Massive loss of traffic and search engine placement

1. 87

   njmanuraposted 9 years ago

   This week i have noticed a massive reduction of traffic from 1200 to 300 views per day. When I searched Google, I found that most of the Hubs have reduced Google ranking. The Most disheartening thing is pages that over take me in Google search are in fact advertisements and few sentence pages. In contrast my pages are featured hubs with very high user engagement. For an example one of the hubs have around 300 comments and ranked Number one for nearly two years. It was over taken by a eCommerce websites and question and answer sites.
   
   Is this due to reduced authority of Hubpages or due to Sqiudoo integration??

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      Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      If it just happened, it's probably due to Penguin 3.0:
      http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/125998

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      Millionaire Tipsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      When Google offers poor quality results, people tend to move to other search engines. I have found lately that I get a lot more traffic from search engines other than Google.  Keep writing quality hubs. People will find you through other ways.

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   3. 79

      Sharlee01posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      This is more likely the sites that have been placed above you on Google search are sites that pay for their site to be promoted by Google, the program is called Ad Words. I have a web site that I pay for my web site to be promoted. Such sites will always be placed before sites that do no pay for ads. It's how Google makes their revenue. I have no idea if Hubpages belong to the Google Ad Words program. This is the reason as a rule you'll see very poor quality sites at the top of Google search. These sites get a good ranking due to they pay to play... The day of Google needing articles that don't belong to Ad Words is long gone. It would be my hope that Hubpages belong to Ad Words?  If not they are  simply earning revenue do to the large number of articles they have under one roof. All these articles have the ability to bring in some traffic from Google, and subsequently some earnings.  This is not all that for businesses like hubpages or us that write for Hubpages.  We do have a chance to make revenue, without out of pocket costs...  However, don't expect to get rich, Google is a business that thrives on ads, they will naturally give the web site owner that pays for ads the benefit of better ranking. If they didn't they would lose the revenue that these web site owners provide.

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         NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Good to know, and explains a lot. Thanks for the insight.

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   4. 88

      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I've had the same problem since late September. Traffic has crept up a little but has been on an up and down low level for awhile. Amazing how just losing a few positions in the SERPs causes such a decimation.

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      weezyschannelposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      You were not the only one! I am having fits. I have made less than four dollars this week!! I used to make that in one day. My last seven days I have made $3.50. I work hard on my articles and I feel the same way as you do.
      
      Very disheartening and troubling

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2. 93

   jansharesposted 9 years ago

   'Massive' is an understatement. Thanks for the info, Writer Fox. I definitely felt the Penguin 3.0 this weekend.
   Edit: Just checked GA, there was some recovery on Sunday. Very hopeful.

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      chef-de-jourposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Jan, I noticed a hub of yours on a blogspot - copied completely - please look for forum title: Hubs scraped and copied -  you'll find the culprit's site. There are others too I suspect.

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         jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         OMG, thanks, chef-de-jour. Will check it out as soon as I can this evening. Jeeez!!

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         jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I just filed a DMCA at Wordpress. Thanks again, chef. I never would have known.

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3. 71

   MagKayeposted 9 years ago

   Yes - there has been another thread about this for some time.
   Huge drops in traffic (and earnings) this whole month.
   
   I think my views are down by two thirds or more.
   
   In comparison to this time last year, it's really shocking!

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4. 59

   lafleurdeplumeposted 9 years ago

   I've not only noticed that, but I've also noticed that my total ever views in my HubPage stats are going down... how is that possible?!?

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5. 82

   ologsinquitoposted 9 years ago

   Saturday was terrible, but there appeared to be some recovery Sunday. My views are still down, but at least I'm getting a little traffic.

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6. 69

   JenwithMistyposted 9 years ago

   I couldn't find my chiropractor's website with a Google search.  All of the ridiculously irrelevant results required me to find a different search engine. I think the problem has everything to do with Google and nothing to do with Hub quality or the Squidoo merger.

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7. 61

   lizabethjcarterposted 9 years ago

   My hub showed up in search results. What's the name of your hub, so that I can Google it.

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   1. 87

      njmanuraposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks everyone for replies. My hub is about candid b. Its a skin cream.

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8. 94

   Maffew Jamesposted 9 years ago

   I've experienced no loss of traffic through the penguin update this week, because I disavow bad links every few weeks and have done so since I first started. This is important for everyone to do if you want to maintain your traffic over the long term.
   
   The problem is that Google's algorithm can't tell the difference between paid links and other forms of intentional link spam vs unsolicited link spam. If a link is bad, it needs to be removed or it will hurt you. Don't fall into the mistake of believing that you'll be fine and Google will be able to tell the difference. It can't.

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      jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Maffew, I need a quick tutorial on how to do this. I googled "webmaster tools," got as far a seeing 2 of my sites: my blog spot and my hp subdomain. It said I needed to verify the hp subdomain. Do I go ahead and do that? Will the next steps lead me to disawow links? I already went to the page that gave me the option to do the same with my blog spot but I didn't need it. Thanks.

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      1. 94

         Maffew Jamesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Your Hubpages subdomain needs to be set up on Webmaster Tools before you can use the disavow tool. After that, it may take several weeks before Google begins to show the links to your site. Go ahead and verify it, but you won't be able to see links for a while. You can still use the disavow tool after your subdomain is verified, but you'll need to use a backlink checker to find and examine your links.
         
         At that point, look at each individual site. You want to look at the content and how it links to you. If the content is stuffed with keywords, spun, copied, or the site is simply devoid of quality in any other way, disavow it; if every page links to you, or has several links to you on the same page, that's also likely to be considered spam in Google's eyes. If it's just one page and the rest of the site is fine, just disavow the URL. If the entire site is spam, disavow the domain.
         
         It's important to note however that if you have in fact been hit by Penguin, you won't see any significant improvement until the algorithm refreshes again. The disavow will set your articles up for recovery when this happens, but the consensus is that the algorithm has to refresh before traffic returns to normal, just like with Panda.

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            jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you very much, Maffew, for your clear and concise explanation. It sounds like something I need to have set up, especially for recovery from future Pandas and Penguin hits.

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      jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I just ran across more detail about this in another forum, Maffew. Didn't realize how complicated it is. Thanks anyway.

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9. 0

   Tina Trueloveposted 9 years ago

   I had not heard of "disavow" until yesterday.  After reading all these comments, I decided to learn how to use Google Webmaster Tools and checked to see who was linking to my articles.  I had over 4000 backlinks.  At least 2000 were from spam sites or sites that do not exist.  I think I have a problem.  Good grief!

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      ologsinquitoposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      If we do have a problem, wouldn't this show up in our Webmaster tools?

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         Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Google will only notify you if it has taken a manual action against one of your sites for spam links.  If the Penguin algorithm targeting webspam downgrades your site because of spam links, you will receive no notice.

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         1. 0

            Tina Trueloveposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I figured out how to create a disavow list and gave it a shot.  Maybe it will help.  I'm not sure what else to do.  About 900 of mine come from one source.  About 800 come from another source and then about 11 more sites are responsible for the rest.  I listed about 12 URLs on my .txt file.  I hope I did this correclty and that, as someone suggested either on this thread or another, that it doesn't take weeks to fix it.

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            1. 0

               Tina Trueloveposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Correctly

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10. 82

    ologsinquitoposted 9 years ago

    Thanks WriterFox, I guess I need to look into this to see what's going on.

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11. 82

    ologsinquitoposted 9 years ago

    Does anyone know where is the best place to check for spam links?

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12. 83

    CassandraCaeposted 9 years ago

    yeah I haven't been very happy with the results I have been getting in Google lately, a lot of not well written material and spammy websites

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13. 87

    njmanuraposted 9 years ago

    After going through your comments I checked with google webmaster tools. I found that around 1450 links point to my site and they were indeed spammy links.
    
    I disavow them but it seems I need to wait till next penguine update.

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14. 65

    athulnairposted 9 years ago

    I have noticed the traffic has come down. But most of my pages are in first page of google search.

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