Can the Panda slap to HP extend to our blogs?

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   misterhollywoodposted 9 years ago

   I'm sorry to ask this question but I've got to ask. To make a long story short, I'm noticing that my personal blogs have experienced a near identical drop in traffic as my hubs here on HP. The drop started right around the end of September - the same time HP got witch slapped.
   
   I've looked at why this may be happening and even talked to a few SEO specialists. I am being told that IT IS possible for a Panda slap to extend from a penalized site to other sites (blogs) through links. Sure, my sites could have theoretically been slapped on their own but it's higly unlikely because most all of the links point to Wikipedia or Google itself. I have several hubs with backlinks to my blogs. That's the constant thread weaving the drops together.
   
   Sorry to ask and I mean no disrespect to HP as I like it here.
   
   Question: Is it possible links pointing from hubs to our blogs are are extending the slap?
   

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      Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I would definitely say yes, it could well effect your blog. There are a number of reasons why but the main one is if your HP subdomain has been panda slapped then it essentially means that your subdomain has been marked as spam by Google.
      
      That means any links from your pages to your blog will most likely be completely devalued and won't offer the ranking benefit they did before. Also, rather than just having the links ignored, your blogs may even be penalised for having links pointing from a spam site.
      
      I would remove the links and work on doing what you can to get your HP account back in Google's good books.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think so. The traffic to one of my blogs had an increase in traffic during the slap and I have links here to that blog. Also, I'm not sure Panda would have an effect on links, I think that's a Penguin thing. But I would say that links can definitely have an effect on a site and it's hard to tell what Google's doing. So, I guess I wouldn't rule it out, but I'm doubtful about it.

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         Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Has your sub been penalised?

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            NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I've lost a lot of traffic which looks like is due to a drop down in the SERPs (just a few spots in some cases) of my previously well-performing articles. I think, as others have said, this is due to a shuffling in the SERPs. So, don't know if I've necessarily been penalized. Which, if I'm understanding your question correctly, means that my links here wouldn't affect my blogs adversely. If that's what you mean, that makes sense.

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               Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Yes, that's exactly what I mean.

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               Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               What level of traffic drop have you experienced with your HP account percentage wise? And do you have many Editor's Choice hubs?

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                  NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  It's a pretty heavy drop; on one account, I believe I lost 75% of my traffic, on another near 90%; at the lowest--it's crept up a little. I have no Editor's Choice Hubs on one account and on the other I have one.

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         2. 85

            misterhollywoodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            No - I honestly have not. I had someone check out some of our sites today and we were not. I will say the SEO expert I work with did say that link equity does pass on to a blog or website. I will need to think about this a bit more for sure!

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      paradigmsearchposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      An excellent question, especially as to the reverse. I've easily got over a 100 links on my blog pointing to other Hubbers' hubs.
      
      Your post immediately caused me to scamper off and check my recent blog traffic.
      
      I am happy to report that Google has not penalized my blog for its links to HubPages.

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   4. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      A couple of things.  One, I notice in your "Candy" post on your blog, you have a lot of bolded words.  I'm not sure why you've put them in bold, but Google is probably misinterpreting your intent.   You see, some years ago it was recommended to bold your keywords.   Google now recognises that as an SEO trick and penalises it.   (by the way, if they are your keywords and you're doing it on the advice of an SEO consultant, ditch that consultant - he's at least two years out of date!).
      
      I also wonder about the Wikipedia.
      
      When I see a site with lots of links to Wikipedia as a reference, I immediately know the writer is an amateur.   No expert would ever refer to Wikipedia as a reference on their subject - they would be aware of many more authoritative sources.  Is it possible Google has come to the same conclusion?  It would be easy enough to write something into the algorithm to penalise sites which link heavily to Wikipedia.
      
      The other thing is - are all your links to Wikipedia and Google truly relevant?   We once had a Hubber who linked to Wikipedia or Google if he mentioned a person or referred to a subject in passing.   The result was he got slapped for unrelated links!   You have to be careful that all the links on your blog are directly related to the post.  If they're just tangentially related, they are not related enough.  So for instance, if you write a post about one person but link to the Wikipedia page of a completely different person, that's not related enough. 
      
      And if I were you, I'd take the trouble to link to a proper bio of the person, e.g. on IMDb or the actor's own website, not Wikipedia every time.

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   Marisa Wrightposted 9 years ago

   I doubt it.   I have links from my Hubs to my own blogs and they have not lost traffic - so I'd say your blogs have troubles of their own.

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3. 85

   misterhollywoodposted 9 years ago

   Hi, Marissa!!
   
   Thanks for the response. It is possible my sites were penalized but I've done extensive checking and I've got nothing pointing out and posts that are are all over 1000 words (I never post less than this). Still, I will allow this possibility. The Panda update this time around seemed to hit hard on sites that Google has content issues with.
   
   Thanks again

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      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      What are the topics of your blogs?   I see one of them is a celebrity blog, which I could imagine would be up against some very tough competition.   Have you looked at the competition?

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         misterhollywoodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I have looked. The topics are celebs. It is a tough market for sure but were a niche. I'll have to keep an eye on it and monitor it. I'm just worried the links from here are somehow toxic. I saw this happen back in the day with e-zine articles. When I removed the links, things got better (it took awhile).
         
         The Panda rollout is still going in so who knows. Ugh

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   Solarasposted 9 years ago

   I was wondering the same thing.  My blog has had an identical reduction in views.  It is on the same topic as the HP account, Dog stuff.  And there is some linking going back and forth between various articles.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Back AND forth may be your problem.  Google doesn't like that.  You should always make your links in one direction (i.e. either all TO your blog or all FROM your blog).  Otherwise Google thinks you're trying to game the system.

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      misterhollywoodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      So I am not the only one!! I am hearing this via emails from people too. Same issues!

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   David Stone1posted 9 years ago

   Since the idea of a "Panda slap to HP" is false to start with, there can't be a connection.
   
   What we saw was a shuffle, a wave across the internet as the crawlers evaluated with a new algorithm. Some were affected negatively, some positively, others not at all. It's the individual site that gets ranked, except when there's a penalty, which there wasn't, not the whole domain.

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      misterhollywoodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Why is the Panda slap not real? Are you saying Panda did not hit HP? If so, where are you seeing this? Everything I have read, including on Search Engine Land, suggests HP got smashed in the face by the Panda.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         The HP figures are a bit distorted.  If you look at the graphs, you'll see there was a huge surge in traffic when the Squidoo lenses were transferred, just before the Panda hit.   Panda just took the traffic down to where it was before the transfer.
         
         HubPages has posted that Squidoo lenses took the biggest hit, so they are the ones suffering most.  The most likely reason seems to be that many of them have multiple 301 redirects on the same lens.
         
         When people talk about a Panda slap, they can mean one of two things.  The strictly correct use of the term (I think) is when Google gives a site a manual penalty - which is not the case here.  What has happened here is a change to the algorithm, which changed the way it calculates where different websites rank in the search engine results. 
         
         You only need to drop down two or three positions on the page to see a dramatic drop in traffic.

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6. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 9 years ago

   My views began taking a nose dive around September 24 and crashed into the ocean on the 26th.  There has been very little recovery which is up a tad, and drops again. The worst of it is that my traffic from new views had risen to 50 percent, and return visitors at 50 percent which has been a big change and I was hoping the numbers for new visitors would continue to be on the rise.

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      misterhollywoodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Linda I sm n the same place you are. It's a complete dive. Sorry to hear you are dealing with this too!

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7. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 9 years ago

   A lot of us are in the same boat. Worst of it is that my earnings had tripled, nothing to brag about, but at least there was a decent increase, and I was getting Amazon sales which have taken a nose dive with the with traffic.
   
   The way things were going, I had high hopes for a payout at least twice a year, pocket change but better than nothing and better if it had kept on getting better.  I was getting nothing for 3 years then things began to take off, until September. I have added over 30 hubs, so let's see if that manages to help.

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   religions7posted 9 years ago

   What you link to FROM your blogs is hardly relevant from a Panda perspective. What IS relevant is the quality of the content on those blogs and the quality of links TO those blogs. If hubpage links are the only links those blogs have as backlinks, then yes - I think it's conceivable that Google treated your blogs as adjacent to hubpages and penalized it with the site.
   The only solution is to make sure you get MORE and especially BETTER links to those blogs. Which is getting harder and harder btw.
   
   Given that one of my commercial blogs has actually improved traffic over the previous Panda update - and it too has mostly hubpage links - I don't think you should look at links from hubpages as the main cause of your traffic loss.

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   1. 85

      misterhollywoodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the information!

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   religions7posted 9 years ago

   I do agree that linking TO & FROM your blogs to hubpages might be a problem. But if you only link to wikipedia - that aspect isn't the cause here. Also that the celebrity niche is a tough one. LOADS of competition and VERY hard to be a real authority in the space.  If your main source of information is wikipedia, why would google give you the traffic, instead of wikipedia?

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    LindaSmith1posted 9 years ago

    Why the emphasis on Editor's Choice which is chosen by HP not Google, and Google could care less about Hub of the day or Editor's choice.

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       NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Probably because Editor's Choice is linked to the main domain and whatever state the main domain is in then becomes relevant.

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       Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Linda, people are curious to know about the performance of EC Hubs because that program was a major change on this website and it did away with the bread-crumb navigational trail for most Hubs. 
       
       I make my living as an SEO consultant and SEO content strategist, so I definitely want feedback from participants in the EC program.  (I opted out from the onset.)  There has been no recent feedback from management on the actual traffic results of the program, so I surely want to hear from fellow Hubbers about the impact on search engine traffic on their EC Hubs.
       
       You can find out more about the changes the EC program made to the HP site by looking at the information linked on this forum thread:
       http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/117933#post2489237

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    LindaSmith1posted 9 years ago

    Nate: So Editor's Choice is  no longer under the hubbers sub-domain?

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       NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

       That's my understanding, Linda. If you look at an Editor's Choice Hub, it has no subdomain in the URL; just Hubpages. Though you get paid for its traffic. I'm pretty sure it doesn't even show up in Google Analytics for the subdomain.

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    LindaSmith1posted 9 years ago

    I opted out of it after I read some of the posts who were in it and had EC hubs.
    
    I wonder what effect that these cutesy ideas that these sites come up with like the accolades, this of the day that of the week, Editors Choice, etc, have on the site as a a whole, namely the writers

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       Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       The names have NO effect.  Editor's Choice does have an effect because the URL of the Hub actually changes.   There is then a 301 redirect from your original URL to the new Editor's  Choice URL.
       
       I opted out because it's well known that it's not a good idea for a web page to have multiple 301 redirects as it can reduce traffic to that page.   A large number of my Hubs were written before the move to sub-domains so they already have one 301 redirect, so I don't want to risk them being chosen as EC.

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    LindaSmith1posted 9 years ago

    Marissa: One of the things I read was about the URL changes which supposedly causes a traffic drop and wait for google to re-index the hub again. From what I have read about it, I am going to stay opted out of both EC and the new editor program.

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       Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       It doesn't have to be re-indexed because there is a 301 redirect from the old URL.

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