May Shaping Up to Be Worse Than April?

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   PaulGoodman67posted 3 years ago

   My earnings are currently running at about 50% of what they were at this time last year. Right now, it feels like every time the site seems to have bottomed out, things then sink even lower.
   
   Admittedly, the first five months 0f 2021 were particularly good for me, by historical standards, so it's maybe a bad year for comparison. However, even in 2020, which was a terrible year, my earnings were 20% up on what they are right now.
   
   Very recently, traffic seems like it might be improving slightly, even if the CPMs are still generally dreadful. But there's been so many false dawns over the past year, I can't help but suspect that this is just another one.... I'm still writing, but struggling to be optimistic at the moment.

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      SerenityHaloposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Every time I’ve logged in this week, the traffic is lower.

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         Miebakagh57posted 3 years agoin reply to this

         No doubt about that.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   Same here, the drop in traffic and CPM combined giving earnings 50% of last year. I presume the drop in CPM is because we're getting a smaller share of revenue from Hubpages, considering there was no reply to the thread I posted.

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   Glenn Stokposted 3 years ago

   I have the same problem. Despite adding four new articles in the past two months and updating many older ones with new content, I see a continuing drop in earnings.
   
   It's troubling that TAG continues to advertise HubPages in those videos on top of our articles even though they tell us not to mention or link to HubPages from niche sites. There are many things that can be improved to help.
   
   The only hope is with the new hired editors. I notice they are making an effort.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, lets hope that recent developments (editors etc.) are part of a solid plan, rather than just a stab in the dark. I worry when HP doesn't seem to know how to respond.
      
      They used to tell us what they thought the problems were and how they intended to respond. I miss those days. The rapport between management/staff and the writers was a big strength of the site.

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   Shesabutterflyposted 3 years ago

   My cpm's are comparable to April, but my impressions have been incredibly low since Thursday.
   
   My views are back up today, and I'm hoping when impressions come in they will be higher as well.
   
   When I compare to last year, I'm only down a couple dollars for this month so far. I started the year out poorly, but I saw an increase in cpm around mid-April and hoping it sticks around.
   
   This March was comparable to last year, and April did a little better. 2020/21 were pretty dismal for me in the beginning though, and it would not take much to earn more.

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   Rupert Taylorposted 3 years ago

   I don't know what I'm doing right but this month is shaping up to be my best ever. Perhaps, my true genius has been recognized after all these years.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I'm guessing that it's an increase in views, due to things like your traffic spike, but your CPM is still bad?
      
      I have eleven HP accounts (don't ask!) and a couple of them are doing well, but overall, I think that the site is doing badly.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   Impressions to view ratio for me is a lot lower than it was last year. I wonder has the system reverted back to the way it was before where Hubpages and our ads are displayed alternatively.?

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   hclpdposted 3 years ago

   Ill stop writing here for the time being. Mulling over either Medium or Vocal. While Vocal is available in India, we need a workaround to set up a Stripe account in India.
   
   Both work, though.
   
   It would be awesome If anyone could shed some more light on these 2 websites.

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      Kenna McHughposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Lots of HPs have given their insight into Medium on various threads. Vocal is new to me.

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         hclpdposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         I went ahead and signed up do Vocal. Will let you know if anything new comes up.

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            Kenna McHughposted 3 years agoin reply to this

            That'd be great.

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      SerenityHaloposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I have found it is easier to grow on Medium than Vocal.Media. The audience/traffic isn’t as big on VM.
      
      It did however just add comments. I have contacted staff on VM on a couple of occasions, and they respond quickly and professionally.
      
      Read the guidelines for VM carefully. They have certain topics they don’t permit. If you take your own pictures and use them in your posts, you have a better chance of getting a top story. If you also like to add a lot of pictures to your post, make sure to save after adding 3-5 pictures. This helps with VM’s system.
      
      I also recommend seeing yourself as a freelancer and talking directly to editors, publications, and others to market yourself. Editing and adding new articles on HP is groovy, but diversifying where you put writing and developing a contact list can keep you afloat.

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      TessSchlesingerposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      GDPR Deleted
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         hclpdposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         There is an easy workaround for us Indians, though.

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   hclpdposted 3 years ago

   My earnings have been 60-70% down in the last 2 months alone.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   Maybe Google is starting to apply the same treatment/penalty to the network sites that it has applied to Hubpages? Was that a penalty or some sort of downranking mark? And is it a life sentence for a domain or do domains get released for good behaviour after years of sentence?

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