Traffic Way Down Since Monday

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eugbugposted 2 years ago
A spam update is rolling out according to SERT. Traffic down somewhat since yesterday, maybe 10% since last week.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah, I might be down another 1,000 views. Frightening stuff.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Urgh, does the pain never stop!?!?!
  
  Google needs to give us an effin' break!
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I do wonder if Google's changes are intentionally or unintentionally targeting us.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Maybe it's personal and they target those who complain about them?
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Google has to have advertisers. They are serving them first. Then, they have to deliver excellent SERPs to keep people using them. It's an interesting balance.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  The problem is they don't deliver excellent search results. Google most of the time delivers crap SERPS as regard quality content.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes!
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  The big problem in my view is that it's a grossly unequal relationship. HP needs Google, but Google doesn't need HP.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I agree with this.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  To a certain degree, yes. But Google does need HP, that is why the entity is constantly changing. It's finding out what it needs.
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Ryan Corneliusposted 2 years ago
I have. Just told another it's something internal going on with them
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
I wonder does Google consider duplicate or similar articles on the same network sites as spam?
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Just lost a featured snippet for a new DIY guide. It was gaining traffic but that's back down to near zero with this latest update.

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PaulGoodman67posted 2 years ago
I was getting a lot of surging recently, so I guessed that we were in algo update territory. It's often a sign that Google is selecting samples and boosting traffic to gauge reader reactions.

HP editors seem to be working on Soapboxie nowadays. I hope that all their hard work pays off in the medium to long term. They've been giving me work to do, requests for articles to be improved. Things just get stricter and stricter, but I guess that's how it has to be.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Another 30% drop since last Monday.

40% down since Monday 5th September. The goods news is that it can't drop below zero.

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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yikes. My Monday isn’t that bad. I’ll see how the weeks goes.
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EricFarmer8xposted 2 years ago
My traffic is down overall, but I have not written or published anything new in a considerable amount of time. I need to update some older hubs as well.

It doesn't help that some of the video games I wrote about are not as popular or relevant anymore.

I have not been motivated to write for HubPages recently, and I have been busy with other things. But I am going to try to plan some new hubs soon.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  All the updates that editors made to my articles hasn't made any improvement to traffic to them for me as an individual. However it hopefully improves the quality of the site overall which may improve ranking in the future. Also without the editing we may have been in even more dire straits than the status quo.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I check SEM Rush now and then and there's no sign on there of a recovery. As the editors began with Owlcation, I wondered if that one might reap any benefits first. But it still looks very crappy.
  
  It looks like we're going to miss out on the lucrative Xmas period once again.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  PairedLife and DenGarden both have lower views on Semrush. It’s saddening.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Dengarden's dying, according to SEMRush, if I remember rightly.
  
  That's a problem for me.
  
  I was hoping that editors would work on that niche early on. They seem to be onto Soapboxie now. I wonder what their criterion is for editing order?
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I think Dengarden has a chance to recover. Its numbers are cut in half, but it's still doing better than a lot of niche sites. Three of my articles recently had surges, and they were all from Dengarden. On the other hand, I may wrongly have hope for that site.
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PaulGoodman67posted 2 years ago
Supposedly, as soon as the spam update was complete, Google launched another update the very next day.

It feels like we're being hammered into the ground.
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  Deborah Minterposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  This is awful!
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Oddly, this hose guide on Dengarden suddenly lost half its traffic mid-August, before the start of the September drop. It's still always top of the list for "garden fittings" though, after about 13 ads. I wish Google would shift those to the "shopping" tab. I guess it must have lost its ranking for keywords other than those in the title.

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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Right down to zero for this mower troubleshooting guide. Can't get worse than that.

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EricDockettposted 2 years ago
I'm trying to be as positive as I can through all of this. I've written a bunch of forum posts only to erase them without hitting submit because it feels like a waste of time.

So, instead of saying what I think, I will instead ask: What do you guys expect to change that will make a difference in this downward trend?

I don't see how more editing is the answer. We have had editorial oversight for years. Every article on a niche site has been reviewed by an editor, some many times.

What will turn this around?
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Does Google ever respond to specific cases? Would it help if we all got together and asked their spokespeople like Danny Sullivan what do they recommend? Or if they told us that, everyone would already be doing it?
  Does Google actually kill sites deliberately I wonder by continually ranking them downwards for more and more keywords?
  Maybe Hubpages could turn off ads on one of the sites as an experiment and see if ranking improves? If it doesn't, then there's something else fundamentally wrong, like load time causing a bad user experience. Those blank white spaces for images certainly cause confusion.
  Another thing we or Hubpages could do is download all our images and reupload them after compressing in order to reduce load time. There's no automatic mechanism for doing this according to Matt and we would have to do it manually, or Hubpages do it for articles written by authors who are inactive.
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  EricDockettposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Those are all great ideas. The problem is, it doesn't matter what you or I or the other half dozen people still actually paying attention on this forum do. What matters is what HubPages does.
  
  Even if we all got together and approached a Google rep, and even if they were kind enough to point out all of the problems, HubPages would still need to act on them. For quite some time they have demonstrated that they are not looking to make significant changes and are not open to suggestions.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I think the only way HP can recover is through significant changes. I don't think things will bounce back on their own. In the official announcement by HP staff that was recently in the forums, they mentioned it would take a few months to get back to normal.
  
  My understanding is that a few months is a long time. The definition of "normal" is also vague.
  
  The only thing that's kind of promising is that Google.Android keeps picking HP writers to test articles (or something of the sort). I've had three of these this year, and I didn't experience such a thing in prior years. Obviously, it's not good to depend on this site for surges/viral content. It's too risky/unstable.
  
  However, if Google.Android keeps doing this then perhaps Google isn't 100% against us.
  
  Also, I've only had surges for content I wrote this year. The surges took place shortly after writing something new.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Like you, I am trying to remain positive.
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jansharesposted 2 years ago
This is definitely the worse I've seen earnings since I started here in 2012, trying to get to payout threshold. Today is the 25th of the month. I'm usually close to by now or usually make it by a hair. This time I'm completely out of reach. Traffic is inching its way up but then back down. Hoping for a turnaround soon. But . . .
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, it's a nadir and it's been going on now for over 16 months. I feel like many writers have already drifted away and there's just a hardcore left. The nature of this site is that they need the writers to keep writing and that requires optimism about the future.
  
  I've actually produced a lot of new material over the last year or so. I took a gamble on the site recovering. It remains to be seen whether that will pay off.
  
  HP have had their ups and downs over the years, I just hope that things will be turned around again...
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  There must be quite an amount of income made from articles by writers who don't visit the forums though and either still write or are inactive. Only maybe 50 people or less even visit and post here.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  For sure. I see the forums as indicative of wider trends.
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  jansharesposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Now I just got an article kicked back to HP domain. This used to be called "unfeatured" back in the day. Sheesh! When it rains, it pours.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  In my experience, when that happens the article is usually getting very low traffic anyway, so it doesn't make too much difference.
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  jansharesposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  True. Well, in that case, I should expect a lot more articles getting kicked back.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I've never had that happen recently, even though traffic on some articles has dropped to about ten views per month. It used to happen in the first few years I was here. I wonder what the threshold is?
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  jansharesposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I'm not sure, Eugene. I'm thinking it's all random at this point based on the email I received that said, "your article is in queue for editing."
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  Jodahposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  May and June were the highest earning for me in sometime, but has been downward since then.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Looks like there's another wave coming folks. Batten down the hatches!

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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I'm not experiencing anything of note so far. It may peak within normal range or not affect our specific site. I guess we'll see.
  
  Generally, things are so bad I look forward to turbulence.
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  jansharesposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, Paul. Any shift means change and/or shake up, i.e., "what goes down must come up." Fingers crossed.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
An improvement on last Sunday. Does anyone have this hole in their traffic around 15:00 GMT?

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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I'm not seeing much by way of traffic improvement. My earnings for yesterday seemed to hit a new record for lowness.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Mine too, and Saturday's traffic was the lowest its been for 5 years, but traffic is a bit up today.
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  Deborah Minterposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Mine improved today as well!
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PaulGoodman67posted 2 years ago
I've seen further drops since the Google changes on the 28th of October. Early days, but it looks like I lost at least another 10% of traffic on this account. The situation is beyond grim.
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  Deborah Minterposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  You can say that again
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  The last time that my Hub Ads income was this low was 2016. The big difference back then, though, was that my Amazon income was way higher and made up for the low figures. Nowadays, both Hub Ads and Amazon are super-crappy.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I just looked at this month’s earnings. It just keeps getting worse.
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  Gregory DeVictorposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  In August of this year, I had the highest HP earnings ever. I was impressed at the time. For October, however, my earnings were about half of August's earnings. This month even looks worse. I think that it's time for a funeral.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  The depressing thing is that this should be the best time of the year for earnings! We've had over 16 months now of decreases caused by Google updates. Every time that things seem to have bottomed out, it then just gets worse.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  January is getting more and more terrifying.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  According to SEMRush, traffic across the niches appears to have flatlined for the last couple of weeks or so. The problem is that it's settling at very low levels.
  
  My only hope is that traffic will improve at the start of next year, as happened in January 2020. But it really is just a hope, there's no basis for believing it.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  The drop from December to January is usually pretty dramatic for me. Part of it is traffic, but I also think ad rates are a lot lower for Q1. I expect that there won’t be a turnaround until sometime in 2023. If it happens, my guess is it will be mid to late spring.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Where does SEMRush get its traffic from? Is that just an estimate like what Alexa used to give?
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I'm not sure how these sites work to be honest. I was a fan of Ubersuggest until they started charging.
  
  Sometimes the SEMRush traffic figures don't seem to tie in with what's happening in my world on the ground, so I don't take it as gospel, just another tool/indicator.
  
  As I have more than one account, I can see how much variance there can be with individual HP accounts. For instance, traffic on some accounts can stay stable or go up, even when the overall trend is definitely downwards.
  
  HP, of course, has the best overall stats for the niches but they keep them to themselves.
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  DrMark1961posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I wonder what the advantage is in keeping those numbers hidden? I would just like to see how they are doing since I am curious, but I am sure there are other more tech savy that could make use of those stats.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Those who have been around for some years will remember that HP used to have half a dozen authors highlighted on the front page and there was an accompanying graph for each of these writers showing their traffic.
  
  For each writer, the graph line went relentlessly upwards until it jumped off a cliff at the time of panda. From then on it was a low-lying mountain range.
  
  Though a very crude measurement, I used to see those graphs as a reasonable gauge of what was happening. Of course, after a period of poor results, HP ditched that visual.
  
  Nowadays, the highlighted authors (real or fake) don't have an accompanying graph. If they did, I'm sure it wouldn't look good.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
One of the first homepages from 2005, sourced from the Wayback machine.

This one's from 2007

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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Hmm, according to Wiki, HP was launched in 2006... so I wonder if that 2005 page really is the same company, it looks more like a listings site.
  
  The 2007 page has JimmytheJock, he was a featured writer on the homepage at one time. He still has articles posted and still seems to be writing 16 years after he joined!
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Traffic still declining. Down another 25% for yesterday, Sunday, compared to the previous Sunday.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's always complicated for me as I've more than one account and that usually means contradictory data, as I can have some going up and others going down.
  
  I actually find the Wednesday newsletters an easy way to get an impression of what's happening, I get ten lots of pluses and minuses for the past week.
  
  Overall, my traffic seems fairly stable nowadays, but at historically low levels.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I've split up my highest traffic article, the triangle one, into two. The first part is basic introductory stuff that'll suit young kids and that's a bit carved off the top of the original. I left all the triangle solving information in the second part. I'm always at odds whether to split articles. On one hand it may be beneficial because there can be the chance of getting two articles ranking and I suspect Google doesn't like overly long articles that are bloating with information, preferring short and sweet ones. On the other hand, maybe splitting a guide removes keywords and H2 titles possibly reducing its traffic if the bit that was turned into a new articles faces stiff competition and doesn't rank.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I've mostly plateaued for the month. I've lost about 60-70% of my traffic overall since the big drop.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I'm down over 50% since 2020. I think the load speed of sites really needs to be improved somehow before ranking will improve. Ads are slowing down everything from what I've deduced from my experiment. Maybe images could be loaded first because with no ads enabled they display quite fast, but when ads are enabled, there's a large wait for images to appear while waiting for ads. The result is that there's frequently confusingly long white spaces if several ads and images occur together. (e.g. an ad, a photo, an ad and then another photo)
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Slow loading times definitely put a strain on things.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  People aren't patience. They'll move on to a faster site.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
According to Seroundtable, there may have been an update over the weekend.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, I was going to mention that. I may have gained a little from it, but too early to tell. If there was any effect, it was minimal.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Traffic has now stumbled another 500 views or so. Earnings are stagnant for the month. Lowest earnings in 5 years, which is about when my account started taking off. I’m predicting this will be my lowest month for 2022. I assume December might pick up a little.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  We seem to be hitting a new low this weekend... Nothing HP's done seems to be working so far...
  
  You may discover that December is worse rather than better.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I’m mostly just being hopeful that December will pick up with the holidays. I’m probably being too optimistic.
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PaulGoodman67posted 2 years ago
In my darkest moments, I worry that the dearth of traffic and earnings is going to be like the comments saga, where it goes on and on indefinitely with no apparent resolution.

I still earn a reasonable amount on here, so I won't leave, but the brutal truth is that since Autumn/Fall of 2019 we've had only 5 good months and rest has been comparatively terrible.

I can only live in hope that the work by editors in the niches and changes to the welcome video etc. will yield some positive results.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
If Hubpages are making more money than ever because of the quantity of ads, even though traffic has fallen, I guess there's no incentive to reduce the number.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  They're a business that relies on ads, so they're certainly going to maximize their ad income.
  
  I assume that they have some expertise in both the advertising and SEO.
  
  HP had extreme advertising when I joined twelve years ago, during the old Adsense days. Panda forced them to rein it back a bit. Ever since then it's been a cat and mouse game.
  
  I suspect that part of the problem is that it's tough having your own ads system, when Google wants everyone to pay for Google ads. Google make it difficult.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's still not really clear how we earn. It seems it's per page impression, but the question is whether revenue per page impression increases if there's more ads. One way to check this would be by a process of trial and error. So disable ads on all but one article with lots of ads and see how much it earns. That would be a lot of work though and of course different ads earn different amounts. One of my articles has 33 ads, which seems to be the limit because 2/3 of the way down, it seems to run out of ads between modules.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  But why obsess about something that you have no control over?
  
  If you want full control then just do your own site and advertising is my feeling.
  
  I'm on here because I just want to do the writing and not get involved in things like the page structure and advertising. I've done that stuff in the past and I didn't enjoy it or feel that I was all that good at it.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I have tried putting articles on a blog and also a website, but got practically no traffic, only a couple of views a day. It'd probably take years and years for backlinks to be built back to a website for it to have a chance of ranking as high as Hubpages network sites.
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Will Apseposted 2 years ago
Sad to say,. my traffic is down 75 per cent since the algo update. Might be the end. It will certainly need a big turn around.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  There's no Amazon windfall now either. There was a time when my earnings in November/December from sales doubled or tripled. Nowadays, it's just a slow trickle that barely differs from the rest of the year.
  
  I agree that there needs to be a major turnaround and something more sustained.
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  Will Apseposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I made two or three thousand dollars a month nov/dec at peak. I might just make payout this month.
  
  I am so gratefull my pension kicked in. In Thailand I can live pretty well, if rather quietly.
  
  Never lose my gratitude to this site, though. It funded some of the best years of my life.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  My fall from grace hasn't been quite that dramatic. I think that's maybe because I've put in some work in recent times. Things are still dire, though.
  
  I could've claimed a small, occupational pension when I hit 55. I regret not doing that now, especially as the pound has tumbled against the dollar. By the time I claim it, the pound will probably be worth peanuts.
  
  This site has had some wonderful times. I still hope that they can recapture some of the old magic.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Luckily the Euro has fallen against the dollar and they're nearly on a par. Too bad PayPal rips us off, taking nearly 4% commission on currency exchange.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Another 20% drop this week.

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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's particularly discouraging news, if, like me, you've written and published a lot of new material over the past couple of years.
  
  That said, my traffic did bounce back a little from a previous low, so this for me is a return to the depths, rather than a cumulative loss.
  
  We need a turnaround, though. Hope is draining away.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Are schools off today as well as yesterday for Thanksgiving? Traffic is crap today.
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  Solarasposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, the schools were closed for the entire week for Thanksgiving.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Well that might explain some of the drop this week. Last year there didn't seem to be a drop, but maybe rising traffic for other articles compensated.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah, it's quite possible that it's a Thanksgiving thing. The kids are off and a lot of people travel in the US at this time.
  
  I remember that two years ago we got a benign Google update in late December. Fingers crossed we get another one.
  
  I try not to be conspiratorial, but it does feel like we get the big hits in late summer and autumn, right before the Xmas buying season, and the boosts come at the start of the crap part of the year!
  
  I'd be pleased with any sort of traffic/earnings increase right now, though, no matter how bloody mediocre...
  
  I had another lukewarm Black Friday.
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  Solarasposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I am not a parent, but I think last year many schools were still closed due to covid and kids were learning via zoom.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, I think that the previous couple of years were distorted by COVID. A lot of kids and adults were working from home and not undertaking Thanksgiving travel.
  
  More generally, though, I think it's good not to take short-term fluctuations in traffic too seriously. The problem here at HP is really a longer-term decline spread over months/years.
  
  We all watch our stats closely, but it's not wise to draw any conclusions from a drop or increase, unless they're sustained. It can be hard to resist the temptation, though.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  SE Round Table have commented on reports of a Thanksgiving update, they seem to think it's likely a false alarm...
  
  https://www.seroundtable.com/thanksgivi … 34476.html
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  The SE Round Table link is insightful.
  
  My Two Cents: There hasn't been a recovery yet for traffic since the September updates. I also think shopping might be down for this time of year. Usually, Thanksgiving weekend is one of the best earnings weekends. This year it looks more like a pitiful weekend in January or February.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Sales have been appalling. The drop in Amazon revenue is more of a problem than hub ads for me.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
On a positive note, CPM seems to be up a bit.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's the peak commercial period following Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Unfortunately, I expect CPMs to go down again in three weeks time. Goodness knows what mid-January will look like.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Must have been due to a few clicks on high earning ads, it has fallen again. Meanwhile traffic has dropped again.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I don't think that there have been any major changes overall, there are just the run-of-the-mill fluctuations following the disruption of Thanksgiving.
  
  My accounts are up and down as usual, as far as I can see, and there are no updates according to SE Round Table.
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PaulGoodman67posted 2 years ago
My general view is that as technology makes it increasingly easy for plagiarists and fakers to produce convincing material, the issue of the site's and writer's reputation becomes increasingly important.

Just as there's software that sites like HP use to detect duplication, the technology used to detect material generated by AI is having to become more sophisticated.

Authenticity is becoming more and more important and HP has to keep pace to survive.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I've never found that copied content ranks above mine or even close to it.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It used to happen before they could detect it with software. Then Google began punishing sites that allowed copied material.
  
  Now it's getting more difficult to detect AI-generated stuff as the software's becoming better.
  
  It's just one element of the reputation thing. Of course, real humans can write bullsh*t too.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I was really thinking in terms of the "spun" material, though (rather than just crudely copied). It used to be just gibberish. Nowadays, you have to look closely to spot discrepancies. It gets harder and harder.
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bhattucposted 2 years ago
The low traffic phase is continuing for quite some time.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  The latest algorithm update at the weekend didn't help. Things just seem to have got worse. I'm down another 10% since last week and 20% since a month ago. It's as if the updates don't just want to down rank sites, they want to eliminate them completely.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's pretty bad on my end. I have never seen it this low in years.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I've not seen any real change in traffic from the recent Google algo update. This account I'm writing with was actually substantially up, but that was just because an article was doing the rounds on Facebook for a few days after a reader posted it...
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  My low numbers have hit a plateau. Once the first digit of those numbers rolls down, I'll be raising my fist again. It's all been demotivating.
  
  January could be really scary... Q1 usually is a big drop from Q4. At least for me.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, mine have been pretty stable at a very low level for a couple of months or so.
  
  As you say, there's normally a big drop from the peak of the holiday season to the trough that happens a week or two into January. We go from the yearly peak to the yearly low.
  
  My last big hope is that there will be some sort of update-generated turnaround in late December or early Jan.
  
  But it's very much looking like I'll have to start looking elsewhere to make up the revenue losses that I've been trying to live with for the past 18 months.
  
  Perhaps the only silver lining is the passive income thing which means that there's still some money coming in, even when not publishing new articles.
  
  I enjoy writing, so I'm naturally motivated, but I need the revenue, too.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I share similar sentiments. At the very least, money will still trickle in, but it's definitely depleted in comparison.
  
  Here's to hoping traffic goes up.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  At a certain point, the low traffic and low earnings start looking like the new normal, rather than an aberration. The site has bounced back before, but this latest bad spell has been worrying long.
  
  I guess we'll see what happens...
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Rochelle Frankposted 2 years ago
Lowest I’ve seen in years.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Does Google have a god we can pray to or offer sacrifices?
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Oh boy, did you not get the email last year about the chickens and virgins?
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alexadryposted 2 years ago
It's really disheartening, especially considering all the latest improvements HP has made and raising the bar on quality content.
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  Solarasposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  My earnings have not been this low since 2016, and they are less right now in the runup to Christmas, than they were in January of this year. Terrible.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I'm experienced enough to know that you can't take much for granted with online writing.
  
  However, my expectation was that the worst case scenario might involve losing something in the region of 20 or 25 percent of traffic. The sheer scale and length of the drops in traffic/earnings over the past 18 months have taken me by surprise.
  
  The last hit in September seemed a particularly cruel blow.
  
  HP seem to have done more editing in recent times than at any time I can remember. They must believe that it will reap rewards, but certainly no sign of that so far...
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  Solarasposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I think new content is being weighted more positively than old reworked content. With many hubbers discouraged by the losses in traffic and earnings, the new content is pretty thin. News articles do not deliver what they promise. They are not news, rather they are feel good videos with a little cheesy, happy text. They are posting 3-4 of those a day on PetHelpful.
  
  They got rid of the videos for some reason, but I only see views continuing to decline. Articles are inundated with slow to load ads, leaving large white spaces, making the articles look like 2002 websites, bleak and clunky.
  
  The Spruce has their pets site broken down into subdomains per animal species, clearly Google likes a tighter structure over a sprawling site with thousands of pages of marginally related content. To quote Relache, editing the old articles is "just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
  
  Regarding a new site for True Crime, that could go viral on a daily basis if they could get it hooked into Reddit and TikTok, which has massive numbers of amateur sleuths. However, those articles will become useless once the mystery is solved.
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  EricDockettposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  About those new articles: Imagine if you or I wrote a 300-word article and included a YouTube video, where all we did was make comments about what happened in the YouTube video.
  
  It would be rejected, right? And correctly so, because it is thin, low-value content with information easily found elsewhere, and ever since Panda we've known that's exactly what Google has warned about.
  
  Yet HP posts hundreds of such articles on PetHelpful, which will eventually outnumber the actual article on PetHelpful if they don't already.
  
  As you said, they aren't separated out by subdomain. They have the same url structure as normal articles on PetHelpful.
  
  Is it any wonder organic traffic has suffered?
  
  These new stories make sense for a site like Exemplore, which has been suffering in search for a long time and features largely sensationalist articles. But PetHelpful did really well with organic traffic until recently.
  
  I worry that people think I rant about things like just to drag HubPages, and that couldn't be farthest from the truth. I want this thing to succeed, and I feel like if I keep quiet maybe I'd miss an opportunity to get HP thinking about some of this stuff.
  
  And no, because I know someone is going to say so, of course, I don't have access to the data HP does, and of course, I could be totally wrong. But we all know the damage thin content does to websites, in fact, we've had that drummed into our heads by HP themselves over the years.
  
  It isn't hard to add 2 and 2 here.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's tempting to look for straightforward patterns, but I think it's complicated.
  
  For one thing, Google distinguishes certain articles as "news" or "contemporary," which it treats differently from the vast majority of articles. Most things published will slowly climb in the rankings (if they're lucky), but news articles can go straight to the top, at least briefly.
  
  This is a different phenomenon from the greater emphasis on "freshness." The two things shouldn't be confused.
  
  The news/contemporary is about picking up articles that could be breaking news or current info. They're not necessarily assessed by the same standards as other articles, as far as I can see.
  
  The freshness thing is a different phenomenon and essentially just an adjustment in emphasis by the algo generally.
  
  The HP articles are about trying to capitalize on the news/current thing, as far as I can see. It's quite probably about generating links, as well as traffic.
  
  That's my understanding, anyway.
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  EricDockettposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I believe you are correct, except, do those posts look like "news" to you? All they are doing is commenting on TikTok and YouTube videos.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I honestly don't know how the algorithm assesses what is "news" and what isn't. The algo's interpretation may well be different from the human concept.
  
  Generally speaking, I think that there's quite a bit of experimentation going on by HP.
  
  After the Panda update, HP were essentially a rabbit in the headlights. They weren't sure what to do. After a while, they introduced the subdomains, which turned out to be a big failure.
  
  Success only came when they eventually introduced the niches and altered their business model, both radical changes.
  
  I think that this has been another period where HP hasn't been fully sure how to react to Google updates and changes. We've seen quite a bit of experimenting going on. I welcome that.
  
  What we really need are solutions, of course, but they may have to try things first. I think I can see what they're attempting to do, but whether it's working out is difficult to assess from my position.
  
  There's been no turnaround for pethelpful so far. But if the objective is, for example, to increase links and advance the SEO that way, it takes a long time.
  
  I'm speculating, of course...
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  AliciaCposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  News items would be good, but the nature and the content of the PetHelpful posts worry me. The writer shares a social media post, often including a screenshot, and then shares comments that people have made on the post. It’s basically duplicate content, even though the writer adds things like “AJ Miller said…” and adds some brief comments of their own. The posts are short, and there’s only a small proportion of original content in them.
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  Solarasposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  18 "news" articles were posted on December 9th alone.
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PurvisBobbi44posted 2 years ago
With All Due Respect: It seems simple to me that when the ads were taken away, our earnings went with them. I swim through many ads to read on other sites that are making money. If ads bother some writers, then get your own site. That makes common sense to me.

Bobbi Purvis
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  Jayne Lancerposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I find the same with other sites, but the ads on these don't seem to compromise loading speed, nor the speed at which I can scroll. The opposite is true of our network sites.
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  Solarasposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  You are only making money at a rate of 60% of one ad. HP makes money on 31.4 ads on just one of my articles. I don't begrudge them earning on 7 ads, and sharing that with me with a 60/40 split on 4 of them. But that is not what is happening - and please no one post a link to the oblique TOS.
  
  The quantity of ads, their location, in addition to slow load times is obscene.
  
  I am all about earning money from ads, but if the sheer number ads causes my views to drop to 1/3 of where they were 1.5 years ago, then someone needs to rethink the strategy.
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Solarasposted 2 years ago
"ERICDOCKETT WROTE:
About those new articles: Imagine if you or I wrote a 300-word article and included a YouTube video, where all we did was make comments about what happened in the YouTube video."

I might just have to give that a try.

NEWS (ripped from the headlines)

Adorable Puppy Smells a Flower and It Will Melt Your Heart!!

Everybody loves a puppy and most of us love flowers too. In this delightful video, a 3 month old labradoodle puppy sneaks up on a flower, and his reaction to it is hilarious! Amelia Muttlover, posted this video to TikTok and the reaction to the video has the Internet screaming with hysteria.

Matt thinks it is "delightfully unhinged," while Evelyn says "It is just too touching." The Labradoodle puppy, named Piddle Paws, is, by all accounts, just too cute and wholesome. His pitiful reactions to the flower are pricelessly over the top!

Enjoy this videographic insanity; it is truly inspiring!
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Another 25% drop in traffic since last Tuesday. Maybe it's just seasonal.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I think it's mainly caused by the latest Google update, which happened at the weekend. That was when my accounts really started tanking.
  
  My guess it's either another EEAT-related thing or it's to do with the site architecture and how HP organizes links. Either way, it's brutal.
  
  Alternatively, as there have been two updates going on at the same time recently, it could be BOTH EEAT and links that are the problem.
  
  Just speculating, but it's dreadful and demoralizing, whatever the cause.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  For me, traffic has plateaued since about October or so. Granted, many times when you mention a drop in traffic I face it a few days later. I kind of wonder if niches are affected at different times.
  
  Traffic is almost identical this month to November. However, there is a very slight decrease in earnings. This might be because people tend to buy Christmas presents around Thanksgiving, and usually, I see that as a peak for the year... this year it was nothing noticeable.
  
  Oddly enough, I think December 2022 is going to be worse than January 2022. December is usually one of the best months... January and February are the worst.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, I believe you're right about niches getting hit at different times.
  
  The effects of an update on my accounts are often staggered. Sometimes, I feel like an account has escaped damage, only for it to get hit a few days later.
  
  The likeliest explanation is that it's related to the niches of the articles, in my opinion. That's perhaps to be expected with a rollout.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's good to know that what you're seeing is consistent with what I have.
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  chef-de-jourposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  My article traffic is locked into the academic year so I'm familiar with term-time dips and rises. Most are on Owlcation, hundreds of them, built up over a decade or so covering a niche subject on a niche site.
  
  I'm still adding new material. I published the latest on 2nd December. It was okayed by HP on the 12th and is now sitting high up on Google. Perhaps it's this collective strength that gives these quick results? Is it a quick rise? I'm not sure but it's a tiny morale booster in these struggling times.
  
  Perhaps HP will cotton on - ad placement and excessive numbers and dumbed-down videos isn't the way forward. Uninterrupted text is and always will be for me the top priority.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  When it comes to Owlcation, what do you see as the peak times? Would it be before finals or another part of the semester? I assume summer doesn't fair as well.
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  chef-de-jourposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It varies according to global academic timetables. For example, North American and European educational dates tend to follow the traditional Sept-Dec, Jan-April, May-June pattern, with July and August slacking off. Exam times can be very busy yes.
  In India, Asia and parts of Africa it's a little different. When the western countries slow down these start to peak.
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Solarasposted 2 years ago
I am on track this month to earning less than 1/4 of what I earned last December. Appalling.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
I'm just looking at how my seed sowing guide that had the featured snippet has lost 80% of its traffic since 2020. Even in December it used to get a fair amount of traffic. Meanwhile a short guide with no photos has the featured snippet for "how to sow seeds". It's so unfair. It seems Google only likes short articles with little detail., and maybe using images is a bad idea too. I've seen lots of guides with the snippet where photos are absent in a step by step procedure.

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  chef-de-jourposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Not sure if this helps Eugene but just I googled 'sowing seeds' (on Edge) and your article is in 6th/7th place with the biggies like RHS and Gardeners World at top. There is a video between you and the biggies.
  
  I googled 'how to sow seeds' and your article rises to 4th, with the video in 3rd. The big two remain tops. They seem to have photos.
  
  The Rhs guide has both indoor and outdoor sowing titles.
  Gardener's World article is titled How to sow seeds indoors.
  
  'Seed sowing' brings similar results. You're 5th in line as an article but there are three more videos above you.
  
  If I add indoors or outdoors to how to sow seeds you're not on the first page?
  
  You've some tough competition! Mostly you're in the top 6 for articles but I do note increase in videos which many beginners might prefer?
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's in 1st to 2nd place place for me when I use the Google search engine on Firefox, but that's probably because I'm logged in and the search is likely biased towards stuff they think I'll like. Also the position alters somewhat from day to day. It seems to be a bit higher when I do a search when I set the region to the United States. If I set it to the UK, I at least
  get an image in the featured snippet spot.
  
  This is the result for the US region.
  
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  Solarasposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It is unfair. Two things I see in top Google results in general are charts and videos. You could add a meaningless chart that compares indoor and outdoor seed sowing, and that might make a big difference in your results. One thing Google cannot discern is quality of the information. They rely on other metrics to determine quality: number of ads, how long people stay on your page as well as who links back to it.
  
  Personally I dislike videos as most people spend the first 2 minutes chatting about themselves, getting their tools together, telling you why they like their tools and just wasting time to make the video longer to get more earnings from YouTube.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, I don't like videos either because I have to do a lot of rewinding. They are useful for procedures that are difficult to explain in words. E.g. DIY skills like plastering.
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  Solarasposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I have seen articles packed with erroneous information, ranking number one, and the only thing I could see to make it stand out was that it had a comparison chart.
  
  So you might do: tools you need for Indoor Sowing (grow lights, seed medium, seed trays) vs. Outdoors Sowing (hoops, plastic, fertilizer). Cost of one vs the other, time to sow indoors vs outdoors, when to thin seedlings, when to move outdoors, when to remove covering. Which plants thrive best from indoor starts, which only work with outdoor starts. That sort of stuff; place it at the bottom of the article.
  
  It looks like it still has a chance to move up, from the rankings others have observed.
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PaulGoodman67posted 2 years ago
If that latest drop in traffic was due to HP's linking strategy, there's really nothing that writers can do about that.

Adjusting individual articles generally just feels like moving the deckchairs around on the Titanic in the current climate.

Maybe I sound overly bleak and fatalistic, but at this point, I'm bracing for a very cold January.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
My traffic seems to be up somewhat today. Is anyone else experiencing this? Semrush reports increased volatility and Seroundtable is talking about algorithm update signals on January 3rd & 4th.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's difficult to calculate what's happening day to day during the holiday season and aftermath, but traffic does look like it's crept up a little since the initial hit. Still bloody awful though
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  jansharesposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, I've seen a slight uptick today, especially on my best performer on Owlcation.
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  SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  No real change for me. Everything is down from earnings to traffic. It’s at levels from several years ago. Earnings are as bad as I thought they would be for January.
  
  I expect it to get a little lower and tighter. I’m not expecting any real change until the end of Q1 and into Q2. If things don’t start picking up by summer, I’ll likely slowly fade out the effort I put into the account. I’ve already pushed back somewhat since fall.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, if typical seasonal forces are in play, things will get even worse. There's always a little bit of post-holiday spending, but that goes away by mid-January.
  
  What will kill the site is if all the good writers go away. Some have already gone. HP can't afford to let the rot go on indefinitely.
  
  We writers can produce and publish new material, edit older work, but there's a lot of stuff that we don't control and we rely on HP to figure that out.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  What is the whole encompassing scene? It appears the same writers post their valid grievances. Other writers on HP have not voiced their grievances on the forum, if there are some. We need to know many hard-earning writers there are on HP. And how many are experiencing a downward trend? How many are doing great? It would be fantastic to know what is truly happening. If the downward trend is across the board, HP must help remedy the situation.
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  AliciaCposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  The situation is very depressing. I have always tried to create high-quality articles since I joined HubPages. Having said that, I nearly always find something that I could improve or add when I’m updating my articles. I’m currently doing updates. I don’t know how long I’m going to continue doing this. It’s not helping the money that I earn.
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  theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's the theft of my work that prevents me from publishing new articles. It's completely demoralising.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yikes. I wish the HP staff would do something. After all, we pay them.
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  alexadryposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Bev, are you referring to theft where your articles are copied word-by -word, or articles that are re-written based on your content? I know both forms of plagiarism are bad, but I struggle more with the latter.
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  theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Word-for-word. Every time. I wouldn't know about the second kind unless HP informed me of it.
  
  And, having had a recent experience where Wordpress threatened to sue me for copyright theft (the plagiarist faked the publication date), I am reluctant to take the thieves on at the moment.
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  alexadryposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I hear you, articles copied verbatim are very upsetting. I am sorry you had such a negative experience. I had to use the Wayback Machine once to prove that I published an article first.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I hear you. I am so sorry. I wish the HP staff would do something.
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  chef-de-jourposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  As I see it the real decline began when Maven then Arena took over and changed the page design and with it the whole ethos. With hundreds of articles reliant on clear, unbroken text I sensed that the new placement of ads would lead to many readers, particularly young students, clicking away instantly. Who can tolerate three lines of text, ad, three lines, ad, two lines, ad, three lines, ad, repeat....?
  
  I'm still earning decent monthly income but it has halved over the past three years. I live in hope and will continue to write fresh material because there are signs HP is moving in the right direction - albeit slow and too cautious. There needs to be a big decision taken and soon regarding text and ads. For me the solution is clear: all ads should be placed either side of the text which should be unbroken and clean.
  
  I read an article recently on the effect of crappy ads such as the Recommended For You type that are situated at the bottom of our articles. The author said that these aren't necessarily bad in Google's eyes as many readers click through on them wanting to know more! The more crappy ads, the more clicks potentially - but surely this can't be true?
  
  If it is true, then Arena (who pay the ads specialist company?) must be banking on the more gullible reader to click and click, on and on, to the detriment of the site as a whole. To me, this is a dodgy way forward and needs to be changed.
  
  It's a question of value and trust I understand. At the moment the writers are losing out and are being treated unfairly, despite the recent editing and tweaks here and there.
  
  Someone on the HP team has to bite the bullet and declare the current regime as failure. Or at least acknowledge the steep decline and ask the writers for help and suggestions as to how the decline can be stopped? The response would be enthusiastic I'm sure.
  
  Some of us have been here earning for a decade or more, paying the way so that HP could grow. Writing online via ads is a tough gig and the current stats don't look happy. Mutual working through the rough is now needed.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  That is a good point of view. I agree. When Maven or The Arena Group took over, things changed rapidly. HP should be able to correct its mistakes just as fast.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Impressions as a ratio of views is half of what it was last year too. I'm going to try graphing this again using Excel.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Daily views, CPM and impressions for the last 10 years. Views and impressions are on the same scale. CPM has been declining since 2021 but that may be down to a fall in traffic to articles that showed lucrative ads.

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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I seem to remember that when they first introduced Hub Ads, the CPMs were really great. They've never been that good since then.
  
  We've had some good periods since but mainly thanks to traffic increases and not CPMs.
  
  Amazon used to be the main way to earn, of course, but that's been in decline for even longer.
  
  I would hate to be starting out from scratch now. There's a lot of work involved for relatively small rewards. That's because Amazon, CPMs, and traffic are all low nowadays.
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  JerryFisherposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Hubpages used to use Google ads. Now that Maven sign up their own advertisers and leave Google out of the loop, there's little incentive for Google to rank Maven articles highly. Likely we all get punished.
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  Justine Guiaoposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's just less than a year since I started writing here at HP and I never knew that CPM had reach that high at some point for you guys. I'm used to having less han $5 CPM (rarely) or less than $1. For the past few months. I felt that it's low but I thought $6 was already high (the highest CPM I got at one point). I amused that it got higher than $10 before.
  
  At this point, I guess it will be longer for me to reach the $50 threshold.
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  CYong74posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I remember CPM being really high at the end of 2018. My high in Dec 2018 was around 18 bucks or so, I think.
  
  But the figure is hard to interpret because it's an aggregate. What's more, it changes depending on how impressions are calculated. We have had multiple instances of impressions doubling overnight, but CPM dropping by half.
  
  Generally, I think the higher your impressions/traffic, the lower CPM gets too. Because of the way the division is done. (My theory only)
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I think CPM is an average for the previous day. So if views shoot up, they may be on an article/articles that show ads of low value, So when the average is calculated, that pulls the average down. As I said in the last post though, the value of ads depends on the type of ones that Google shows, so maybe its the demography of the traffic that influences the revenue from ads. So maybe lots of extra views from older or younger people give better earnings.
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  CYong74posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, they are an average. And because there will always be more low value ads than expensive ones, the average trends to the lower end. The more impressions you get, the lower, and so on.
  
  I could be wholly wrong, though. I've read elsewhere that every website has a certain fixed value that's calculated based on bids, your site worth, etc.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It depends on the ads that are placed on your ads as far as I know. If you write about some topics, the ads that get suggested can be more lucrative. However I see ads for things that Google seems to think I like, rather than anything remotely related to the content of my articles when I read them, so I'm not sure how exactly this works.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
I wonder if Hubpages did sponsorship deals could it be a more lucrative source of revenue than ads, since they might only generate a fraction of a cent per view? So for instance I've written a power tool guide for beginners that's top of SERPS if you search for "power tool guide". I would like to see placed ads from a power tool manufacturer in it if they would sponsor it.
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  DrMark1961posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I know of at least one case of this. It was on Pethelpful. After Septembers HP crash, however, I do not think they are going to find any companies interested in doing things like this again.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Generally speaking, my assumption was that there were two sorts of ads run by HP: targeted ones based on specific keywords; and general ad campaigns.
  
  In essence, I don't think that HP's approach is much different from other businesses who rely on ad revenue.
  
  Internet advertising seems past its golden period for the internet generally, but the big problem for HP is low traffic, as far as I can see.
  
  We did pretty well a couple of years back and that was driven by much higher traffic. For those five months, I earned more than I'd ever done, despite the ads being more or less the same as now.
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  EricDockettposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  There are many affiliate programs out there besides Amazon in just about any niche we can imagine. Since the niche sites stand on their own, they could conceivably each have their own affiliate programs associated.
  
  I know not quite what you mean, but something HP could at least consider.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
I guess many companies wouldn't sponsor articles, especially guides because it may lead to people thinking they endorse them and because of the backlash if someone injured themselves and they were seen to be linked to them (This is a risk we take if we write DIY guides. I've already unpublished one that was getting lots of traffic from the UK because of a fear of liability). Any companies I've asked about linking to articles won't do it because that's their policy and they write their own.
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alexadryposted 2 years ago
Alicia C, it is very depressing. I don't know what to do either other than feeling helpless. I am trying to publish more often because I haven't had much success in updating. I updated an article as a trial a couple of months ago and tracked it, but nothing has changed. Updating seemed to help me in the past, but lately it seems that nothing seems to work no matter what I do. I have heard that the situation may improve in the next quarter with more typical RPMs and CPMs. I just have never seen them get so low!
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  Thomas Swanposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  That fits with my experience of updating. I updated all 70ish of my niche-site articles in the first half of 2022, putting hours into each one (better wording, images, presentation, up to date research and stats, etc), and got nothing for all my hard work (other than some pride about what's published under my name). I also got hit in the last quarter of 2022, losing about 30% of traffic, although some of that's recovered now, particularly in the new year, as others are reporting.
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CYong74posted 2 years ago
This was reported in my country today:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/comment … et-3187466

I think it's true and it might have affected all of us one way or another. During Christmas, I searched for a specific tablet brand and model and the first relevant result was halfway down the page. Other times, I resorted to CTRL-F to find the actual result.

Perhaps our traffic got waylaid by such ads.
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  Justine Guiaoposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Now that you mentioned it. I have noticed this too whenever I google something. As a user, it made searching tedious for me.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Traffic getting back to November levels, but still 40% down on last year at this time.

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  JerryFisherposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  But CPM seems to have halved. Before December I saw it as generally around $12 - now around $6.
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's always really low in January though.
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  JerryFisherposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Okay. Thanks. What I find really weird is a first page Google ranking article of mine has always had around 120 views a day. It still ranks on the first page but currently is only getting 30/40 views a day. I just don't get the 60% plummet in views yet still still ranking first page. Maybe as you say with CPM it's just the time of year and all niche articles are effected so Google maintains their ranking?
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Mine do something like that too. I think what happens is that although an article might still rank for the string of words you search for, it may have lost ranking for multiple other keywords when they're used in a search string. I've noticed Google has got better too at finding results or more correctly pages with titles that more closely match the exact words that are searched for, whereas before it would throw up a lot of content somewhat related. Also Google will often tailor the results it shows you. So the only way to really know how an article is ranking is to get someone else to search for it.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  If the ranking stays the same for the article, but it gets less traffic, that typically means it's lost traffic for related keywords (assuming there are no external factors like holidays, weather events, pandemics, etc).
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  JerryFisherposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks you guys. That helps. Time to get off the butt and do some revisions then.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Looks like this latest update is pulling down traffic again, well at leat cancelling the effects of the trend upwards over the past week.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  That seems to be the immediate effect.
  
  HP spent time down for maintenance, though, which might've lost some traffic, I don't know.
  
  I guess we'll see how things pan out over the coming days.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Hey Paul, When was HP down?
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  This morning. I couldn't tell you for how long, or the exact time(s).
  
  It was really an off-the-cuff comment, my expectation is that it's more likely the update that caused the drop.
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Okay. Thanks!
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
It was down for a couple of hours at least, but traffic was still coming in to the network sites according to GA. It was just the logged in version of Hubpages that was down.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  It's bizarre that the last two updates have each taken around a month to roll out.
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PaulGoodman67posted 2 years ago
Traffic might just be beginning to creep back up again after its crushing at the end of last week... Dare we hope?
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I see a spike this afternoon on the GA Real-Time Report. Also Semrush is reporting high volatility Wednesday.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Still not volatile enough for me! I need a double-the-traffic-volume spike!
  
  Seriously, though, traffic and earnings are so in the toilet nowadays, they're practically disappearing around the effing u-bend!
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  eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  That spike was only short lived for 15 minutes or so.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I'm just desperate to see my My Account page flooded with red arrows!
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  Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  If you can walk on water, sure.
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
Looks like I'm going to miss the springtime gardening surge again this year with what was my second best performing article. Traffic is down 90%.

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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  According to the HP newsletter stats, traffic is up on all my accounts from the previous week, but it certainly doesn't feel like that!
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eugbugposted 2 years ago
The odd thing thing is that seed sowing guide still has first place when I search for it on Google with the region set to the US. That's after logging out, clearing the cache and cookie for Google.com. And my title image appears as the first image in the group of images in the featured snippets. I must have just lost ranking for loads of keywords.
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AdeleCosgroveBrayposted 2 years ago
All I can add is that my own income for this month is abysmal. I've not known it this low since I first began writing here.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, we should be unshockable by this point, but I still can't believe how low my payout will be at the end of this month. It's dreadful.
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