Any ideas why my traffic dropped 20% since the April Penguin update?

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   Ms Deeposted 12 years ago

   Any ideas why my traffic dropped 20% since the April Penguin update?
   
   I have not been able to deduce the reason for this drop, especially since that Google update was aimed at 'black hat' SEO practices. Looking for suggestions from those more knowledgeable than I. Thanks!

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   Barbara Kayposted 12 years ago

   20% is probably just the drop that everyone sees in the summer. Not as many people are online since so much time is spent outdoors. I wouldn't worry about it. Your traffic should go back up once summer is over. If it had anything to do with the Penguin update you'd be seeing drops of like 75%.

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      Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Barbara Kay, thanks for your take on this. So even though it started happening in April, maybe the summer traffic slump started early for my site? Or, are others seeing the slump started in April?

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   tmbridgelandposted 12 years ago

   20%? You got off lucky. More like 60% for me. No idea why, some of it is the summer drop, I saw that last year too. It was quite sudden. Went from 80 hits a day on one Hub to 20, from one day to the next.

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      Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      tmbridgeland, wow! Sorry to hear that.

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      tmbridgelandposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      It has picked up a bit. I am now at about half where I was in early June. I can't scream, though. I don't claim to have the very best articles on the web. I have had drops in the past, and they always recovered. I'll just keep working at it.

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   Learn Things Webposted 12 years ago

   I've had a 40-50% drop. Some of my newer hubs are getting zero Google traffic. I used to almost always get Google traffic within a week or two. The update was aimed at "Black Hat" practices but it also put more emphasis on popularity from credible sources. This is bad for both content creators and searchers because popularity takes precedence over relevance. That's what I have been finding more and more in Google searches. I'm having to dig deeper to find what I want now because all the big name sites come up first.

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      Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Ohh, the emphasis on popularity makes some sense out of what happened. Bummer! That's true, I am finding I have to dig dipper, too, to find more relevant information. Thanks for your take on it!

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   klanguedocposted 12 years ago

   There was a drop in traffic back in May, about 20%  since Google continues to tweak their algorithms. I had another 20% drop about two weeks ago, but I think this is a seasonal drop as others have mentioned.
   
   Each Hub is a product that must be continuously updated to remain fresh and appealing to readers and search engines just like any other product.
   
   Take a look at retailers, web sites, cars, etc. these marketers are constantly revamping their look because it drives traffic. Believe me i worked for a fashion retailer for 5 years and every year, they refreshed or renovated some of their stores to drive traffic. They also would re-arrange the stores periodically through the year.
   
   You need to do the same with your hubs. Take a look at the older hubs, update the title, or the content above the fold. Add your images, etc.
   
   Everytime I tweak a hub, the PVs go up

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      Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Helpful suggestions! I've been working on it some and this is confirming.

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      teaches12345posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      This is great advice, Klanguedoc. Thanks for sharing and I am going to go back and begin this process.

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      Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Also, as seen in some following answers, Google is not liking so many links to other Hubbers in our hubs.

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   robhamptonposted 12 years ago

   I read an article recently which talks about the Google crawler "Panda" Here is a snippet of that article....
   
   """Panda updates are designed to target pages that aren’t necessarily spam but aren’t great quality. This was the first ever penalty that went after “thin content,” and the sites that were hit hardest by the first Panda update were content farms (hence why it was originally called the Farmer update), where users could publish dozens of low-quality, keyword stuffed articles that offered little to no real value for the reader. Many publishers would submit the same article to a bunch of these content farms just to get extra links."""

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      Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for this bit of information, Rob! I think I recovered well, though, from Panda. It's the one just this April that I've not seen a full recovery from, yet.

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   writerjjposted 12 years ago

   So glad to see this question and relieved to read the answers. My hub views dropped significantly and disappeared from Google's search results while still ranking high on Yahoo and Bing. Quite confusing really - have thought that my hubs are flagged by Google. However, it appears that this is a web-wide action by Google. Hope it normalize soon...

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      Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Good to learn of your experience. Yes, Glenn Stok, another hubber with some other sites says they are doing better than his HubPages site. Something about the links at the bottom of each hub to those of other hubbers is what Google seems to not like.

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      robhamptonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I think links in general is what google is not liking. I have added all kinds of links to my other hubs on my articles.  wondering if that has anything to do with the sudden drop in traffic. Will drop all links in most popular and see what  happens

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