What Was Your Peak Traffic Year?

1. 66

   eugbugposted 2 years ago

   For me it was 2021, but that's probably thanks to COVID.
   I became a member in 2011, but traffic only really started to take off after 2016. Currently, monthly traffic is one third of what it was in 2021 as Google dumps older evergreen guides in favour of new stuff, or ranking of the network sites drops.
   

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      chef-de-jourposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      I built up gradually over the years, like yourself probably, and many other veterans, starting 2012 with pennies and low traffic and steadily increasing to peak between December 2017 - December 2019, boomtime! Then the pandemic and TAG came along like the monsters from the dark lagoon - things started to tumble rapido as you well know.
      
      Your mountain range graphic shows it all in stark terms. We're now feeding on leftover scraps whereas once we were feasting at the top table.

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         SerenityHaloposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Same story for me.

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   2. 85

      bravewarriorposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      I don't even think to track that. Perhaps because my full-time job pays far more then HP. HP is passive income for me. I'm not interested in upping my HP income as long as it keeps coming, which it does. When I retire at the end of this year, it'll be of lesser concern because I'll be reaching out to actual clients that pay me directly without taking a cut.

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         bravewarriorposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Eugene, where is this chart located? I'd like to see how my traffic has been over the years, too.

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         1. 85

            jansharesposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            Shauna, I looked in GA and couldn't find it either.

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         2. 66

            eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            It's a report from Google Analytics Shauna. Have you setup GA and can view it on a desktop? If you have, you just select Behavior > Site Content > All pages and select a time range of several years. Then click on the "month" button to smooth the trend. It's probably possible to do it too in the GA app, but I'm not familiar with it. AFAIK, we're going to lose all this historical data once we switch to the GA4 property. Data can be exported as e.g. CSV points, so that it can be imported to a spreadsheet, but it's not really practical for quickly comparing current and past trends.

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            1. 85

               bravewarriorposted 2 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks, Eugene. Yes, I have GA set up. Just ran the report. It looks like my peak years were mid to late 2021 and mid to late 2022. So far 2023 is hovering the bottom of the barrel. 

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               jansharesposted 2 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks, Eugene. It confirmed what I gathered from earnings; my peak traffic was between 2018 and 2019.

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   3. 81

      Justine Guiaoposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      I became a member of HP last 2021, and my peak is probably currently happening. This was largely because I started creating most of my articles last August 2022.
      
      My traffic is still probably low compare to other, with an average of around 500 view a week, but it is still my highest since I joined HP.
      
      I wrote my most recent article last January. I stop writing for a while because I am currently occupied with a lot of stuff.
      
      CPM are low most of the time though. Regardless, I will still continue writing as soon as I had the luxury of time to spare.

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   4. 92

      alexadryposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      Same here, the traffic was highest in 2021. Now it is slowly creeping up a bit, but I'm afraid it won't go back to the levels of 2021 due to the increasing competition.

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      1. 66

         eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Yours shows a step in 2016 similar to mine. Was that when the network sites were created? I can't remember.

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            alexadryposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            I don't know about when all network sites were created, but I can share about the creation of Pethelpful.
            
            According to some email exchanges I had with Paul Edmondson about the creation of vertical sites, Pethelpful's official launch date was Feb 23, 2016.
            
            On March 21 2016, I was emailing him back (as he was expecting some feedback) informing him how traffic increased substantially after that.
            
            I guess all other networks must have been created around those times!

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   5. 82

      Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      May 2021 is my peak, with traffic taking off in June 2015. That's probably when I returned to work more aggressively with HP.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 2 years ago

   It's almost unbelievable but my traffic for this account that I'm writing with is actually lower now than it was in 2012!
   
   

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