today's stats are the worst -- ever.
  
  (See the stats, lie down, sigh, try not to cry, cry a lot!)
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  My account is still holding up. Too bad I have to abandon it for other reasons. Oh, well.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  My traffic on Wednesday was the highest it's been since the Panda update, which filled me with optimism. Then yesterday I had the lowest traffic since I was a newbie. Added to that, my hubber score dropped. I know that scores don't matter, but what else have we got these days?
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  As to my own personal circumstance, I guess it is time...
  
  @HP Please make my account worth full value to HP.
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Lynne-Modranskiposted 10 years ago
I can't get motivated to do updates when the traffic is so low. This is a 70% drop in traffic from the same time last year. I'll keep checking in, but if Google has given up on HubPages, I may have to abandon this means of writing for some other . . . sad . . . even when my "payday" fell off on Squidoo, my hits stayed up (sending traffic to my products on Amazon), but this just won't cut it.
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  maalarueposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Totally agree. Years of writing and tweaking and improving Hubs to rank high on Google and get higher traffic to my Hubs, only to be taken away by bad management decisions. Not only are we all losing money now, but imagine how many hundreds of thousands are being lost to this company because quantity was more important than quality.
  
  We have been slapped hard by Google due to bad decisions made by HubPages, and we at least deserve an explanation or statement from the Company and what corrective measures are being taken. The longer it takes them to communicate with us, the more Hubbers we are going to lose. I am also looking at other avenues and opportunities after what has happened.
  
  HubPages...I suggest you speak up soon! Without us, you wouldn't have a business. And the longer you wait, the more money will be lost. What is your action plan?
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ologsinquitoposted 10 years ago
My main blog is experiencing the sane ups and downs. It's great one day, and not so good the next. Some of my hubs now have days of almost normal traffic, close to what I saw before this slap. I will continue to add very specific content, and hope for the best.

This whole experience underscores the need to diversify, and to have some of your own sites as well.
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ologsinquitoposted 10 years ago
Marissa, not all "content farms" are suffering. My traffic on Wizzley has gone up, and I'm seeing good results elsewhere too. This seems to be related to something specific with Hub Pages, and, with any luck, this problem will reverse itself once the dust settles from the Squidoo move..
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Well, Q rank has gone from 55 to 62 I believe. And I recollect that global was indeed at 40 million, so that's 2.2 million gone. My own account has continued to avoid the slaughter. And my infamous website continues to prosper, relatively speaking. Knowing what I know now, I can't wait to see what new account name I come up with. 5 year anniversary coming up for me; I've learned a lot.
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Well, Sunday is best HP traffic since September 25 or thereabouts. Adjustment rebound in progress?
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  That looks like the normal Monday rebound from the weekend – about the same traffic the site had on Thursday. On HP as a whole, Tuesday is the most highly trafficked day with traffic peaking between 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PST, according to staff.
  
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Interesting, US looks more optimistic than Global. For that matter, I think I've noticed on my own account the percentage of non-US has been steadily decreasing for some time now. I think G mentioned something about this awhile back, i.e., local being favored.
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  That was the Google Pigeon flying over, not to be confused with Panda, Penguin or Hummingbird. (It is confusing though, isn't it?)
  
  Here's what happened and it only affected US searches:
  http://searchenginewatch.com/article/23 … -the-Birds
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  If Monday (US) touches that 800K line, I'm personally breaking out the party hat.
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  Solarasposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I take it the Penguin update was not released last week. Is there any word on when it might be hitting?
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  It hasn't been released yet, but is due momentarily. The last Penguin update was a year ago. HP's traffic actually increased during that update. What will happen this time, though, will be a different story. First of all, all of the websites which were hit hard last year but have put in the work needed to make a recovery, should see improved rankings when Penguin hits. This, of course, may bring down rankings of other webpages that got a boost last year. (You can't recover search rankings after Penguin until the algorithm is applied again.) Secondly, there are now 175,000 new pages of content recently uploaded to HP which have not been through the QAP process and I've seen some horrendous cases of webspam on some of them.
  
  Google's Matt Cutts is still on vacation, but John Mueller stated "We'll definitely let you know when things are happening."
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  The 3 month chart shows that the traffic has plateaued - almost as if the Squidoo harvest never happened! Quota baby!
  
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  It sure does look that way. I'm hoping G is having a board meeting to consider raising it.
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  Mark Ewbieposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I buy the quota thing too. That traffic and my own is just too stable to be normal.
  
  One disturbing aspect, as if there have not been enough, is that now is the time of year traffic should be climbing.
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Update.

WELL, CHECK IT OUT, SPORTS FANS!!!

If this isn't good news, then I don't know what is.

https://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com?country=US
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah Good news. Whoop Whoop Whoop!
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Maybe G had that board meeting...
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Traffic is up on Squidoo, too:
  
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Keep it in perspective:
  
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Alas, Monday was a spike, as opposed to being my fantasized prelude to a new gestalt. Oh, well.
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Probably triggered by HP terminating ad program for many hubbers - weird!
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I don't know how many more of these daily heart attacks I can take.
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  My favorite spikey squid
  
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  Elsie Hagleyposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Yes I agree, I don't know how many more attacks I can take.
  
  We had so much stress at Squidoo, now six weeks on HubPages it is continuing on. Another nose dive with traffic again this week. Visits have just about disappeared on my Hubs, Very depressing.
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I agree that yesterday was really bad, especially since Q data still hasn't shown up yet; I wonder what's up with that? Previous to yesterday though, things were still looking pretty good; hoping yesterday was a fluke.
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  This is what Quantcast says:
  Updated Oct 15, 2014 • Delayed - Next: Oct 16, 2014 by 3PM PDT
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  It's not that bad. Yesterday's HP global traffic only went down another 1%. However, the HP U.S. Quantcast rank is now 72. Didn't it used to be in the 60s?
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Used to be 55 or 56 I think. I do believe the crash and burn has definitely stopped though. We are at the seeking-new-level phase now. And the usual fall-winter rise really should be starting.
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Except for one thing: The Google Penguin update is on its way. On October 2nd Google announced that it was already too late to remove spam backlinks for Penguin. Penguin isn't just about links; it's about all webspam.
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I bought and used my penguin harpoons a long time ago. If the algo is even half-assed competent, I believe I am personally clear.
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Penguin is a site-wide and not a page-by-page penalty.
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Are you absolutely sure we don't get the courtesy of subdomain differentiation?
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Site-wide means site-wide. It means everything on the HubPages.com domain.
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Actually, we just may have a shot as to subdomains!!! http://searchenginewatch.com/article/23 … redictions But only a shot.
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Penguin has always been a site-wide penalty and it's pure speculation on anyone's part to say that the new Penguin update will not be as well. One of the huge problems on HP right now is the failure of people to use the NoFollow attribute for affiliate and advertising links. The HP Learning Center doesn't even explain this to people and QAP doesn't check for the correct use of NoFollow. This is spam in Google's eyes because those links pass PageRank.
  
  Here's a video that Matt Cutts released last year saying that Penguin goes deep into a website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNbWw2OUUAc
  And here's an article about Penguin 2.0 as a site-wide penalty: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-pen … 16837.html
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Just out of curiosity and the questions are for anyone who wishes to answer, including HP:
  
  1. Have all the Related Search Ad links always been automatically no-follow?
  2. Have all the Amazon capsules and links always been a forced automatic no-follow (including imported Squidoo)?
  3. Have all the eBay capsules and links always been a forced automatic no-follow?
  
  I'd always thought the answers were all yes, but just thought I would ask.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Writer Fox:
  
  If what you are saying is true, then HP is doomed. If the entire site gets penalized because of all of the unvetted spam that now exists here, instead of individual subdomains being checked, then it is over for us. Surely Paul thought of this before he purchased Squidoo! Everything is such a mess that I am just sick about it. I can't even start forum posts, my edit tool is not working tonight, my views are in the toilet, etc. , etc...same as many others here.
  
  I feel like Google is stabbing us to death and we are bleeding with no way to bandage the wounds and recover.
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  Elsie Hagleyposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  agree with you 100%
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I thought the Amazon links were automatically no follow. Am I correct? If not, how in the world do we make them no follow!
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  If you use the Amazon capsule on HP, the links are automatically NoFollow. It is the same with eBay. You don't have to do anything.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks...I thought that was the situation but wanted to make sure. Apparently Penguin did not bother my numbers, but they are so bad that it would be hard to know anyhow! Can you tell now how badly the site was hit? I don't know how to do this type of research but know you watch these things carefully.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  It was a prelude to something. My daily traffic losses have now entered four figures.
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Ya know... If HP does get major slammed by penguin, I'm going to have to remove my 100+ links to other Hubbers' hubs on my main website; guilt by association and all that.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Could you add a "no follow" code to your whole blog? Here are some instructions if you're on Blogger, though I haven't tried them myself as I'm not on Blogger any more:
  
  http://www.mybloggerlab.com/2013/03/how … ogger.html
  
  I'm not sure that Google would think HubPages links are bad per se, but Google can be suspicious of blogs that have lots and lots of links pointing to the same site, so it would be worth doing the no follow thing anyway.
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
Well, let us hope that 500K line continues to be our support level. https://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com?country=US
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  U.S. ranking has slipped to 72. But the real picture can be seen in the 3-month global views:
  
  Traffic to HP was better during the slow, last two weeks in August than it is now with the transfer of all the new content. If you look at the graph, the change is in views from mobile.
  
  Three weeks ago Paul E. said he would be "back shortly" to this thread.
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Any idea when The Attack of the Killer Penguins is going to begin? Or has it already? My traffic is starting to act weird.
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  It hasn't started yet and Google will announce it when it is rolled out.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  It began Friday night: http://searchengineland.com/google-rele … ontent=seo
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
Ho Hum I won't say it again, but............
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  Barbara Kayposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Be sure to read this thread. http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/125928 I checked mine and there seems to be a real problem. There are sites that are linking to our hubs more than 4000 times per site. Someone is trying to spam us off the internet.
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  janderson99posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I thought that:
  "Generally Google doesn’t hold you responsible for unnatural inbound links outside of your control, so under normal circumstances we’d expect Google to simply ignore these spammy pages."
  would apply.
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  Barbara Kayposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I hope so. There are a lot linking to my pages.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Barbara: I think Google does expect you to try to get rid of those links, show that you did, and then disavow them through Google. If you do not, you are taking a big risk. I just went through this, and it was horrible. I disavowed entire domains because they were linking too often and seemed spammy or malicious to me. You cannot just expect Google to cut you a break here.
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Penguin 3.0 started rolling out on Friday. It will be interesting to see if Paul E. comments on the effect on imported URLs, since that's the topic of this thread and he said he would "be back shortly."
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  WF When these new algorithms roll out, do they hit everybody all at once or is there hope that HP is not first on the hit list? I just made major changes to my account yesterday because I was hoping to get them done prior to Penguin, but now wonder if I'll be OK. These changes have nothing to do with links and more to do with trying to bring my hubs in line with what G wants from us...which meant deleting about 47 articles and so far upgrading about 38 of them to lessen keyword count. What do you think?
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  The updates roll out over different Google data centers over the course of about a week. This affects the searches made from different countries at different times, so the HP site will be affected all week because its traffic is global. And, if you made changes yesterday, they won't be noticed by this update. It was too late to make changes in backlinks three weeks ago, Google announced.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  WF:
  
  Thanks. I made my back link disavows more than a month ago and G acknowledged that they had updated my records. So, the next question is this: will Penguin only be going after bad back links or other things as well?
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Penguin targets all webspam. I have a Hub about it on my slider with examples of webspam I found on Squidoo.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  WF Will take a look. I have no webspam that I am aware of because I post very few ads and do not link to anybody's hubs and have also disavowed prior to this update.
  
  By the way, I just read that the update is complete as of this morning! So, how soon would we see results from it? Immediately?
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  Mark Ewbieposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Noted.
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I'm waiting for your new Hub with a Killer Penguin sketch. (If you make the caption 'Google Penguin', you might get some quick traffic right now from Google image search.)
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  Mark Ewbieposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  That is a clever idea. If only I could draw a penguin.
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Watch closely:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Heg9P2DY3M
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  Mark Ewbieposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Hmmm. I didn't watch all SEVEN minutes of it but that looked tedious in the extreme.
  
  Now this isn't so good but I did it a while back...
  
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  Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I love it! Now for the 3.0 Update!
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
Google has an assigned Quota for HP traffic - and 'You Can't get Over That'
Look at the Quantcast data!
Penguin may mean the Quota is lowered!
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goodnews11posted 10 years ago
My traffic has reduced exponentially from 1000s to just 50s. Also my revenue has gone down.
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buddhaanalysisposted 10 years ago
Sir,
Can you tell me how sub domain creation by user is done in website. I mean which technology is used for it.
I am working in asp.net technology currently. I have website where i want to give facility to users to create thier own subdomain.

Can please help me with online material or telling a way.
Thanks.
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Dressage Husbandposted 10 years ago
Today I spent a little time replacing links on other sites that went to my Squidoo Lensmaster account. It is interesting that I appear to have received a significant increase in traffic now the links are direct to my Hubpages Hubs. I would love to know if others find that this happens too!

If this is the case then it appears that Writer Fox and others like him here are correct that Squidoo was itself causing negative ranking by Google.
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
I am astonished that Paul E has provided no update to his thread after 4 weeks!
(Back shortly!)
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Savio Dawsonposted 10 years ago
Okay, here's an update.. I still have a sorry state of affairs when it comes to traffic (currently I am at 25% of traffic from just a month ago) but interestingly my revenues have shot up. Again, it is quite less in comparison to many, but from my own traffic perspective, it is comparable to my earlier revenues...

Is this a glitch? or is it something others are experiencing too? 3 of my hubs constantly rank 1 on Google, I don't know if that is the reason. If the revenues come in then I really don't mind the traffic too much...
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paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago
HP drops 10,000,000. My account? Straight line. I will address this at another time. You can start with making me a non-referral.
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STAFF
Paul Edmondsonposted 10 years ago
Sorry it's taken so long - I hoped it would be shorter, but this is pretty complex stuff. We've been looking at lots of data, talking to SEO consultants, reaching out to Google and deciding on the best path of applying what we have learned.

First, we are seeing traffic drops site wide - not just isolated to Lenses.

Second, traffic changes and the percent loss correlates strongly with our QAP scores and user satisfaction data. This is actually very good news. We are getting much better at identifying high quality work (not perfect, but much better). Hubs with the highest scores did better than those with lower scores and it actually get's more interesting than that. There appears to be a pretty significant change around the mid point of QAP scores.

Third, we have analyzed data on how product usage in Hubs affects reader satisfaction on average. This is also good news. We can create policies and educate Hubbers about what readers enjoy from a content perspective.

Our biggest concerns are the community and getting it right to the best of our ability. In the past, the correlations have been weak between Panda updates traffic change and our internal data, but this time it appears that we have some very strong correlations as we have greatly improved our systems.

I'm very excited about this, but we are still working on the details.

Here is the advice I can tell you about improving Hubs that is shown in the data we have.

If you write about products, add substantial value beyond the curation of the products. HubPages data shows users are satisfied when there is real meat to the page. Write deep reviews, test the product, and place them very surgically. Less is more when it comes to products and making readers happy!

Second, fix basic errors. Spell check, use photos with a good resolution, ensure that any copy and pasted content is free of encoding or formatting errors and take care of the basics. It's amazing how often a simple misspelled word is missed that readers notice. Our data is showing we have an opportunity to improve on basics.

Third, write about where you have expertise. One idea was suggested today, that journalist often have to find authoritative sources to quote. Work on ways of increasing the authority of a Hub. In 2014, readers want to trust the information and while they might not know you, adding bits about your qualifications to your work can add to the trust factor. Also, we suggest having a picture of yourself as your photo on HubPages and adding a real or pen name on your profile. We show the real name on mobile Hubs. That's likely coming to the desktop. We believe readers prefer seeing Hubs by Paul Edmondson vs by Eatstoomuchbbq.

While these are things Hubbers can do, there is a lot we can do as well.

Our data shows we can improve our ad layout (in the works). We created over 11 different comps and ran surveys against them. We want readers to feel that the page isn't excessive. This is actually very tough to do. We remove too many ads and we can't pay the bills, but if we have too many, readers aren't happy. So, we have sent over an ad layout we hope is in the sweet spot and are waiting on approval from Google.

We can tune the QAP to better manage what content is indexed (in the works). There are many systems and sub systems to the QAP. In a perfect world, all content on HubPages would be high quality and spam free. We have been focusing on applying the tweaks to the QAP to new Hubs, but we will likely apply to existing Hubs to no index content that is low quality that we can identify. The QAP isn't perfect. One challenge we have is really high quality content that doesn't get traffic. Others are we can make mistakes on content that is really compact. We also are working to improve on detecting spammy links. Right now, we are testing our error rates to ensure we are at acceptable levels. As well as make sure there is a path to correct mistakes that isn't too burdensome.

We can put more Hubs through HubPro. We hired three more editors. Top notch people. We are focusing on editing Hubs that have the most potential to improve the average reader satisfaction. This is very labor intensive, but the results are outstanding. We need to continue to address concerns from the community and improve the ability to edit more Hubs. This is both a technology and human resource challenge.

We can improve the site design (in the works). We will likely widen the site to accommodate a better ad layout. This will lead to opportunities to add content that readers will engage with, and to create sections to better highlight authors and their expertise. We are also considering changes to breadcrumbs. We will likely change to a consistent usage across the site or try and find a way to truly make them useful (hardly anyone clicks on either type of them).

I hope this gives folks some insight to our thoughts and our likely plan. More specifics coming - shortly I hope:)

Happy Hubbing!
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  One heck of a post! We basically are in your hands. Heck of a note, isn't it? You have done what we all want to do, start our own business. And yet you still end up having a boss (Google). That's got to really suck. But still, I'd bet 99% of us would be happy to change places with you anytime. Keep doing what you are doing, I'd guess that same 99% of us aren't going anywhere else anytime soon.
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  Barbara Kayposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  This is what I love about Hubpages. They are always working behind the scenes to improve problems like this without jumping to conclusions. Thank you for the hard work you do.
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  makingamarkposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Interesting feedback and good to hear that the statistical correlations are coming out telling a story.
  
  Re. the width of the site - I'm wondering how that corresponds with what I hope are responsive website designs to cater for different screen sizes. ( I see Quantcast is indicating some 53% of traffic is now coming from mobile devices so obviously what the mobile responsive designs look like is critical )
  
  Could explain that a bit more please?
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  Solarasposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you so much for a detailed account of what you guys are doing behind the scenes. It is very encouraging! I love HP and their staff!
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  ecogrannyposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  This is good news, Paul. Thank you for getting back to us. Thank you, too, for all you and your staff are doing to find the answers and distill them to information we can use to improve our hubs.
  
  I'm especially glad to hear that it's not just lenses-now-hubs that are losing views. That gives me hope we former Squids might get our readership back one day.
  
  I'm also grateful to learn you are thinking of widening the page, which, I feel, will make it look more professional.
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  Torrs13posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for all of this great information, Paul!
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  NateB11posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  It's awesome the kind of work you guys put into this site. Good to know we are moving forward and progressing.
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  TonyPayneposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Very informative, thanks Paul.
  
  My traffic has dropped again sharply (very sharply) since the weekend, and I wonder if this isn't in part due to Squidoo having disappeared, which means traffic redirected to Hubpages is no longer being received. Certainly that should affect any traffic from Pinterest, Stumbleupon etc where links were added to lenses. At least you can edit the links on Pinterest (or just add new pins) and I have at least done that, but to no avail.
  
  I also wonder to what extent the page loading speed has affected Google ranking, since with the heavier load on the Hubpages servers (due to all our lenses) it sometimes seems that hubs take a long time to load. Maybe Google has dropped rank due to performance.
  
  Who knows what Google is up to and what factors are involved. I am sure it's not just the addition of Squidoo content or any single factor that is doing this. As long as content quality is maintained at a high level things ought to come back again. I just hope it's soon.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Not the case. The main Squidoo site is no longer accessibly by the public, but HubPages has set it up so that all the redirects to individual lenses are still working and will remain so.
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  Lorelei Cohenposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I so echo the thank you voice in this forum. My question "what the heck are breadcrumbs?" Excuse my naivety but I really don't have a clue what that sentence meant.
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  HomeArtist1posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Lorelei, My tech savviness is limited but the breadcrumbs metaphor thing means a trail leading to or from, like the Hansel & Gretel tale where the two left breadcrumbs so they would find their way out of the forest.
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  Lorelei Cohenposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you. That makes sense.
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  ecogrannyposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Lorelei, glad to know I wasn't the only one who didn't know what that meant. I Googled it. The site I found said that breadcrumbs are those navigational helps at the top or bottom of an article that say "next" and "previous," or something to that effect.
  
  I've noticed them appearing on quite a few hubs lately at the bottom of the article, just above "Related Hubs." They include a thumbnail of the hub intro image and the title of the hub with a link. Love that!
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  HomeArtist1posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  LOL! I never notice anything new. Thanks for sharing that change (or is it a change?).
  I'm going to check it out, now.
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  rebekahELLEposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Paul, thanks for all the hard work that you and your staff put into HP. It sounds like an exciting road ahead. Your response gives us helpful insight on how to move ahead.
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ologsinquitoposted 10 years ago
Paul, thank you for the update. It sounds like you and the team are working diligently. Are you saying you are showing our real names during mobile visits?
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  makingamarkposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  That's certainly the way I read it.
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  STAFF
  Paul Edmondsonposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  If you edit your profile, you can add a real name. It's sort of like how twitter lets you show a name along with your handle.
  
  We show it on profiles on desktop and on mobile Hubs. Robin is her Hubber name, but her real name is set as Robin Edmondson on the profile. http://robin.hubpages.com/ Load this on a mobile phone and you'll see how her name is displayed. http://hubpages.com/hub/Bee-Stings-on-the-Eye
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  paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  I so love my current entry, Person of Interest.
  
  For you, I've changed it. For through the end of November. We'll see how it goes.
  
  Side note: speed up your site, it is slow.
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  ecogrannyposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Paul, I am SO glad to learn you are planning this for desktop as well. When my lenses transferred, I wanted to use my real name, but someone already had an account with my name, with zero hubs.
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jansharesposted 10 years ago
Thanks for the update, Paul. It's good to know that things are in the works and will get better.
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
Thanks for the very comprehensive update that provides a way forward and a sense of direction for authors.
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Judy Filareckiposted 10 years ago
Thanks for the great update. Being new to HP, it has been kind of discouraging reading all the concerns people have had about lower traffic and reduced income. It is encouraging to see that you and your staff are working so hard to make things better.
Judy
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Elsie Hagleyposted 10 years ago
Thanks for the update Paul. Appreciate it.
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Dressage Husbandposted 10 years ago
This is terrific news, and I am glad to be able to move forward in confidence, that our efforts will not be wasted.
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Arachneaposted 10 years ago
Paul Edmondson, thanks for the continued efforts on your part as well as the teams involved with the research. Your information is helpful for laying out a long-term strategy to up my game.
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Solarasposted 10 years ago
Hi Paul how do you define mid point scores:
" Hubs with the highest scores did better than those with lower scores and it actually get's more interesting than that. There appears to be a pretty significant change around the mid point of QAP scores. "

What is the preferred hubscore range?

Thanks in advance!
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janderson99posted 10 years ago
The proof of the pudding will be that HP gets a sustained increase in traffic - Here's hoping!
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sara0129posted 10 years ago
I appreciate all that you guys are doing. Thanks for the update.
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Snakesmumposted 10 years ago
Paul, thankyou for the update and all the work that the team are doing.
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ologsinquitoposted 10 years ago
Paul, Thanks for the clarification.
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Shades-of-truthposted 10 years ago
Ah! It was nice to read such an exhaustive update. Thank you, Paul!
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brakel2posted 10 years ago
Thank you Paul. I just have a question about the bad back links - thousands of them - in Webmaster Tools - What can we do, and are they an issue?
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1. STAFF
  Paul Edmondsonposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Did you acquire them naturally?
  
  Typically, we haven't seen big changes in traffic with Penguin updates, but it's possible that if links were acquired outside of natural channels that they are problematic.
  
  I looked at this quite extensively this year and decided against doing a dissavow. Instead, we are focusing on improving content quality. I still think Panda (quality content) is a larger challenge for us than links.
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  brakel2posted 10 years agoin reply to this
  My reply got lost. I have 1000 backlinks from crazyerrorland.com. All backlinks are from past sixty days. My total is 10000, and hubbers are trying to disavow. They are: ads, some lead to "forbidden", and some are legitimate. Most have nothing in common with our hubs. I am in the process of checking mine out before taking action. Long forum post about this issue is at "Negative SEO" in forum posts. Thanks.
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  Judy Filareckiposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for the reminder of where the more extensive discussion. I just disavowed a huge list from mine. The top one was the same as yours with 665. I only just got hit with all of these this past week. It is really annoying.
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  TonyPayneposted 10 years agoin reply to this
  Google keeps telling us that original quality content rules, so I trust that by focusing on that, we will win through in the end. It's just so frustrating when the garbage so often floats to the top in Google.
  reply report

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