Major Traffic Drops

1. 94

   Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

   Anyone else? Like, I'm down to half what I normally am - is it just me or is this a sitewide thing and if so, does anyone know if there've been any recent Google updates?

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      weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, lost 500 a day on best article..

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   2. 93

      Susana Sposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      My traffic is down 23% on this time last week.
      
      I did read that YMYL sites had been affected most and that seems to have affected wehavekids. Many others in the health space have seen increases in traffic after prior losses.
      
      It's my wehavekids hubs that are down so it makes sense.

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   3. 88

      NateB11posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I'm still down by at least half what my traffic was. Like others, would love to know what's happening.

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   4. 95

      sallybeaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I am wondering if the drop is anything to do with the fact that some of my articles are being displayed as being potentially risky articles to visit!  That can't be encouraging traffic to my pages.   This is happening on FeltMagnet.  I have not checked any of the other Niche Sites.

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2. 96

   SmartAndFunposted 5 years ago

   Yes, check out this thread for more information. https://hubpages.com/community/forum/34 … in-traffic

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3. 94

   Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

   SmartAndFun, thank you so much! You're right, something happened on the 27th. I'll read through this thread.

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4. 94

   Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

   It's frustrating but I believe it will rebound, Weezy! I've been here for ten years and see this happen with algorithm updates usually about 2-3x a year and in the end, the updates always benefit HP We just have to keep working hard and stay patient.

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      weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I'm not quite understanding what it's saying. Something about New Image search I'm not sure if that will benefit or not, Hubpages

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   2. 97

      DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      My total page views is only down around 7% today. At least from my perspective, this does not appear to be a big issue. I hope those of you that have seen a larger drop find your views going up soon.

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      1. 94

         Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Mine began going up a little bit today.

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5. 93

   Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years ago

   It looks to me like there has been another update besides the image one. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/goo … ek/271961/
   This has certainly happen before. All of us that have been here a while have been through it. Sometimes it bounces back quickly, other times it's a slow crawl back up.

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6. 96

   CYong74posted 5 years ago

   These updates are meant to improve Google. While the monster doesn't always get it right, I guess if your fundamentals are right, your traffic will rebound. You might even end up performing better.
   
   Just being optimistic here. Google getting things right is a bit of a ... hmm. Hmm!!!

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   1. 93

      Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Since it is an algorithm making the decisions, no matter how good the intentions, there is always some collateral damage. But then, we all think our stuff deserves to be ranked high.
      
      It is a good reminder to check our competition and make sure our content is still the best.

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7. 89

   lobobrandonposted 5 years ago

   Dengarden is recovering most of the lost traffic, Owlcation and Caloriebee are still at a 40 - 50% loss. What's intriguing is that after this update, the HP domain got a boost, I noticed this on a hub of mine and also did a SEMRush check to see that there are many ranking gains.

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   1. 93

      Susana Sposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      That's good to hear. Weird that HP got a boost though huh?
      
      I know HP tried something similar before but I think we need to petition Paul about adding expert reviewers to the team to future proof the health vertical sites.
      
      wehavekids and healdove should be using a simple system like they have on healthline.com
      
      https://www.healthline.com/health/beaut … auty-sleep
      
      Most articles there are written by writers (rather than health professionals) and then the articles are reviewed by a medically qualified person expert in that specific niche. There's a link to the medical reviewer which takes you to the about page which then has a short bio of their credentials and a link to their linkedin profile.
      
      Google loves this expert stamp on the content and it increases trust. I think as time goes on this is going to be very important for ranking well.

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      1. 89

         lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         That's definitely something that would be useful for the future. The HP boost is relative hehe. Still peanuts in traffic, but a whopping 1600% rise on two hubs of mine. From single digits to double digits lol.

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   2. 95

      OldRosesposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Another weird thing is that I have my own website and it wasn't affected.  Just my hubs on Dengarden.

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      1. 89

         lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         It's not weird at all. I have a very good reason for the drop. I fixed something that I see wrong on HP on a new client and he jumped back up with boosts in the rankings too. I already pointed this out to the HP folk on the forums a few times. I will write a message to one of the staff this weekend.

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8. 84

   Natalie Cooksonposted 5 years ago

   I've noticed my earnings seemed to have dropped over the last few months too.

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9. 96

   PaulGoodman67posted 5 years ago

   I have multiple accounts and saw some negatives, although the effects seemed variable. Presumably, HP will attempt to tackle the problems caused by the latest Google updates. I am willing to do whatever, for example I need to edit, but some guidance would be appreciated once the dust has settled.

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10. 93

    Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years ago

    I'm still down. I'm noticing that my hubs on Dengarden have been the most severely affected.

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    1. 87

       weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Me too! Down to under 1,000 a day for my #1 article. Losing Amazon sales to and it's really disheartening.

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    2. 89

       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       My Dengarden articles recovered for like a day then got a massive whack. It's not my season for the gardening hubs, but another which gets like 200 views on average a day is now struggling to make it to 50.

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       1. 87

          weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          yes, I hear you loud and clear! I actually thought traffic was coming back the other day, but then just plummeted to the lowest ever! For some reason Google refers are basically 100 To None.. I don't know what's going on.
          I was actually in the first four results when Googling "dog elbow callus", now, you can hardly find me

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11. 82

    Wesman Todd Shawposted 5 years ago

    I'm down between two and four hundred views per day. It's not a big percentage loss for me. I'm doing better than average with amazon over the last 30 days. I guess what I'm actually reporting here is that Spinditty.com seems to be doing well.

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12. 98

    eugbugposted 5 years ago

    Low CPM at the start of Q4 plus no revenue from untracked readers in the UK adds to the disillusionment. I wish the latter could be sorted out. Other sites just deny readers the ability to read content if they don't agree to tracking cookies or have their ad-blocker turned on.

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13. 94

    hclpdposted 5 years ago

    Traffic to my posts has been at its lowest. Can't quite figure out why. I'd guess that CPM is more or less the same. Traffic, on the other hand, has took a serious hit in the last few weeks. Any idea on how Hubpages is planning to tackle it?

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14. 93

    Alison Grahamposted 5 years ago

    I'm sure that the HubPages team are working on the reasons behind this drop in traffic - especially as it must be hitting their income just as hard as ours! It would be great if they could determine the reason(s) and provide us with clear, actionable advice on how to 'fix' our best performing articles on vertical sites and HubPages itself. For those of us who write and have some success here but are not technically minded, this could be the difference between picking ourselves up and going on - and disaster!

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       weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I totally agree that they're trying to figure out what's up as well... If they already know anything at all, we would seriously appreciate an update or anything to give us some idea on the status. Silence is basically making, some of us, try to figure out what is going on and that's not the right way sometimes.

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15. 94

    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    Alison, I agree, I'd love to hear what the team has to say about how we can improve our top performing articles to help their rank. My most popular article's traffic is still down by half and it's disappointing. I'd be happy to take the time to edit myself back to where I was before if I knew what I should be doing.
    
    Lobobrandon… is this thing you're talking about something the rest of us could try? It really sucks to have my traffic so low before the holidays.

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16. 94

    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    I'm just going to throw this out there and I doubt it has anything to do with the update, however, we were always encouraged to put a lot of photos in our articles. Recently, I've noticed that my photo-heavy articles are NOT loading quickly and that if I cut them down to two images, they load a lot faster and my click-through goes up.

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    1. 89

       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       There is nothing we can do as writers, one of the two things is about the site load speed, you got that right. But reducing images is not the best way to go about it. There are other things that can be done by the team to make it faster. It's work, but necessary work.

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17. 94

    hclpdposted 5 years ago

    I'll give it a few weeks. Let's hope that things pick up soon. Any official word would be good, though.

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18. 93

    Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years ago

    Down again this morning. Every time is comes back up a little, it drops again.

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    1. 87

       weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Oh thank God it's not just my imagination. Like the other day, I was almost going to let everyone know how everything is back to normal; until an hour later the numbers got cut in half and have stayed that way since.
       
       I'm averaging a 50%  drop,   sometimes more. Since my number one article is where I get my Amazon sales, the cut is almost down to a 1/4 from where it used to be- My earnings potential is less than 30%. However, I do feel confident that HP be will figure it out or do something else. I don't write here to get rich, but the extra passive income, does help. Let's hang in there

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19. 87

    Nell Roseposted 5 years ago

    Yes me too. I just presumed it was the time of year and another update, sadly!

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20. 94

    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    Weezy, same! Traffic and earnings down a solid 50% with no signs of bouncing back at the moment.
    
    In my experience here, this is the time to just keep writing and publishing because when things get fixed, you'll want to have content ready.

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       DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I think that is great advice. I just noticed that my top 25 articles are not affected at all and the blue arrows I have are all for those low traffic articles that Google did not seem to like much anyway.
       The message seems to be here "write more high performing articles". By the time this problem gets fixed, the new articles will be in place to have good traffic. Those low traffic articles? Well, I like them, even if Google does not.

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    2. 89

       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Exactly

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    3. 93

       Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       It's hard not to let it take the wind out of your sails.

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          hclpdposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          I agree. At the same time, there's not much we can do about it except for improving upon our previous work.

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             Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             I always go back and save all of my pages to my hard drive when this happens. Not that I'm planning on going anywhere, but just in case this time it's really the beginning of the end, I will have all of my hubs saved in their most current form.

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                Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                I still have a huge drop in views and money, probably by about as much as half. The majority of my articles are on Exemplore and Owlcation, with about a dozen or so on Letterpile (never a big money maker). I'm disappointed though, I was getting to a new high and had hopes I'd break the next hundred dollar mark this month. No way now, all of October has been low, so a week has been lost.

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                   Butterfly67posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                   Yes the same here, the last 3 months have been excellent but now it's dropped back down. I have seen some small increases over the last couple of days but not to previous levels but I always think we are bound to get good months and bad ones so am hoping things will level off and not drop any more!

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21. 94

    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    It's disappointing but even if I go back and look at my earnings from this time last year, I'm still, even in this low, making slightly more here than I did last October.
    
    This I how passive income works and we have to be alright with steering our own ship here and getting through the stormy updates without giving up.

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22. 95

    jansharesposted 5 years ago

    Looking much better this morning, exhaling a bit, keeping fingers crossed.

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23. 94

    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    How's everyone doing? I've hit a low this morning traffic-wise - my traffic isn't recovering yet and while I've watched a bunch of videos and read articles pertaining to these Google updates, I'm not sure what to do other than wait it out.

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       DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Have you noticed a trend within your body of work? My best performing articles remain on top, my poorly performing articles are doing even worse.

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    2. 89

       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Lowest traffic days for as long as I can remember. Below is a screenshot of my analytics from Google search traffic only. September and October may not seem like a lot less, but it is 25 - 35% lower than last year on most days. It doesn't look like a lot less because the summer has like 200 - 300% increases. I can compare very well because I did not really write any new hubs that receive Google traffic. The Hubpages guide (no google traffic) and just a month old new tomato hubs over the last year.
       
       So with the increase from Jan which you can see, this is a trend that shows the traffic has dropped. The niche sites were hit with the recent Google updates. I see this on SEMRush too, for 10 niche sites that I checked. I didn't check them all, the trend was clear. 
       
       
       

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24. 94

    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    Lobo, I was listening to some YouTube videos yesterday (they're more like podcasts) on the Medic update and the subsequent "fix" for the Medic update (which is what did my traffic in) and something I noted is that Google is working towards viewing sites as a whole, not only individual pages. I think they've been doing this for a while and I know that's part of why we have the niche sites, but it seems like this new update is even more concerned with this. What I gathered is that our articles aren't only being ranked by their individual page authority anymore but by the authority of the site as a whole which is problematic for all of us since, let's be real, for the most part, many of us are amateur professionals in our niches.
    
    For instance, my WeHaveKids articles have taken the biggest hit. I'm a mother, I consider myself a professional when it comes to all things kid-friendly snacks and diapers, but articles on sites like Parenting(dot)com are now trumping my pages in the rankings. I figure this is because they have contributers who are actual childhood professionals with credentials(whether or not they're parents themselves).
    
    I would really love to hear from the HubPages staff and see what they think. I know a lot of us are devoted to contributing here, however I don't do it for fun, I do it because it's my income. I see my income dropping STEADILY. When I write here, I'm investing my time, expecting a return and right now, the way things look and feel with this last update I'm feeling inspired to move my investment because I have to buy Christmas presents next month.
    
    I don't say this lightly, I've been writing here for a decade and I know Google is the big beast that we all simultaneously worship and fear, including HP, but it would be awesome if the team could at least say something to help guide us in the right direction and give us an idea of how we can handle this, even if it means expecting that our traffic won't fully recover in the near future.

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       DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I think having my pages ranked based on the whole site is a scary prospect. I realize that the niche pages were set up because there was so much junk on HP, but in my opinion they are still much too easy to get published on.
       Yes, I realize HP feels the need to keep their niche sites content fresh by publishing new articles all of the time. If I were an editor, however, I would find it easy to go through and remove at least a third of the content on Pethelpful, about the only site I am really familiar with. (theraggededge found a copied article on a niche site early this week. If things like that are getting through, being published on a niche site is not a big help.)
       When I publish an article on Pethelpful I have spent a few weeks or more in research. It is not good that Google is comparing it to those people who whip a hub out every day.
       I am not sure how HP can get around this. Super-niche sites, by invitation only? (Hmm, sounds like Maven. I am not sure I want to go that direction.)

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          Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          I agree, it's concerning and it has partly (in my understanding) to do with how Google is interacting with artificial intelligence like Siri, Alexa, etc. I don't think that verbal searches will ever wipe out manual searches in the same way that ebooks failed to wipe out the paperback book industry. However, Google (again, from what I can gather, I'm not an expert on these things) is focusing on weeding out websites that would give search-users inaccurate or unhelpful advice.
          
          Here's where I think you're okay - you're an expert in your area and that's probably why you're not losing traffic in the same way I am. I mostly write about motherhood but guess what? Being a mom doesn't make you a motherhood expert according to Google.
          
          As for HP as a whole I'm concerned about the unsecure network (Google is taking a bend towards leading searchers to secure sites) and, I know that this is only an issue on my Safari browser, however a LOT of searches happen from Safari - our niche sites are plagued by rogue ads that take over the screen. I myself have searched things on my browser, had a WeHaveKids page show up on top of Google, clicked it and bounced right out because one of those "CONGRATULATIONS YOU'VE WON AN AMAZON SHOPPING SPREE" ads popped up.
          
          Established commercial sites do NOT do this in my browser.

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             lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             No time for a long comment. Google doesn't know drmark is an expert. Unless his author profile links to LinkedIn or his published books and peer reviewed papers. So don't think you are not an expert being a mother. Health sites were hit more than others that's why you see a bigger drop

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                Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                Good point, and WeHaveKids has a lot of health related articles on it.
                
                If Google doesn't know that drmark is an expert, then how does it know who ISN'T an expert?

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                   lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                   That's what I'm trying to say. So don't beat yourself up about it. Having your content on HP is probably the best. While at it, you could consider building your own website, etc. But it's a lot of work, HP covers most of it and here you have other writers to help you out in the sense that there are more articles to make the website an authority.
                   
                   And since like forever Google considered the value of the website and not just the page to rank something. This is why I don't post my gardening stuff on some site of my own, I don't have a website in this niche and stuff ranking #1 here will not be in the top 10 pages if I had a website with just 10 pages.

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                DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                You are describing a specialist, one of those who know more and more about less and less.
                I think Google decides you are an expert when you have a number of articles about a subject. If you write about something new every time (geology, then astronomy, then weather, then cats, etc) Google has no idea what you know.
                Based on page views, Google considers you knowledeable about tomatoes. I think this is because you have several well written and thorough articles about the subject.

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                   lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                   But Google sees the website Dengarden and not my profile. If Dengarden had no value my pages would not rank.
                   
                   Google sees authority on a domain level and having contributors who are experts with links to linkedin, published books, etc most likely helps take this authority to a new level.

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25. 94

    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    DrMark - Here's the weird thing - my top performing articles are PLUMMETING and my worst performing articles are gaining traffic (albeit barely, but they're the pages with the red arrows).

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26. 88

    Jan Saintsposted 5 years ago

    We'll have to wait for the next update which is likely to favor us - at least according to my own predictions. So far this year, there has been four broad core updates...
    
    - March 9 (favored us)
    - April 16 (didn't)
    - August 1 (favored us)
    - Sept 27 (didn't)
    
    The worst thing is that updates that don't favor us seem to last for long, so it can take the rest of this year and even Jan and Feb to see our traffic increase again.

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       Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Jan, thanks. This is a good reminder that these types of things don't last forever and that earning income from content means that everything comes in waves.

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    Susana Sposted 5 years ago

    For wehavekids I think HP need to use a system like healthline.com. Authors write and experts put the stamp of approval that Google wants. The experts are all linked to a page containing info about their qualifications and their LinkedIn profiles.
    
    I've done my best to replicate this approach on my own pregnancy site in the hopes that will help build trust and authority.

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       eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       A similar process happens on Wikihow. Some articles are expert reviewed.

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          Susana Sposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          It's the way forward.
          
          HP did try a little while back but they didn't get the approach right. They went too far.
          
          Having experts add their opinions about the hub isn't necessary and makes the hub seem untrustworthy to readers in my view.
          
          Anyway HP seem to have dropped that approach as they haven't mentioned it lately, but they need to do something like wikihow and healthline.

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    Will Apseposted 5 years ago

    Do the links from Maven have anything to do with the drop? I haven't been paying too much attention lately (getting over a heart op).

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       Susana Sposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I don't know about the links from Maven. That could be part of the issue since some of the sites don't look that great quality wise.
       
       More importantly, I hope your recovery is going well.

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       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       You've not missed out on much. Take care. The maven thing could be an issue but their sites are decent so maybe not.

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    Will Apseposted 5 years ago

    Some sites have done OK with the new algo. Some have not.
    
    It is always page/site quality or links that is the break point. How much control does HP have over these issues nowadays?
    
    Edit:
    
    Thanks for the concern of various contributors. But I am not really expecting to deserve it, lol.
    
    There is no point pussy footing around in forums. Forums either function efficiency to get at the truth (or usable approximations) or they are a waste of time.
    
    Unless, a litre or two of wine is involved of course...
    
    Then who knows what a person might say?

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       PaulGoodman67posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I couldn't tell you much. I rarely bother with the forums nowadays, except if there's an algo hit, or maybe if I happen to see one of the "old school" contributors like you (Will) or Susana.
       
       Early on, eight or nine years ago, I hadn't got a clue what the HP thing was about and who to take seriously on the forums. There were lots of rather fierce discussions going on and a lot of BS floating around.
       
       Nowadays, the forums seem to be mainly about critiquing individual hubs.
       
       I come here mainly to see if there are any official announcements, or blogs/comments by HP, Paul Edmondson etc.
       
       But anyway, I'm guessing from the concern expressed above that you are recovering something, Will, maybe an illness? Whatever you are recovering from, my best wishes.

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          Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks Paul, it was another heart attack. Heart disease is relatively non-distressing, but it is very tiring. I have avoided pretty much all society in the last year or so and though I've got back to seeing people I am definitively more cranky than usual. So maybe I should start off slow.
          
          Do you still get much staff input here? I am wondering how much Paul et al can say in these days in the forums these days.
          
          One thing I noticed that worried me was Robin's post concerning Facebook:
          
          1 Maven seems to have tried to monetize heavily through FB, not a Google friendly avenue
          2 If they took a big financial hit it might affect the groups ability to respond.
          
          From a purely selfish point of view, my traffic is poorish but not catastrophic at the moment,
          
          

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             PaulGoodman67posted 5 years agoin reply to this

             I don't see much staff input, but I hope we get some updated advice once the dust has settled.
             
             Mavern are mainly concerned with different ways to advertise and monetize and I have to say that my earnings have been very good generally, so no complaints there. A ten percent drop in views after a rise in the Summer is totally bearable, especially given the dramatic roller coasters we've been through over the years.
             
             I hope to visit California at some point. If I visit the HP offices, I will corner Paul E and ask him what the heck's going on!

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                weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                My traffic seemed to recover a little bit last week, now it's almost 70% drop in my best article; well, it used to be.

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                weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                Oh my goodness! The past 3 days I have lost about 70% of my traffic! I was actually number two and number three when Googling "dog callus" on first page. I don't know what the heck is happening. I wish somebody would  tell us something; getting sad! I'm losing so much money between AD earnings and Amazon earnings since visitors have to go to the page in order to get AD program earnings and find a product on top of it.

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                   eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                   My traffic is still dropping, but hopefully it's the Friday slowdown. What's really annoying is the lack of earnings from EU readers who go untracked. I wish something could be shown to them or maybe we could double up on Amazon ads. Alternatively, don't allow them to view site content if they don't agree to be tracked (which happens on other sites, plus the same if ad-blockers aren't turned off). HubPages is over generous towards it's readers as regards providing free information.

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                      weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                      Drop went from 40-70% in 2 weeks. Major disappointment right now and discouragement.

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    Butterfly67posted 5 years ago

    I got a bit of an upturn in the last day, not back to the same levels as before but much better than the last couple of weeks. Anyone else see the same?

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       theraggededgeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Yes. Up to normal (higher) levels Sunday and Monday. Back to normal (lower) level today... that's normal for me.
       
       I think I lost about 1k per day views last week, didn't seem to be as badly hit as some people.
       
       Earnings down a few dollars, but not too bad.

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          hclpdposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          My traffic is around 50% less than it should be. Earnings have also plummeted, of course.

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       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Yes, I'm seeing an uptick compared to the last 2-3 days, but still around a 20% overall drop from the norm.

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    eugbugposted 5 years ago

    No, views still falling compared to last week.

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       hclpdposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Way down we go with no signs of recovery.

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    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    For me, not really. My income and traffic are still super low compared to the last 6+ months for me.

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    weezyschannelposted 5 years ago

    Traffic went back up almost back to normal for a few days last week, now my number one article is lower than ever! About 60% drop in traffic in pethelpful

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       Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Same for me. I seemed to be recovering a little bit, now today I have next to no traffic.

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    lobobrandonposted 5 years ago

    Dengarden seems to be back on track. Others still a bit down, but since in my case dengarden makes up the majority, traffic is looking good.

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    eugbugposted 5 years ago

    Traffic to this guide on Owlcation still dropping even though it's in the top few results on the first page of SERPs for a string taken from the title. It must be other keywords or phrases within the article that have lost rank.
    
    

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       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Yes, the update on 27th of September caused a drop in related keywords from what I saw across dengarden and owlcation and some of my client sites that were hit. I'm surprised by this continuous decline. Updates are usually a one hit thing. This seems to be gradual, very slow in fact.
       
       One of my hubs on Owlcation is in the lower 2 digits in traffic today, which is back to what it usually is, but this increase is because I got the image snippet. I did not have it before. Rankings are still down for the main keyword (the title phrase).

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    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    Actually, this morning my traffic seems to be attempting to recover. We'll see!

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       eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Same here, traffic is hovering above and below level for last week
       
       

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    Chriswillman90posted 5 years ago

    The biggest effects of this drop is that it's stopped me from writing more. I do wonder if this is the beginning of the end.
    
    Clearly this Maven merger hasn't helped and Google's algorithms are only making it worse.
    
    Personal traffic/earnings are off a good 50% from last year and I don't think any amount of editing or tweaking is going to help. All in all it's very discouraging.

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       hclpdposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I think the lack of any official word is more discouraging. I'd love to hear why it's happening and how they're planning to handle it in coming days. The communication needs to be a little better from their side.

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    Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years ago

    My traffic is a little better today, overall it's been down about 30% for the month, but my money has been impacted even more than my traffic. I expect to make less than half this month of what I made last month.

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    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    Since it seems like the team isn't going to really address this update I can just say from my own experience creating content that as long as we keep producing quality content, the traffic and income evens out, even after algorithm updates. Sometimes it just take a couple of months.

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    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    And yes, it's discouraging that the HubPages/Maven team isn't directly giving us any insight. If you search "Medic Fix Update" on YouTube, there's some helpful videos up at this point from people who are familiar with how these algorithm updates affect content creators and advice on how to navigate it all.

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    Natalie Frankposted 5 years ago

    My understanding is that the medic update is very difficult if not impossible to do anything about on the writers side of things unless you are an SEO expert and even then some of the go to strategies aren't helping.
    
    More importantly, it at least appears that some off our slump, lost traffic, lower CPM's, decreased earnings might be attributable to some things that HP/Maven is doing, and what seems to be a priority of making Maven successful over HP.  That's just an impression on my part but there are too many things that don't make sense in terms of the way my account has performed over time and certainly since we were taken over by Maven.  I still can't figure out how I make almost exactly the same month by month for over a year regardless of how many articles I have written or views I receive.  When  earnings  for 30 articles = 50 articles= 100 articles = 130 articles, and earnings for 100 views/day = 200 views/day = 450 views a day = 800-900 views/day it just seems like something is wrong somewhere and it's not a function of any Google algorithm change.

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    theraggededgeposted 5 years ago

    This is very odd. Apart from a small drop last week, my traffic is holding steady. Earnings are the same as usual, maybe a dollar or three down on the day. My newer hubs, however, are doing nothing, so there's a sort of cancelling out going on.
    
    Thursday/Friday/Saturday are always the low traffic point of the week for me. Sunday/Monday usually bounce back.
    
    Amazon sales aren't so good this month.

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       weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I totally agree; Thursday, Friday and Saturday are slow days, however, this whole 3 weeks, have been such a 'plummeting' drop, that I can't see it just bouncing back to even close to previous traffic on Sunday.
       
       Don't mean to complain, just trying to figure out what's happening (if anything)

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       Jeremy Gillposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Hmm, my traffic had started to replenish, then the 25th had a noticeable plummet, then yesterday (the 26th) things recovered again somewhat.
       
       Values keep bouncing around, which is the nature of our earnings, but it's been hard to decipher the overall trend this month.

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    marcuscaineposted 5 years ago

    My traffic dropped like a rock this week. It is back to normal now. I think it might be the election and the holidays.

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    Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years ago

    My traffic has been fantastic all week until today, when it took a real plunge. Perhaps it’s a “mirror image” of the tragic events that took place in my neighborhood this morning.

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       Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Mine has been back to almost normal the past few days.

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    Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

    Gregory, I am so sorry for the tragic event in your neighborhood. Hugs and kisses.

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       Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Kenna, thanks for the kind words. For about two hours this morning, all that we heard were sirens. The sirens just wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then my neighbors across the street told me that there had been shootings at Tree of Life Synagogue. I was really stunned. I have walked by the Wilkins Avenue side of that synagogue hundreds of times over years, and as recent as Wednesday of this week. I attended a prayer vigil this evening with a bunch of friends and neighbors for all the victims. It was at Forbes & Murray, right outside of the church that I told you about before. Thousands attended.

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    Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

    Gregory, Wow! I am lost for words. You read it about on the headlines or see it on the news channels, but when it's that close it's more real or heartbreaking.

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    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    Gregory, that's very scary. Glad you're safe but sorry you were surrounded by so much pain.

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       Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Kierstin, thanks. I don’t think that I can walk in front of that shul for a while.

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          weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Gregory, just please know that I'm sure the world is praying for Philly right now. This country is just scary to live in anymore. To be honest, the world is. I am so sorry you had to experience this and I just pray that family and friends could heal very soon. I am in shock, but this is happening everywhere way too often!

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             Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             Thanks Lisa. I haven’t quite come to terms yet over the fact that if my professional schedule had not radically changed in the middle of last week, I might have been right in the middle of all of that chaos on Saturday morning. Yes, right in the middle of it.

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          lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          I can't imagine what that must be like.

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             Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             Thanks Brandon. Some streets are still closed to traffic, and there is still a large police presence in the neighborhood. I live only five blocks from where it all happened.

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    lobobrandonposted 5 years ago

    My CPM is pretty high for the past 3 days.

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       theraggededgeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Best traffic ever at the moment. Earnings dropped on Thurs 25th, recovered on Fri 26th, and exceeded all expectations on Saturday 27th. If only it could be like that all the time

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          lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Dengarden is where it should be at in my opinion. Owlcation I recovered a few positions for my main keyword, but the traffic increase is because I got the image snippet. Caloriebee still a drop. Can't comment on other niches Glad you're seeing the best traffic ever, that's good news!

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             Alison Grahamposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             Can you please explain 'image snippet'? Thank you

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                lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                When you google something there is usually a small answer box and an image accompanying it. That is the snippet. I have the image there on some of my hubs.

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                   Alison Grahamposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                   Thank you - is there a way of optimising images here at HP and on the vertical sites to make them more likely to show up in search?

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                      lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                      write a good caption related to the image, maybe with your keywords in there.

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                      DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                      If you have not yet read the article, go to lobobrandons profile and look at the article he wrote for SEO on hubpages. He put a lot of work into the article and it explains quite a bit more on how you can obtain the snippet. I have the snippet for several of my articles and the traffic can be excellent, as many searchers will just read one article when looking for an answer.
                      
                      edit: I just went and looked at your dog diaper article on Google. When I type in "main reasons to use dog diapers" the AKC article has the featured snippet. Yours is better, but you can see the way they set theirs up may be more helpful for the snippet. Check out the article I suggested above and hopefully it will help you do some edits.

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                         hclpdposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                         I have never figured out how some articles have snippets and others don't. Could anyone help me out with this?

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                            eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                            I use bulleted and numbered lists to itemise things such points in an argument/discussion, steps in a tutorial, things required to accomplish something,  I have quite a few featured snippets for articles and I don't know whether it's down to using lists, but it always seems to be this content which is extracted and put into the snippet.

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                            lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                            I've explained this in my HP On Page SEO hub.

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                               hclpdposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                               I'll take a look into it. Thank you. Could you send me the link, please?

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                                  Jeremy Gillposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                                  https://hubpages.com/community/HubPages … -SEO-Guide
                                  
                                  It's quite a lengthy article with some good information, but use control+F to skip to the snippet section if that's all you'd like to review.

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                                     lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                                     Thanks, Jeremy, we're not allowed to post our own links here. Yeah, use ctrl+f or the Table of contents at the start.

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                                        Natalie Frankposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                                        We can't post them for promotional purposes.  We can post them to help each other out, especially if someone specifically requested it.

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                                           lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                                           Makes sense.

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          Jeremy Gillposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Mine followed that exact trend as well, Bev.

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       eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Mine has improved too as traffic drops. I predict that when my traffic becomes zero, CPM will be infinite, so I might earn a finite amount

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          lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          This time, my traffic held while the CPM went up, so my earnings have increased. But yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about, been there and I'm there most days too 1000 CPM when we have one view maybe, still gives us USD 1 haha.
          
          EDIT: I forgot about the 60 - 40 share.

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          DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

          I will be looking for that new forum post "Best CPM Ever"

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       weezyschannelposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Yeah well I earned under $xxxcents  from CPM yesterday so very discouraging as of right now.

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       wildernessposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Mine has gone up some, too.  But then it nearly always does on the weekends - the same period that traffic drops.

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    Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years ago

    Looking back over the month, I can see that my October traffic is down 22% from what September was. The drop started just at the end of September. In fact, the past few days are the first time the October line is above the September line. Let's hope that things go better in November.

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