Regarding Article Q&A and Traffic Concerns

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   samanthacubbisonposted 5 years ago

   Because of the way we have rolled out Article Q&A on a site-by-site basis, there are some network sites that have substantially more questions with their own URLs than others. Rest assured, we haven’t seen any direct correlation between changes in traffic and the ratio of questions on a site. New questions get a trial basis of roughly two months to maintain at least some traffic and keep its individual URL status. Otherwise, the question is moved to the article’s page.
   
   I hope this addresses the concern and confusion surrounding Article Q&A and traffic fluctuation.

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      ziyenaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your response, Samantha.  Much needed.  Glad to hear from you

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      Oztinatoposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I was using my Q&A as a research tool to guage potential new hubs. I just found out all Q&A were deleted without any record of the questions.
      Now that I have more time to spend on tweaking my hubs I will be ready to write more hubs. The missing questions have slowed the process of gauging interest in potential hubs.
      I am clear about my long term goals.
      It mystifies me why a valuable tool like Q&A has been snuffed out without a trace.
      Currently I am researching social media to increase traffic plus re writing hubs and learning more about copyright etc.
      I would also like to revise everything about potential earnings on hubpages.
      Can you link me to a forum or direct link to updated information about earnings?

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         theraggededgeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         You are referring to a different thing. The old Questions and Answer section of HP stopped several months ago. Mainly because the spammy content was detrimental to the site.
         
         This thread refers to hubs that have been moved to a network site and have their own Q&A sections. Your hubs are still on HubPages.com so they don't have that facility.
         
         For information about all aspects of earning on HP, click on Help at the top right of any page.

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   lobobrandonposted 5 years ago

   Good to know. Thanks for the input. Just out of curiosity, is there any niche site that was not hit by the recent September updates? I would not question the QnA feature if there is at least one niche site that has not lost traffic.
   
   I personally would never accept the fact that this can be a good thing: I can write my own questions and answers and have mini-hubs that would traditionally never be accepted on to the niche sites. It goes against all the things HP strived to improve since Panda in 2011. But that's not something of concern to me, it just doesn't make sense and I don't like stuff that doesn't make sense.

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      Titiaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      1+++ I feel the same though I couldn't have worded it as good as you did.

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         lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Yeah. I feel saying there is no correlation makes no sense if all of them are down in traffic. If there is at least one niche site with more than 10% (for the sake of sanity) of their published pages being questions and their traffic was not hit, it would settle the matter. It's either hit or not hit by the algorithm. The algorithm most likely doesn't say okay x% spam so let's hit this site with an (x% * some constant) penalty.

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            Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            I can't tell if the Q&A is hurting or helping me. As an astrologer, I do answer what I can with limited information, but on the whole I haven't been doing as well in my home astrology business. I think people believe the answers I give them on these articles based on very little info are actually whole astrological birth charts, and they are not. I thought at first my traffic was better. But now I get repetitive questions they can get answers to if they read what I told other people. Or if they actually read the article! I have been deleting a lot more of them. And I am happy for the warning about grammar, does the questioner see that? Some of these people seem almost illiterate. I am not their English teacher.

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               samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               Hi Jean, it's great that you've been so active in the Q&A section! Answering new questions will certainly better your chances of bringing in search traffic, as you can cover broader topics in relation to your article. The person asking the question does see a little "Before You Ask" prompt, but yes, unfortunately, spelling isn't everyone's strong suit...

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                  Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks Samantha!

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      samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      The rise/fall of traffic did not affect any one site in particular. Of course, as each niche site has its own specific content and readership, there are always some slight differences in the numbers.

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         lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Perfect. Thanks for the reply

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            DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Maybe I am being dense here but I do not think this is an answer to the question. Most of us realize that the traffic fall did not affect any one site. The question was about whether or not there was any site that was not affected.
            I do not think your QandA concerns have been addressed;

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               lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               I give up lol. The link with the question whose answer is not more than 100 or even 50 words having its own page was not commented on either.

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                  samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                  @DrMark1961, In this particular instance, they were all affected negatively. But on most days, some will go up and some will go down...such is life.
                  
                  @loborandon, regardless of length, If the question gets A LOT of traffic, then yes, it will have its' own link. If it's an unhelpful/unrelatable question + answer combo, it will migrate back to the article's page due to its lack of success.

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                     lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                     Thank you, Samantha

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                     Natalie Frankposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                     But if we have a bunch of Q&A that are only 50-100 words long and are on their own page, would that still effect our overall reputation with Google, subsequent rankings, traffic and earnings, even if those pages get a bunch of traffic?

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                        samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                        We don't really have "a bunch" considering the fact that short Q&As aren't all that interesting...But no, our reputation with Google will not be tarnished. If anything, high-traffic Q&A will bring in more viewers.

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                           lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                           Not for the immediate future, but is it possible to improve this QnA feature to make it more like StackOverflow and the likes of popular QnA based websites? What I mean is it could be dynamic allow a follow-up comment or question and not just one question and one answer? Quite a few hubbers have had the need for follow up questions to be able to answer the original query. Just a thought for the next time new feature suggestions are needed.

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                              samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                              Thanks for the suggestion! I'll pass it on to the Big Dogs.

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                                 lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                                 Perfect

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                              Natalie Frankposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                              Good idea.

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                           AliciaCposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                           Since you don’t believe that the Q&A section is the problem, can you reassure us that the possible reasons for the current traffic drop are being investigated? I realize that you may not be able to share specific information, but the lack of communication about the problem is disturbing.

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                              samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                              Like I've said, it's completely random! Traffic fluctuations are a normal occurrence on any website.

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                                 Natalie Frankposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                                 But if so many people are down seemingly across the board doesn't that suggest it isn't just random?  Can you also please address the consistent drops in CPM that many of us are concerned about?

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                                 AliciaCposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                                 Thank you for replying, Samantha, but I think it's highly unlikely that the large traffic drops that people in the forum say that they are experiencing are due to random traffic fluctuations.

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                                 EricDockettposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                                 Traffic fluctuations are not "random". If they were there would be no reason for SEO.
                                 
                                 In the past HP staff have always looked hard for reasons when traffic dropped. Paul has always given great insights and listened to the community. The team has done a fantastic job over the years.
                                 
                                 I truly hope we have not come to the point where we simply shrug when traffic drops and don't look any deeper into it.

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   Oztinatoposted 5 years ago

   Thanks.

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   samanthacubbisonposted 5 years ago

   Long-term, updates are meant to make sites better for their visitors. With individual updates, some may hurt you, but it isn’t something to panic about. The same can be said for this last one. For further reading: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-sep … 26460.html

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      ziyenaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Samantha ... Thanks for your response but could not pull your article from that link ...  I but saw other articles in reference to your link and did further research and found this article:
      
      https://www.seroundtable.com/watch-goog … 26547.html
      
      It seems everybody on the net is getting hit hard from this last update ...
      just have to ride this out.
       
      Being new to your position and coming at the worst possible time with the updates must feel overwhelming but I think you are doing well under all this uncertain fire   Thanks for all your help

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         samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Oops. I've replaced the link. Thanks, @Ziyena for the supplementary info!
         
         I appreciate the kind words, too~

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            ziyenaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Hang in there

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      EricDockettposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think anybody is panicking and most of us have been around here long enough to know how the internet works. Traffic will rise and fall but when there is a massive drop across a bunch of sites that are all managed the same way it is indicative of an issue that requires attention. Surely someone at hubpages is looking at possible reasons beyond it being just totally random.

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   Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

   I agree with Alicia and Natalie. Quite a few people are posting stats down. Some are saying they are still down. This means more than a random occurrence.

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      Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I've lost more than half of my traffic, just when I was at an all time high. October has hit me harder than the original Panda algorithm. I still have 10 articles not on niche sites, but felt good and was writing new material again. Now I feel so discouraged I don't even want to bother.

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         wildernessposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         As Eric said, traffic rises and traffic falls.  Being at the mercy of Google is not a good thing, but it's the only game in town.
         
         On a positive note, I'm seeing traffic edge up the last few days.  Not to it's maximum, but rising.

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            Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            I also see it going up a tiny bit, but nowhere near where it was. But as you say, it's the only game in town, and I do like writing here. I still have those few articles that I'm either deciding to fix or delete, but everything else is on niches, and I see that was good. Most of the time when we see this, it does pass. Remember at the end of last year we were at a huge high mark?

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               lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               For me, the high mark was this summer in terms of traffic (due to my niche) but more importantly also rankings which I tracked.

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                  Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                  I still wonder if Q&A is taking traffic from me. But I am getting questions on older articles, so it's good that their is still interest in them, right?

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                     lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                     I have articles from when I first began that get questions, but traffic numbers show that people are still interested. People asking questions shows that the hub did not answer all their questions or as you and most of us have seen, people have not taken the time to read the article.
                     
                     In some cases they go off on slight tangents to the main topic. These are the questions that actually add value to the hub. As Samantha rightly pointed out, questions that are related to but not already answered on the hub increase the chances of getting search traffic. This is why I see questions and when applicable I add relevant content to my hub so that that page that Google already loves is loved even more and ranks for that new content too. But that's just my take on it. For now, I've completely paused the feature.

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   Will Apseposted 5 years ago

   My feeling is the changes that have resulted from integrating with Maven have had an effect. The interlinking people report (and I cannot see) probably represents a big shift in the profile of the site.
   
   I hope someone is keeping tabs on the impact of interlinking. I also hope HP is not being sacrificed to give other sites a boost.
   
   Q&A might be an issue, too.

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      lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Let's not forget site speed. It's 3 clients that I have recovered from this August - September drop. In all cases I did just two major things that resulted in them regaining their traffic: increased site load speed on desktop and they had AMP pages on mobile. HP began with AMP pages but I don't know what happened to that project. The other thing was reduced the number of low-quality pages. Low quality were pages with a low text to HTML ratio. This is the reason I pointed out the QnA pages. I did a big dig on all the niche sites and I do not see a correlation with the extent of the drop with the number of QnA pages just as Samantha pointed out. This does not mean the feature is good as it is. There are still low-quality pages in the Google index for a while if not forever.
      
      The recommended thing is pretty new, just a few weeks old, but the traffic drop happened earlier. I'm not a fan of this feature and the interlinking making it all essentially one big website. But the original drop is probably not caused by this feature. According to GTMetrix one of my dengarden hubs took 14 seconds to load. It is said that a load time of 2-4 seconds is good. A 14 second load time would also be good if all of your competition loaded slower. 
      
      I fear the more recommended content and the bigger the network the load time will slow down even further as there are more calls to different servers that need to be made. Unless it's all on one central server which is unlikely as every maven still owns their domain and probably have their own hosting account?  With the different Ad programs we run it will be near impossible to reach the 2-4 seconds mark, but maybe 7 seconds is doable? I'm not an expert in reducing HTTPS server calls, etc. I do know the theory behind it but have never done this stuff myself. I'm pretty sure HP is looking into this, if not, I hope they read this.

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