Action after algo change

1. 60

   Enni82posted 13 years ago

   Just curious.
   
   It seems that most hubbers here have suffered dramatically reduced traffic after the algo change. So what are your plans to correct for lost earnings? Do you plan to write more content for HubPages, move to another site, or just wait it out? I'm not going to leave HubPages but I might try publishing more at other sites like Suite101 or maybe Squidoo. Hopefully, the traffic problems here will be resolved shortly because from the other sites I've tested I definitely like Hubpages the most.

   replyreport
   1. 68

      lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I'm pretty sure that Suite got hit pretty badly with the algo change. Squidoo fared pretty well -- at least for now. That said, If I were you, I would start building some of my own niche sites.

      replyreport
      1. 68

         J Sunhawkposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I've been reading SEO forums and blogs the past week or so, and the consensus seems to be build niche sites. Your advice appears sound.
         
         The only question is, to use blog formats or web sites. I'm leaning toward web. I have a dead-in-the-water blog I used to get indexed. The web sites I own seemed to have weathered the Google attack well and a few inched up in SERP.
         
         Most of my test Hub pages are still splashing around in the wake of the Google dreadnaught, while a throw-away hub I created for the fun of it is sailing ahead to the first page.
         
         I still don't know how squidoo survived the bombardment, but in a number of searches squidoo is popping up #1,
         
         Strange days indeed.

         replyreport
   2. 68

      rmrposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      That may not help you much. Suite got hit pretty hard as well, and Google seemed proud of that. Squidoo may still be OK, but most of the other writing sites are in bad shape. It's still early days to be making any big moves. Seems to me that even with lower overall traffic, more hubs should mean more revenue; just not as much as you might like at the moment.

      replyreport
2. 63

   Mishaposted 13 years ago

   Witch hunt is always an option when nothing is clear

   replyreport
3. 69

   Cagsilposted 13 years ago

   I enjoy Hubpages to much to move things from here and setup somewhere else. The loss of age on my hubs would be detrimental to the success of my writing. So, I'm not doing anything too drastic.
   
   I am presently playing the wait and see game. I've already seen an improvement in my traffic, considering what it was a few days ago. It appears that many of my hubs have bottomed out and bounced upward.
   
   My earnings are beginning to return to the level before the Google "slap" and that is enough information for me to continue to wait and see.

   replyreport
   1. 60

      kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Ditto.
      
      I already write the odd lens on squidoo and elsewhere, and i think if I was writing a new page I would still have at least as good a chance to rank well with it on hubpages. That's partly because of all my other hubs I have published, and partly because hubpages used to rank much better than them, so even with a reduction I think its still a good place to publish.

      replyreport
      1. 65

         snakebabyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         "hubpages used to rank much better than them" - are you sure? From what I observed after I learned of the existence of suite and squidoo, it hasn't been the case, it all depends. When I searched certain keywords these few days, I have still seen squidoo sometimes came ahead of hubpages.

         replyreport
         1. 60

            kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            No I am not sure, but that has been my impression in the past and I am pretty sure hubpages gets more overall traffic which would seem to suggest that it ranks higher for more stuff.

            replyreport
4. 84

   wychicposted 13 years ago

   Despite my traffic being halved, my Adsense earnings have remained about steady -- but I haven't gotten ANY Amazon sales this month. Usually Amazon is my big earner because I write a lot of reviews, so that one hurts. Right now I'm working on rewriting my cross-posted content so that it is entirely unique to Hubpages (so far none of the old stuff from before the TOS change has gotten hit with sub-standard, so trying to stay ahead of the game), and I'm going to put a lot more informational articles on here because they seem to do better with Adsense. This is just in case my Amazon sales don't come back as expected, and diversity is certainly never a bad thing.
   
   Overall, I have invested far too much time and energy into my Hubpages account to cut and run. Despite the headache of frantically re-shuffling and re-working my plan here, I believe that this will be a much better site when the dust settles. Since Hubpages is taking steps to ensure higher-quality content and better earning opportunities (or at least more) for their high-quality contributors, I feel that once they've managed to appease Google we will really like the change.

   replyreport
5. 81

   David 470posted 13 years ago

   I really like this site a lot, and have not been writing lately. My traffic was spiraling down, but it went up a bit today.
   
   I might just go balls to the wall on here with some topics that do well.(red traffic arrows)
   
   And possibly write for eHow, and other various sites idk...

   replyreport
6. 0

   Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years ago

   I'm not writing any new hubs or changing any old ones until at least 5/1/11. My focus will be my own websites until then.
   
   By that time, it will be clearer how G is treating HubPages in the long run. The HubPages Team will have had time to understand the situation and make any changes that are necessary. If I have to revise hubs, I don't want to waste the effort of doing it twice.

   replyreport
   1. 92

      Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Yes. That's my feeling exactly.
      
      There is no apparent reason that HP can't recover from this.  Of course there may be reasons that we aren't aware of, but time will show all that.

      replyreport
7. 63

   lakeerieartistsposted 13 years ago

   Even with this change, I am still earning more from Hubpages than many other sites.  And that is before adding the new Hubpages ad program.  I plan to continue with my pre Google algorithm change plan, which includes Hubpages and several other sites.  I believe in diversification, and this Google change is a perfect example of why. 

   replyreport
8. 71

   sunforgedposted 13 years ago

   Suite 101 seems to be the model of exactly what not to do to stay good in the SERPs
   
   in one of the recent interviews mCutts says "he had known about suite for years" and that he was confident in their placement in the current algo (something like that)
   
   ------

   replyreport
   1. 71

      thisisoliposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I'm still pretty surprised about the lack of a drop on eHow, I was talking to a few of the big names in IM/SEO a few nights ago and one thing being discussed was that this change might be indicating to Google that the end users who were rating these sites might be showing one true fallacy in the lean tehy are making towards ranking based on user input.
      
      The User is often far from right. 
      
      In eHows case, a lot of people know about the brand name, someone looks on the front page it looks pretty reputable, it has high quality articles, someone might go on that and think, hey, this site is pretty good.
      
      However there are plenty of people who find their way to that site and end up being sorely disappointed by the results.

      replyreport
      1. 65

         snakebabyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Somehow ehow looks more trusted in people's eyes, I guess. I didn't know what ehow was till I had to read about the G change. Before that, I naturally trusted the site and thought they were pretty authoritative. Plus the brand. It's just like a singer became famous, even sometimes he/she sings badly, people don't feel it, they feel everything sung by this person is good. That is ehow. I hate to say this, but as a writer we all like hubpages format, but in public eyes, hubpages somehow doesn't look like a site with enough authority. I could be wrong, but I'm speaking from my own experience and 2 cents.

         replyreport
         1. 71

            thisisoliposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            You are right, Hubpaages is not a well known brand with the public, and that is one way that even on user test Hubpages might have scored lower than eHow as a resource. I would like to see how many people had checked eHow because they had heard of the brand, but had never actually used the website.

            replyreport
            1. 86

               IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I agree with this. When I first stumbled across Hubpages it was totally by accident as I had never heard of them. Even now, when people ask me where I write online you see their eyes clouding over when I say Hubpages - they've simply never heard of the the site.
               Whereas they all know about Ehow.

               replyreport
9. 75

   brandonhart100posted 13 years ago

   I've been waiting until I understood a little bit about how I need to write a HP in order for it to still receive a decent ranking in the SEP.  I believe that I've found somewhat of a way to do this by looking at my hubs that are still doing well. 
   
   I've updated many of my older hubs to include additional relevant and unique information.  I've also removed some SEO that I believe was harmful to them (when comparing my successful hubs to those which have fallen).
   
   My New hubs will follow a similar format as those hubs that have been successful and yes, I will continue to write for HP.

   replyreport