Traffic going, going, gone

1. 76

   Karandaposted 13 years ago

   Traffic started to rise for me a few weeks ago with a Hub that hit the 100 mark and was top of the charts for hottest and best. After 10 days of basking in the glory, overall traffic started to take a nose dive. I am down to a mere 3 views per day. That's for a total of 51 Hubs not the average. What's going on? Any ideas?

   replyreport
   1. 88

      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Karanda, have you made a separate keyword-rich summary for each of your hubs?
      
      A recent change to HP (that they didn't announce) means that the first paragraph is no longer picked up by the search engines as it was before.
      
      Previously optimized hubs became un-optimized overnight with the resultant drop in the SERPS etc.

      replyreport
      1. 76

         Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         All of my Hubs have a summary with relevant keywords. I made a point of checking them all when Panda first hit.

         replyreport
      2. 0

         Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         where do you put the summary?

         replyreport
         1. 88

            IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Under edit, summary box is over to the right.

            replyreport
            1. 0

               Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I've never used that. So I need to?

               replyreport
               1. 88

                  IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Absolutely. What you type in here is what will show up the search engines under your hub title, so make it keyword-rich and attractive so that viewers will want to click on your link. You will also fully optimize your hubs by using this feature which could push them up in the SERPS.

                  replyreport
                  1. 0

                     Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     will have to add it to my list of things to do

                     replyreport
                     1. 88

                        IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Make it a priority, your summary is very important.

                        replyreport
            2. 70

               DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I'm not seeing this summary box when I go into edit mode.  Where should I be looking?

               replyreport
               1. 76

                  Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  On the right hand side, I think it is next to the Tags tab.

                  replyreport
                  1. 76

                     Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     Under the add capsule feature there is the following menu:
                     reorder tags settings summary group help

                     replyreport
                     1. 70

                        DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Thanks, Karanda, I found it!  Now I've got some work to do!

                        replyreport
      3. 74

         Richieb799posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Will this effect all of our hubs, what do you think of the sub domain change? could it break a lot of backlinks?

         replyreport
      4. 63

         Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Wow.  Thanks.  Live and learn.      I've known about summaries (and known I should have been making sure my own weren't of the automated variety - but didn't); but I had no clue that they were essentially wiped out completely (except, I guess, for a very few of mine).     Here I was, just assuming the old automated ones were still there.   If it weren't for your post, Izzy, I'd still be assuming and "planning to get around to summarizes one of these days". 

         replyreport
         1. 88

            IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I wrote about this change in one of my recent hubs LOL, but I guess most of you never read it. Not to worry. You can copy/paste your first paragraph over but it is generally reckoned to be best to write a new one.
            I have written a few new ones but to be honest I have far too many hubs to do that for, all at once. In fact I still haven't summarised half of my hubs. It's just too much work on top of all the recent changes.
            It's a good idea to get into the habit of writing a separate summary as you write new hubs.

            replyreport
            1. 99

               Peggy Wposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Often I summarize in the last text capsule. Is that not good enough? Does it have to be in a separate "summary" capsule?

               replyreport
               1. 88

                  IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes because the summary box is the meta description tag for your hub.
                  You need 4 things for on page optimization (apart from the content) and that is to have your keywords in title, URL, description and heading.
                  The summary box is your description.

                  replyreport
                  1. 95

                     wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     Izzy, I've written nearly all my own summaries, using keywords, etc. 
                     
                     On a few hubs, though, I let it automatically come from the first paragraph, which I made sure contained the same kind of thing. 
                     
                     Do you mean that the summary will no longer contain those first words?  That hubs formed in this manner now contain nothing (or some other "automatic grab" from elsewhere)?
                     
                     If so, I have a bunch of work as well.  I probably have only a dozen or so this way, but have no recollection of which ones they are!  I just wrote the first paragraph and, if I found it reasonable for the summary, left the summary blank.

                     replyreport
                     1. 88

                        IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        That's exactly what has happened Wilderness. It no longer picks up those first couple of sentences for the meta description tag like it once did. We have to manually fill in a summary for every hub. I wouldn't have known if it hadn't been for Market Samurai.

                        replyreport
                        1. 95

                           wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           Ugh!  Well, I guess I've got a little work in front of me then.  Thanks, Izzy.

                           replyreport
            2. 63

               Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I actually did see you refer to that Hub, and did go and read it, during forum posting; and I was going to come back to the forums and say what a good Hub I thought it was "for new people" .  I either skipped/skimmed too quickly the part of about summaries (because I was thinking I already knew about them  ), or else I was just not paying close enough attention to what I was reading.   
               
               Anyway, it's a great Hub (and obviously not necessarily one only for "new people"  ).
               
               I just spent the last hour or so doing 20 or 30 of them, I think.  It's going to be a long haul.   

               replyreport
               1. 88

                  IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks and yes it is a nightmare having to do this after checking them all already for other recent changes.

                  replyreport
   2. 84

      DonnaCSmithposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I have also noticed a severe drop this week. So, having turned off Hubpage ads, I turned them back on today just to see what happens.

      replyreport
      1. 76

         Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Let me know how that turns out, I would be most curious.

         replyreport
   3. 78

      Ms Deeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I too have seen a severe drop in traffic, more than a 50% drop. I read in some other forum thread a hubber saying June is usually the lowest month. I'm not confident though that this explains it all.

      replyreport
2. 61

   Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

   Hi Karanda, I don't know about the SEO stuff.  But I do now have 150 hubs!!!  Roughly ten google.com visits in total on a good day.
   
   Something I noticed with Panda for my hubs was they used to get visits if someone typed in something that was somewhere in the page, even in the comments.
   
   But now it seems it has to be almost an exact title phrase plus getting lucky.

   replyreport
   1. 76

      Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Oh dear Mr Ewbie, it would appear we are in the same boat and it might be taking water. I must admit I haven't looked at the keyword search results on individual Hubs recently. I'll go have a look now. Thanks.

      replyreport
3. 76

   sofsposted 13 years ago

   It was not difficult to get unique visits pre panda.. I used to get around 70-100 unique visitors pre panada, now it is as low as 40
   
   Now it is time to focus on SEO and back linking mainly.. But I will do all I can to get the traffic back... And that means more work on your platter. Happy working Karanda

   replyreport
   1. 76

      Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks sofs, back to the grind stone is it? Unlike others on this site I am not relying on my writing to keep food on the table so I commiserate with those that do. But it was nice to think someone was actually reading my musings.

      replyreport
4. 88

   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   Karanda, I hope you don't mind but I had a look at three of your hubs through the eyes of  Market Samurai, and all three were perfectly optimized but completely lacking in any backlinks.
   Before, we didn't need to backlink our hubs because HP was a powerful platform on its own. Now with HP's slide, we do.
   
   The three I looked at were Tempur Mattress, Leonard Cohen Hallelujah and Spider Solitaire.

   replyreport
   1. 76

      Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Ooh, that's exciting to know they were optimized IzzyM and no, not only do I not mind, I am extremely grateful. I try and backlink all of my Hubs but sometimes forget to do the follow through. Nice suggestion, guess I'll be busy for the next few days.

      replyreport
      1. 88

         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I find TipDrop excellent for giving backlinks. Some of my backlinks from there are PR3! (www.tipdrop.com)

         replyreport
         1. 76

            Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks heaps, I'll give it a go. I find the whole backlinking thing so cumbersome, sites that won't accept URLs or sites that you can't even log in to half the time, I guess that's why I give up and go home mostly.

            replyreport
   2. 78

      Ms Deeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Izzy, could you help my ignorance? when you say to Karanda she's lacking backlinks in her hubs you looked at, and then say you've looked at Tempur Mattress, Leonard Cohen Hallelujah and Spider Solitaire, I'm not sure what you are telling her to do. How would she get those sites to link to her hubs?
      
      Thanks so much for any help!

      replyreport
      1. 88

         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Well, in an ideal world, everyone else would find her hubs so useful that they would automatically want to backlink to it.
         
         But, the world today has all sorts of half-bit writers putting up sites, hubs, blogs claiming to to be experts in everything, but are actually only expert in self-promotion.
         
         In order to compete, we have to self-promote.
         
         I don't like it much either, but that is the way things are.
         
         I have a hub half-written on sites to backlink to, but plenty of others have hubs already published.
         
         The only thing I can say at this point is that if you do want to go ahead and put the effort in to self-promote, then write a unique paragraph for each site you go to.

         replyreport
5. 83

   earnerposted 13 years ago

   I'm getting about 800 views/day still.  I don't think it's changed much... hang on, I'll check analytics... ooh.
   
   I used to get 1200-1400/day.
   
   I've not broken through the 900 barrier since April 10th.  Before that it was over 900 every day (except Xmas day) for yonks.  Peak day was 3,600.
   
   I should do more promotion/backlinking, but I'm always juggling a pile of cr4p websites I've never managed to get under control....

   replyreport
   1. 76

      Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Oh my, I dream of having stats like yours...

      replyreport
6. 88

   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   Also, it does help. Since I wrote new summaries about 2 weeks ago, a lot of my hubs have recovered some ground.

   replyreport
7. 84

   rebekahELLEposted 13 years ago

   When someone does a search, it's not necessarily the summary that comes up in the results, it's the closest part of text that matches the original search query.

   replyreport
   1. 88

      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      No you are right. Sorry for that misleading statement. The summary box is for the search engine spiders I believe.

      replyreport
      1. 84

         rebekahELLEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, that's how I understand it also. It shows up as a 'hidden' meta description tag. Sometimes you can take a section of your text and use it for a summary. I haven't done much with them personally.. I think I've written a few.

         replyreport
8. 68

   Paradise7posted 13 years ago

   I just tried adding some summaries to my hubs.  Believe it or not, I never noticed that feature before.  I sure hope it helps.

   replyreport
9. 70

   DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years ago

   I knew about the feature, but didn't look for it before because at the time it came out I thought I was leaving the site and taking my articles with me.  I'm going to start writing them today, so we'll see if they help. Couldn't hurt!

   replyreport
10. 68

    Paradise7posted 13 years ago

    Good luck to you, Wedding Planner, and to me, too!

    replyreport
    1. 70

       DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Yes, most definitely, Paradise!  If Google finds one, perhaps they will find us all...kind of like the Isle of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer...we're all out here, but have been kicked to the curb by Google.  Just need that lucky searcher to find us again!

       replyreport
11. 61

    Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

    Ah well.  Another hope busted.  I thought putting in a vaguely interesting, possibly amusing, summary might mean some bastard searcher (welcome visitor) might pop in for a read.
    
    But no.  It all comes back to keywords and backlinks.
    
    I hate the internet.

    replyreport
    1. 83

       earnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Don't be fooled... it's all about luck really.  Maybe you'll be lucky and "Liked" by Stephen Fry.... or maybe you'll be number one for something you didn't even know about!
       
       Odd things happen on t'Internet... and, don't forget, you've got a foot of lucky poo!

       replyreport
       1. 61

          Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks earner.  That comment, and the poo bit is worth all the SEO in the world.
          
          Do you know how many people daily search for quirky misleading nonsense?
          
          Absolutely none.  Despite that, I think I've cracked it.
          
          edit: cracked up, not cracked it.

          replyreport
          1. 83

             earnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             You'd be surprised what people do ... today on one of my websites, I saw the Google link ads - and one was simply: 3
             
             Yes, a single number - and I thought "who will click that?"  Bizarre.

             replyreport
          2. 88

             IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Mark, your work is great but I've no idea how to market it. I love when I find stuff like yours on the web, and so does everyone else. Getting it found is another matter. Maybe you need an agent?

             replyreport
12. 83

    earnerposted 13 years ago

    I always fill in the summary.  I used to slightly amend the summary before it moved.... and I've just checked one of my old summaries and it's blank!
    
    Looks like old summaries, on old hubs, might have been wiped.  So there's 4 hours of work to be done!!
    
    Edit: They're not  all wiped, thank goodness.... so that's four free hours I have now this evening

    replyreport
13. 69

    Alastar Packerposted 13 years ago

    It increased my domains traffic three or four- fold Paradise.

    replyreport
14. 69

    Alastar Packerposted 13 years ago

    Well Mark, maybe its something besides the summaries.The biggest increases come when a new hub's out then taper off some until the next.

    replyreport
15. 70

    DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years ago

    OK, I'm trying an experiment.  I'm writing a summary for my ten lowest scoring hubs.  Now I'll wait a few days and let's see what happens.  Just wrote one for "Dog Shows For Mutts."
    
    Hey, some nut is out there searching for that one...I did!

    replyreport
    1. 88

       IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Do it that way if you want, but I put priority on the hubs that are doing best.
       Those are the ones that are worth giving that extra shove to.

       replyreport
16. 88

    IzzyMposted 13 years ago

    Just to clarify, if you are on page 10, then moving up to page 8 won't make a lot of difference, traffic-wise. But if you are on page 2, moving up to page 1 will make a huge difference.

    replyreport
17. 70

    DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years ago

    True, I see your point, but I was looking more at seeing if it would make an impact on hubs that were failing rather than ones that were doing well.  If they are below 75 hubscore, probably no one is seeing them anyway. Thought it would help those that are languishing in obscurity!

    replyreport
    1. 88

       IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       It should, yet probably won't.
       I had all my hubs optimized before this change came in, yet still had loads with zero daily views.
       But for those who got some views, it doubled them or more.
       
       Sometimes even optimizing an obscure, dead hub, brings it back to life, and sometimes it doesn't make one iota of difference.
       
       That's why if you can make time to optimize all your hubs, you should see a difference overall, if not tomorrow, then sometime down the line.
       
       When I was on the trial version of Market Samurai, I looked at loads of my hubs through it, and then made changes to optimize them.
       
       Before Panda, and after I got Market Samurai, loads of my hubs were on the front page of Google, many in the #1 position for their main keywords.
       
       That was in part due to the strength of HP itself, and the rest I know was because I added the meta description tag by changing the first few lines of the hubs to comply.
       
       Of course I bought MS after the trial, it more than paid for itself in the free time I had it.
       
       I was with HP about 9 months before I got MS.
       
       You don't actually need it to tell you how to optimize hubs because I am happy to pass on what I learned.
       
       Those summaries make a difference! Remember to put your main keywords in the first sentence.

       replyreport
18. 80

    psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago

    I am sure summaries help but there must be more to it then that.  i always get 1-2 hots per hub per day with non of te summaries filled in and no active SEO strategy,.  IMHO a lot has to do with just having a decent amount of content on each hub that people might be interested in. To me 3 views per day for 50 hubs suggests something specific has gone wrong?

    replyreport
    1. 88

       IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I am sure there is more to it than that too, but I'm not an expert in SEO by any stretch of the imagination.
       
       Some people, and maybe yourself included, are just naturally good at writing for search engines.
       
       It seems to have a lot to do with how you word things throughout the hub. Whatever style is perfectly natural for you, and which the search engines love, may be different for some one else, me included.
       
       I don't think I'm a bad writer, but I have trouble too with attracting traffic.
       
       If you are getting an average of 1 or 2 hits per day per hub, then you are doing well
       
       Try adding your summaries and tell us if you traffic doubles.

       replyreport
       1. 78

          Ms Deeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Getting 1-2 hits/day per hub, if that is doing well, then I am encouraged!

          replyreport
19. 59

    Neil Sperlingposted 13 years ago

    thanks for all the info herein

    replyreport
20. 62

    Jason Oleinikposted 13 years ago

    I went to the forums to find out if anyone else had been experiencing this traffic drop, and I learned something completely new and important (summaries). Going to go and apply that to all my hubs, so thanks for that.
    
    I've also noticed a huge drop just today.

    replyreport
21. 81

    Azure11posted 13 years ago

    Yes, I've had a drop as well and sometimes if it wasn't for the new hubs I write the traffic would be quite rubbish. There is a huge amount of fluctuation in the stats. I have tried to do all the summaries in my hubs - I definitely do it in the new ones and have gone over some of the old ones but now I am not sure which ones I haven't done but I guess I just need to start at the oldest ones first and work from there.

    replyreport
22. 76

    Karandaposted 13 years ago

    Wow, I bit the bullet as IzzyM suggested and looked at some of my Hubs with no backlinks. Overnight, one Hub had 36 views from Reddit and Twitter. That is a significant difference to my 3 views for 51 Hubs the day before. Perhaps we all need to spend some time adding a few backlinks here and there if we want traffic to improve. Big thanks to IzzyM.

    replyreport
    1. 88

       IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Wow Karanda, what a difference!! So pleased for you

       replyreport
       1. 63

          CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          izzy just down loaded the trial of market samaurai- is it as good as it seems- i am blown away by the info

          replyreport
          1. 88

             IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             It is brilliant! You need to watch a good amount of the videos to understand how to use it.
             It is buggy, however, and doesn't always work the way it should, but there are new updates almost daily to keep it functioning. It is also slow to run and a complete system hog, but I wouldn't be without it.

             replyreport
    2. 78

       Ms Deeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       That's sure great to hear, Karanda! It is motivating for the rest of us .

       replyreport
23. 63

    CASE1WORKERposted 13 years ago

    that is a warts and all reccommendation, thanks!
    I guess when something does so much it will have bugs and glitches because of so much info going through it

    replyreport
24. 70

    DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years ago

    I downloaded the trial of Market Samurai last night, but I'll need a live-in Samurai to look at all the tutorials.  Think it will be great when I have time to use it!  On the flip side of the coin, I took one of my hubs that had been hot for awhile, then had died and had sunk toward the middle of all my hubs as far as hubscore, and wrote a summary.  This morning it was number four!  Coincidence?

    replyreport
25. 43

    Mikeydoesposted 13 years ago

    I just made a hub that amassed 40k views in a week! It was all from backlinking, which seems to be the case with everyone's traffic.

    replyreport
    1. 70

       DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Was it the Jacka** one?

       replyreport
       1. 43

          Mikeydoesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Only because you are asking, yeah.

          replyreport
          1. 70

             DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             I should have known!

             replyreport
26. 82

    CMHypnoposted 13 years ago

    Karanda, have you thought of setting up some free blogger blogs around your main niches and writing unique summaries of your hubs and adding a backlink to them? You can also add other material, and maybe earn more money than you do on HubPages?
    
    I have always written summaries for my hubs, and my traffic has still halved, but is still between 350-400 during the week.  In the heady days of last December it was around 1200 a day! Probably need to revisit some of those summaries and ensure that they are keyword rich.

    replyreport
27. 70

    DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years ago

    OK, so far I've written about ten to fifteen summaries and traffic is up significantly in Day One of the summary experiment.  So IzzyM, I think you're right.  Now if I could just get the whole backlinking thing down!

    replyreport
    1. 88

       IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       WOW! I am so pleased DIY!
       
       This is why I paid for Market Samurai. It taught me this simple procedure and is worth it's weight in gold. My traffic also rose significantly as did my earnings.
       
       I see a few folk have downloaded the trial version and I have missed out on any potential referral fees because HP won't allow me to place the referral link here. Its on my Simple SEO Techniques blog if anyone wants to give me credit for helping
       
       It's linked though my blogger optimization hub.
       
       Everything has to be so roundabout now!!

       replyreport
    2. 74

       wheelinalloverposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Hey I banned you in another forum. LOL
       As hub pages publishers we are business people. I write blogs on IBOtoolbox and have used the backlinks to other hubbers work here.
       They are well optimized and help with business optimization. I was ranked on page one top of list within two days of completing my profile. Hub pages is for most of us a business. They also have a place where you can put in your hub pages link for new referrals twice daily. I have been wondering for a while why more hubbers don't use this free service.
       
       Another option is salesspider. Another free service. They are a community of businesses who use the service (forums) to get ranked quickly by search engines. This has also taken me to page one on yahoo and I think bing(just checked and yes). Captioning your photos as long as they are at the top of the page helps also. I used to search my company and nickname daily on three different search engines. You might try searching your nickname also. Once it was consistently at the top I stopped. It helps that I actually get paid for searching though. LOL
       
       Ps anyone wishing to give me credit can use hubpages contact me to get the link. They don't pay for referrals but you get ad credit for referring to IBOtoolbox. For those authors who write to businesses manta might be worth a look. My corporation is   on their register but I didn't contact them.

       replyreport