I was one of those cheery people... but when you see your best hub go from 360 hits a day (170 pre subdomain) down to 80 it's hard... again not deindexing just position changes
I had pretty good page rank on virtually all of my articles, they were all unique articles written by me and I have not posted them anywhere else. In a word exactly what Google is looking for. PR disappeared overnight and although some are returning it is very slow, traffic is dropping and my personal score on Hubpages has also dropped. Sub domains don't seem to have worked for me, well not yet anyway.
When did you change over? All my PR disappeared as well, and it took over 3 weeks to get it back.
That's the weird thing... my page rank is fine... and it's there - not like I lost that
Explicit page rank is not updated as often as actual position
My traffic is holding steady and it's mainly Google traffic - but it's also too early to say whether I've escaped as the American day is still in the morning.
I switched to sub-domains on the day it got announced and I've been building backlinks to my hubs since that date (i.e. links to the new urls).
Has anyone else built links since switching?
Just checked my traffic sources where Wilderness suggested. I had only been checking my formerly high traffic hubs. I am down dismally across the board with only Yahoo showing an increase in the last 24 hours. It seems my hubs have disappeared in some cases.
Thanks Wilderness, I never noticed the traffic menu item before *blush*
Over the past 24 hours, my views have been:
40% google.com
30% hubpages
25% other googles
5% ask and yahoo
The HP views are mainly for a new hub I published.
Most of the other views are just for one hub, the rest are currently at 0-2 views per day, mainly 0!
Overall, I am getting twice as many views as pre-subdomain, and about two thirds of pre-panda views.
I have not been backlinking, because this has never brought in more than one or two views at a time, so I cannot justify spending hours on doing this.
In the last 7 days I have averaged 122 views from google.com (not including the other googles), in the last 24 hours I got 7. Bing and Yahoo have actually gone up a bit.
I would really like to know what I have done to merit this sudden dump of Google hate?
Basically all of my hubs have fallen in google rankings or disappeared competely, except for one, it has risen to #1 in Google.com and it is getting a bit more traffic.
My traffic has steadily increased before and since the first Panda slap on through the sub-domain change. I couldn't really see a difference in the change as my traffic normally rises this time of year. This is why this sudden drop seems so strange.
Just went through a bunch of hubs and I'm finding that the PR (as reported from SEO for firefox) is climbing. The majority are now 2 with a few 3's and almost no 0's or "na".
Considering that I'm one of the few showing increased traffic, have I been looked at before the rest? I know PR isn't supposed to matter now, but I'm scratching my head and looking for anything.
Most of my hubs are PR 2 or 3, and they are getting minimal or no traffic.
The hub getting traffic now, which has had consistently high traffic since I wrote it, was PR 2 pre-Panda and is now N/A.
So much for that idea. If your best hub is still getting traffic and has gone from PR2 to n/a it shouldn't be that!
the switch so far has been ok but what is not clear to me is if we have to submit the url to search engines again since the domain chg ???
Quantcast have delayed the traffic update by three hours so will have to wait a bit longer to see overall effect on HP.
It seems that this is not Google Panda 2.4
"... So why are people noticing Panda-like changes? Google told us that maybe those other sites may just be now seeing changes from the previous Panda update a couple weeks ago, but other than that, there’s no update or anything out of the ordinary happening here...”
Source : http://searchengineland.com/no-says-goo … =feed-main
I suppose the humor in it depends on how one's stats look at the moment, Richie.
Yes, Its definitely not funny from that perspective, I hope its just a minor glitch for those whos traffic has gone down.
I just thought it was a cheesy attempt to profit from Panda
I think that we need some input from an HP staff member here - I'm definitely not amused with my stats at the moment and want to know why Google suddenly hates me, and presumably so do all the other hubbers who are suffering from a huge drop - especially as none of us seem to be spammers, copiers or particularly poor writers.
We already got one in this thread, maybe you missed it?
http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/79215?p … ost1739072
That comment was a long time ago and hubbers are still experiencing huge, unexplained drops in traffic - when you drop over 75% of your traffic over an 18 hour period it is not a normal traffic dip (even worse than Feb Panda for me), so I want to know what is happening and why.
I am very glad that your traffic is holding Izzy , but I want an answer for what is happening to me and some others. My Google traffic has just dissolved!
??
That post was 17 hours ago after some of us saw a collapse in traffic stats. I am one of those hit. I have lost a huge amount of traffic and am now seeing stats lower than post-Panda.
Sorry Izzy, thought your traffic was holding up well - also 17 hours seems to be a long time ago on a day like today and some answers, if there are any, would be great!
Totally agree. For those of us affected, this is brutal! Panda didn't affect me nearly as much as this. My stats just get worse and worse by the hour. Many of my hubs that were in the number one Google spot are now WAY down in the rankings.
This hasn't been a slow decline, either. Suddenly I have NO traffic, when I was doing just fine on Tuesday.
I would really like some feedback from a staff member at this juncture. I agree that 17 hours feels like a lifetime right now. I can't wrap my mind around this.
Totally agree with you wordscribe43 - the traffic just falling over the cliff was brutal, the roller coaster ride is getting too harsh.
But it seems to have been one of those weeks of things suddenly going to c**p - never expected to be living through riots either!
Unfortunately, traffic is still on the floor this morning
It would be helpful if HP staff can give more of an analysis of -
1. What types of hubs have been affected most, e.g. is it just product based hubs, hubs in certain topics, etc.
2. How broad is this drop. Is it only affecting 1%, 10% or 50% of hubs?
3. Finally maybe give some best guesses (based on site-wide data) as to what is actually affecting this drop - is it subject matter, usage metrics, back-links, or something else?
I still have one hub, closely related to my other best trafficked hubs which have disappeared from view, which doesn't seem to be affected. Same type of hub, same or similar keywords, similar products, but completely different effects. Does not make sense at all to me. But I am merely a lowly reptile, so there it is.
That is interesting.
Does it also get most of its traffic from google.com?
What about its usage metrics, e.g. time spent on page, bounce rate, etc - is that also similar to the other pages?
I went back and checked the referenced hub. I was wrong. Although it is still getting fair traffic. there were no more visits from Google than received from Bing or Yahoo. Google visits are down roughly two thirds.
That sounds like sandboxing - but I'm no expert.
Yes I know, Richie. But at least now I can fully sympathize with those who experienced this sudden drop during the original Panda slap.
My stats have climbed a bit. Always cautious because each change for the last six months has offered hope and then despair in unequal measure - but for me, right now, google.com traffic is up a bit. 10% or so. Very small numbers because I don't write hubs that anyone looks for.
I don't see how any of us can make sense of it on our own. Therefore I wonder what tools HP has to analyse traffic stats for sub domainers - obviously they can do that - but can they distinguish between say commercial and non or less commercial hubbers?
They definitely should not be saying who won and who lost, but given they have the stats of 200,000 hubbers in theory - you would think there could, should and will be some analysing done.
edit: Note of caution. There have been a few occasions over the last few months when I have had a good day and thought it was 'recovery' - only to see my traffic disappear the next day.
Yeah, definitely not funny... in my situation I went from over 1500 visits per day (google.com) to now 174 - overall 3500 visits a day to 900 today... 25% of the traffic probably 10% of the money
*Disclaimer - This is a little skewed by the initial subdomain switch... previously I was getting 1500-2000 hits per day with around 400-500 (google.com)
My overnight stats get worse and worse. this suggests that most of my readers are fellow hubbers who live in North america and are asleep when I am.
I think my drop yesterday is well outside of normal fluctuations
So the hub staff response that it is purely individual difference and non-systematic fluctuation is unconvincing to me.
Mine looks like this too - why the sudden drop for only some of us??
BTW how did you do the screen shot?
This is very strange, has anybody heard any official statement from the Hub staff yet?
Not since Paul E. addressed it last night on this same thread. He didn't seem to realize the oddities we were experiencing, but I'll bet he's on it. If I ain't makin' money on my hubs, he ain't neither!
Quantcast figures are up and they aren't showing a drastic decline yesterday - do those of us getting the cold shoulder from Google are the freaks.
We are now SubHubFlubs. I'm in the 300's now. Melting... slowly melting....why Dorothy..why?
Mine has shrunk a little bit more too. Drink Randy, drink - its the only way to numb the pain.
I don't understand the question? Although I am a little drunk now.
How is it possible that some people are experiencing catastrophic traffic losses but that as a whole HP is doing OK?
Because it isn't the site that has tanked, just individual sub-domains. Still don't know why though.
In order to have no gross differences an equal subset would need to have got masses more traffic, to balance the subset who are getting less.
It's all a bit baffling.
There doesn't seem to be that many of us getting lots less though. So everyone else can be getting a little more, and a few of us have been flame grilled?
Maybe something to do with Amazon product review type articles?
The Amazon product reviews hubs might be the problem.. I know I have a lot of them...
** Sigh** maybe a drink would not be a bad idea......
My traffic has almost doubled. Sources:
Google US - 62%
Yahoo - 10%
Bing - 8%
Hubpages - less than 3%
Other Googles and referral sites make up most of the rest. My Adsense has greatly improved, but Amazon has only slightly improved. Today is the best day I've had with Adsense in quite a while, and it's still early!
Ok, we're well into the day and my rankings have slipped compared to earlier in the day. When I checked search rankings four hours earlier, I was still at #1 for my keywords, now I've slipped to #6.
For me this is just happening - so they are clearly rolling something out that is affecting us in waves - others were hit yesterday.
There was a thread a while back on webmasterworld where some members expressed doubt as to whether the sub-domain thing would work:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4339166-2-30.htm
Might be worth hubpages reading it and perhaps tweaking a few thigs on the main site.
I think that AlyssaS at webmasterworld made some good arguments and is probably right, the sub domains are strongly linked to the primary one.
There is a chilling post on that forum:
"My understanding is that a bad subdomain doesn't usually affect a good primary domain, but a bad primary domain can infect all the subdomains.
So with blogger (and wordpress.com, typepad.com and others), the primary domain is clean and pristine....
Think of the nightmare for G if a single bad subdomain tanked the entire wordpress.com site. So they must have something built into the algo determining the relationship between subdomains and domains - and they probably use interlinking to determine the relationship...
With hubpages...the primary domain has gone bad...and the subdomains are heavily linked back to the primary domain and vice versa.
I think they'll rank well initially, but when the algo catches up with them, it will conclude that they are not discrete elements but part of a single site, because of the heavy interlinking.
Prophetic?
I think it's too soon to really say what effect whatever happened might have. I mean, in the long term, this time is a drop in the bucket. For all we know this could have been an "unintended consequence" as a result of a good change. I don't know. Positive theories make people feel better.
Ms Chievous - I don't have many Amazon hubs at all. I also have some very long 1400 word non-commercial hubs, which make me no money and were written for the hell of it.
So they arn't analysing the sub-domains based on whether they are too commercial or not.
I suggest hubpages look instead at the suggestions in that webmasterworld thread - the problem may be on the main site.
I may have missed it, but as someone mentioned previously this volatility has occurred when ALL hubs were transferred to Subdomains (10 August). This seems to be a factor rather than a coincidence.
That sounds interesting and could well be the reason for this move.
Since if everyones accounts are going to be on a subdomain then it means that there is no link juice coming from the main site anymore.
That may be a factor, but I still see hubs and hubbers that have not made the switch, hubber 24news for an example.
The volatility, variability and 'wild dance' suggests that the subdomain shift for the remainder of the hubs and associated change in the linking structure across the home domain may be the cause of this.
Hopefully things will settle down shortly - otherwise its the 6" sub.
Ah Well, time to down periscope and dive, dive, dive in my Yellow Subdomain.
- We all live in our Yellow Subdomains! Sing along!
Back to the writing! Next time I surface the seas will be green and calm, and the skies blue with no images of Panda in the dark clouds.
Blub Blub Blub.
My earnings aren't moving very fast today after a highest since Pre-Panda day yesterday, but my traffic is still up very high..this is quite bizarre.
Richie - my traffic looks unchanged - but when I look at the search rankings, there is a marked changed compared to four hours ago, which means that this is being rolled out as we speak and we should see a drop in traffic over the next 12 hours...
You both, Richieb799 and Silver Rose have comments disabled on most of your hubs, maybe that has something to do with it. You know, less links to other sub domains or something .
I disabled comments because some of them read badly - I was getting spammed like crazy and hubpages always posts the comments onto the hubs automatically, and it's not till you log in that you can get rid of them (other sites hold comments in moderation which is a better system).
I didn't have time to log in everyday and I read somewhere that the G had programmed it's bot to look for "spam-like" phrases which are usually posted by the black hatters on other people's sites to get links. They were devaluing the host that was getting spammed (penalising you for not moderating constantly).
I do have lots of comments, or really questions to answer, on some of my hubs. I keep them clear of any spammy links period, so I doubt that is it.
You can change the settings in your comments capsule to say comments have to be approved before they appear, or even not have a comments capsule at all.
I can't seen any difference in my rankings, My top hub is still ranked 2nd on Google for its keyword and 2nd on Ask.com for its keyword and the traffic to that hub is higher than ever. I'm sorry I cannot see how it can by a site wide problem.
Are you looking at Google UK or Google.com? My UK rankings are fine, and my hubs targetting the UK are fine. But there is a definite shift in rankings on Google.com
LoL, I work on oDesk as a certified SEO developer, I am trained to only refer to Google.com, I have websites ranking on Google.com page 1 for high keywords.
Lots of us have "websites ranking on Google.com high keywords" - what's that got to do with hubpages?
Are you saying that you are noticing no movement in your hub rankings at all, no shift from #1 to #2 or #3 for example? Nothing at all?
Well if you also have websites ranking on page one of Google why even bother looking at Google UK, anything other than .com is useless unless you are trying to rank a .co.uk website for example. Hubpages is a .com site so we are obviously going to check .com
.co.uk website fair better in the UK search, I am working on one for a client now. Which is fine if you have customers in the UK but all the traffic comes from .com
No I haven't really seen a shift for my top 3 hubs, they are still on page 1, and the top hub I mentioned is still ranking 2nd on Google and Ask
That is great for you. Some of use climbed up the Google rankings only to get knocked off again.
I have websites targeting American traffic and separate websites targeting British traffic. Likewise some of my hubs are built for a British audience only, some for an American audience only. So I keep an eye on both SERPS.
As for "my hubs are still on page 1" - as I'm sure you are aware, there's a vast difference between being ranked #1 and #6. You can still be on page 1 and lose traffic...
Yes but I said my best hub is still 2nd on Google and Ask.
The other 2 good hubs I havent seen a drop in traffic and they are around 3,4-5 position which they were before.
What I find so odd is that a handful of my hubs have been affected - as in, from steady good Google traffic every day for years to practically no Google traffic overnight - but the rest haven't, as far as I can tell.
So it's not just on the subdomain level. But on the other hand, it's hitting some subdomains/hubbers across the board on all their hubs.
Can't wrap my head around it. So sorry for what's happening to you guys. Expecting to follow you soon...
(Does this reek of a Greek tragedy, or what?)
It might be time for the wordpress.com approach...
Let those who have domain names, use them, and those who don't get subdomains.
I suppose we are screwed. No atta boys or we're working on it? No glitches, no it'll clear up soon? No nothing? No sh*t!
For those of you that are interested, 30% of Hubs are on subdomains. The process will finish next week. Fluctuations in search results are standard. Randy, I'm not quite sure why your traffic has dropped. I'm curious if you are promoting your Hubs off of Hubpages or other tools you may be using that may impact your Hubs. Your content looks good to me, so we are trying to rule out reasons for the drop. Feel free to email me if you would like to share the information privately.
Not sure if it helps, but my traffic is down more than 75% as well in one day. I hope we are able to figure out what is happening.
Thanks Paul. No, I do no backlinking at all except for the FB Twitter share buttons when first publishing the hubs. I do have some links on a Blogger page and perhaps a couple on Shetoldme, but they have been there for a long time. That's it.
I looked at your pages using the Yahoo backlinks tool, Randy. I hope you don't mind. I am trying to work out why my second account crashed.
There seem to be ten sites linking to every one of your pages- all are RV or auto related.
I don't know how but you are showing a total of 48,040 inlinks to your 113 pages here:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/se … amp;fr=sfp
I'm not saying this is bad. I'm guessing the bulk of these come from Hubpages. My own pages seem to be getting 17,000 inlinks.
My second account (that lost 80% of its traffic yesterday) is only showing 76 inlinks, so inlinks might not be the issue for the sudden crash anyway. Then again, who knows?
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/se … amp;bwmf=s
it shows 10 links
the other 40k are hubpages subdomains and forum posts
you have 20
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/se … amp;bwmf=s
but that includes duplicates... of course no backlink tool is even close to comprehensive, they only show a small sample, You likely have 2n more links then RG though
Okay, I'm confused now. Before Panda, the stats on each hub would show a number of *'s for links. Many of my hubs had 5 of these before panda, but after Panda they reverted back to 1.
Did I lose those? My traffic continued to rise after each successive Panda update with only a major blip once in a while. Suddenly, splat. What a damn mess!
the * were not equal to a # of links
The hub based tool is not showing the 301's is all
Thanks SF, so what did the *s under the links stat indicate when they were in effect?
You know my attitude to SEO. I hate it. I know I need to pay attention to it because anything that looks like blackhat SEO to Google is bad news for a site. But to me it is the most tedious subject on the planet.
Generally, if one of my site fails I just walk away and do another one.
At the same time, if someone actually likes that kind of thing, I don't mind them turning up and offering helpful info.
So thanks for that clarification.
I should point out that if you hit the 'site explorer' button you get all the hubpages links. Which are probably worth more than the links in from other sites.
I have experienced this exact scenario twice. I went down to my all time low views about a week ago, but like today.2 days ago I was happy and back on cloud nine, with even more views than before. Now I'm back down again. I haven't heard many other people talking about having this happen to them 2 times, but I have had a subdomain with my name since day 1.
That's the type of thing I'm seeing - extreme swings day to day. Swings of 50% or more.
Right now, traffic is good - nearly as high as I've seen since Panda - but last week was at post-panda levels after climbing to an all time high.
As you say, I've had the subdomain since it was announced we could do it.
I had posted in another thread about this yesterday. But I've experienced the same precipitous drop in traffic. Since switching to the subdomains, I saw my traffic nearly double over the few weeks since. Suddenly, yesterday it dropped at least 70-75% and appears to be sliding toward ZERO.
Many of my hubs are commercial, but I have a few dozen that definitely are not. While I haven't assessed them individually, it appears at a glance that they are all pretty much meeting the same fate.
Paul, thanks for addressing this again.
I'm not sure how many posts in the forum threads on this topic you've read, but this was a sudden change affecting a number of quality, long-time hubbers at the same time (dozens? haven't counted, but there are a lot).
It's not a Panda update or any algo update, according to Barry Schwartz who talked to Google - see http://searchengineland.com/no-says-goo … date-89125 .
A few others who posted on these threads stated they haven't noticed that they were affected. I mostly wasn't (yet), but I did notice that on the same day a few hubs that had been getting steady traffic lost most of their Google traffic. Also Silver Rose noticed a drop in rankings for some of her top keywords today, though her traffic hasn't yet fallen.
I think people want to know: We're noticing a distinct pattern on our end. Have you noticed it on your end? Is it cause for alarm?
Not sure if it is relevant, but I had begun deleting 'suggested links' on Hubs (when I edited them) as I felt Hub Karma was not really a benefit to me and took traffic away from my hubs (and therefore potential clicks). Google Traffic still good right now, so it might be a possible reason.
thank you misty, I will do that right now, thanks for stopping by today.
I can't say I am right 'Yoga Guide', this is just a suggestion and might be worth considering, (deleting Suggested Links and not worrying about HubKarma). Hopefully a lucky guess
I remember a few weeks ago a forum discussion about how PostRank was becoming more important than PageRank. I would be curious to know how many of you - either who have lost traffic today or who have not - have been very active in Google-Plus. I don't mean just having an account there, but actively sharing, discussing, +1-ing, etc. I think that those things will have an effect on PostRank, and so I'm curious to know whether there's any real correlation showing up yet.
For those who haven't read up on it, the PostRank formula downgrades a poster's "+1" value, if they do a lot of plussing of low-quality articles, sites, and posts; but if they receive +1's from respected posters and if they +1 on highly-esteemed sites, articles, and posts, then the value of their +1 is boosted.
I have paraphrased the concept, and I'm sure some detail is not explained well, but I think it may give a general idea of PostRank.
I haven't even looked at google-plus, let alone be active.
This may be relevant here:
The Next Google Ranking Signal: Your Google Profile?
http://www.webpronews.com/google-ranking-signal-2011-08
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Long story short: if you're looking to help your search engine rankings, you might need a Google Profile (the backbone of Google+).
Who you are as an individual is becoming more important in search ranking. Is this the right way to go for search? Share your thoughts.
As previously reported, Google has a new series of tutorial videos, and in a new one, Google's Matt Cutts and Othar Hansson discuss "authorship markup".
Google announced this back in June saying it is "experimenting " with using the data to help people find content from authors in search results.
In the new video, Cutts asks, "Will people get higher rankings? Is there a rankings boost for rel='author'?"
Hansson then replies, "It's obviously early days, so we hope to use this information and any information as a ranking signal at Google. In this case, we want to get information on credibility of authors from all kinds of sources, and eventually use it in ranking. We're only experimenting with that now. Who knows where it will go?"
---------------------------------------------------
Thanks for adding more detail and the link. My reason for mentioning it is that on the days I have been most active with Google-Plus, I have seen a spike in my HubPages numbers. [EDIT: Actually, I believe it is on the following day.] I know that may be totally coincidental, but that's the reason for my curiosity about others' experiences above. I am wondering whether the "experimenting" that Hansson mentioned is finding its way into the newest version of the Google algorithm. Could they be experimenting to that extent? I would hope not, but I'm brainstorming for any sort of idea that could be relevant.
Nope, barely fooled with G+. Haven't posted anything there, AF. No giving +'s, no nothing. A member, that's all.
You would be a perfect subject for an in-house experiment, then.
Try, over the next 2-3 days, to find high-quality articles on the web and either simply +1 them (while signed-in to your Google account) or share them on Google-Plus. I haven't done very many plusses altogether, but then my traffic here is low, compared to other Hubbers. The things I have plussed have included an article from The New York Times and things of that nature. I also left comments on a couple of articles, including a link to my profile here.
I would be really curious to see whether anything would change for you (for the better) after today's traffic disaster.
Traffic to my main blog has experienced a huge increase the last two days while my hubs have been in free fall. So, whatever happened that tanked my hubs, for some reason had the opposite affect on my blog. But, something definitely happened. This cannot just be a coincidence.
Mine fell off a cliff yesterday. Not a very steep cliff because I have VERY low traffic anyway. A cliff for me nonetheless. I have no idea why, I can't think of anything I've done differently other than create a couple of new hubs, but I'm not sure that would hurt my rankings. Who knows?
I just googled to try and see where my hubs were coming up, and whilst they are still there they are pages back from where they were. I'm sick of looking at blue triangles! What happened?
I have some theories for shooting down in flames as you see fit.
1. Panda 2.4 just ran. This is probably not the case.
2. Subdomains, some of them, got Sandboxed. That's if the Sandbox exists.
3. Google, who were aware of the mass subdomain switch over decided to run a mini Panda just for HubPages.
4. Something else.
I have written about this extensively on my blog. When I say 'extensively' I mean the same words but with a picture.
just woke up to see my stats were lower than yesterday...so I am going back to bed! Maybe in a couple of hours it will all just be a bad dream..
It would appear from my hubs, that those with a reasonable/good volume of backlinks have not been overly affected, but whereas I used to have hubs rank with little to no backlinks, these have now dropped off the radar. I think this was certainly the case with Panda for me - my main (backlinked) hubs were unaffected - whereas others tanked.
My guess is that the Google bots did an initial sweep following the introduction of the subdomains and rated hubs/hubbers quite highly, however the second more detailed sweep which hit over the past few days spotted my lack of promotion. The Panda algorithm just took a few months between its first jab, and finishing me off with an unexpected uppercut. Im just hoping that it wont bother with the bodyslam that will kill the 5 hubs which are still getting some traffic.
Then again, I could be totally wrong, so don't blame me if you spend all today backlining and it makes chuff all difference.
I have never heard of this Google Plus thing people are mentioning, nor of Google profiles.
From what is being said here, it sounds like yet another attempt to force people into endless, time-wasting and meaningless "networking" with people you don't know and couldn't care less about
I have the Google profile, but I don't plan to use the Google Plus thing (other than the profile). I have a "nice, clean" Facebook page on which I don't do anything; so this one will be another one I don't use. I don't plan to get all into the whole socializing thing. If Google sees me as a big recluse who does nothing but write in one place or another, that's fine. Maybe I'm wrong about the "social thing" being the next big way to get traffic; but I have visions of Google (or someone else) doing a Panda-Little-Brother thing to wipe out too many efforts at getting social links. Maybe not this year, but I can't help but think that's next. I don't know how to be a "friend" on the Internet.
I only know how to be a friend in "real life".
Even if you wanted to get into the Google Plus thing, they are currently not accepting any new sign ups - all you can do is leave them your email and wait in the queue!
I have just filled in my Google profile with as few details as possible, but I can see this being pushed as well until you have to give them your full life story.
It feels like we are being herded into a position where if we don't put all of our eggs into Google's basket, then it basically becomes very difficult to operate on Google or get traffic from Google
It looks like HP have got this Google plus sussed. I think the new profile pages incorporated with the magazine design, will take into account the new changes for google plus profiles.
I think Google plus profiles are being set up to combat copy fraud. If you are linking from google plus profile to your content and from your content back to google plus profile, then you will rank better because your content will be seen as from a genuine source that is original.
Google are proposing that sites, like HP for example, will have their content linked to the site profile (or as an example, HP Profile page) and that profile then linked to google plus profile. You then link back to HP profile, thereby closing the cycle.
As I said, this is all about having our content kept safe and letting Google know that your content is yours and not for some scraper to come along and steel it claiming it to be theirs.
The following link from janderson99 (thank you) was useful to me.. from this thread and might be useful to you: http://www.webpronews.com/google-ranking-signal-2011-08
Taken from this thread: http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/79215?p … ost1740814
Thanks for the information shazwellyn. I can see what they are trying to do, but just how much information about you that is now aggregated on the internet is, to my mind, a little overwhelming.
I have just got a new windows phone, and suddenly all my phone numbers are on my Facebook account, and I have had to manually remove them, and even on HP I see my Facebook profile picture popping up, even though I haven't logged in and linked them.
For someone like me, who likes to work fairly anonymously, and let the writing do the talking, it's all becoming just that bit too intrusive!
I like "fairly anonymously" too, but I'm getting to the end of my online writing endeavors; so I figured I'd just "do whatever" and see how it works. Worst case, I take down the stupid picture (which now shows up in searches ), close up all accounts except, maybe, this one; and I'll pretty much disappear (at least "on the surface" and on the Internet).
You are an author. Getting your work out there is not an anonymous thing, unfortunately.
The internet used to hide people behind a screen. Google are making this cyberspace more like the real world. We are watched on CCTV and we are being watched on the Internet.
The people in power want to control. The internet has made it possible for people to communicate around the world ... err... giving ideas to the likes of people like Egyptians... Turks etc etc. I believe Google are being forced to control the people... to avoid the bigger picture of uprising, amongst many other issues, too long to list in a comment section of a forum post.
There are many routes to international gagging, this is just one of them.
Our rights to any form of privacy and anonymity seem to be being subtly eroded all the time. The kids are used to it and seem to relish posting every little detail, but being of an older generation, the idea of having to fling my private life out onto the internet just to get read feels a bit distasteful, even though I acknowledge that to a certain extent you just have to go with it, if you want to get anywhere.
Jane Austen, do you know how easy you had it LOL!
I dislike the loss of privacy and anonymity when I want them. On the other hand, I read a very excellent article (elsewhere) to the effect that anonymity contributes to the trolling, flaming, and general bad behavior on the Net and in real life. The author of the article mentioned the fact that newspapers don't allow anonymous Letters to the Editor, and that (in the writer's opinion) helps to maintain a higher level of civility.
Just as much as being concerned about losing the right to privacy, I am concerned that we Americans often shriek hysterically about our "right to know"; and often, it is not a right at all. (But I grant that it is, in some cases; and sometimes it instrumental in uncovering wrongdoing.)
What puzzles me slightly is how do 'they' know whether Mark Ewbie is real or not? He has an email, a LinkedIn, a Facebook, and so on. Do I have to get him a passport and a driving licence to prove to Google he is real?
In spite of my (sort of) going "all out" with the authorship thing (to the point where I have to do some trimming), I don't plan to get more involved with Google that at. You're right. It's the eggs/basket thing. I put tons of stuff in my profile, but there are no personal details - only writing-subject-related stuff for the most part (and only online-writing-related stuff, nothing I do offline or any company names or that type of thing).
This is a pen name I use (a well established, long-time one - but a pen name). On the other hand, I was happy to do all my reciprocal linking to the profile, mostly because I figure (if not so much now, then at least eventually) it might make stuff less appealing to steal (at least to anyone who also has an ad sense account). I don't know on top of things Google is right now, but if we put our "stamp" (our reciprocal links) on each thing we have, a lot of writing thieves might be a little too concerned that Google will detect their operation. (Maybe I'm wrong.) I don't know... I don't particularly like it (sharing anything, really), but 1) at this point, none of us has much privacy, and 2) I'm behind Google in its efforts to do some cleaning up of some stuff that goes on. I've lost some good-sized earnings to content thieves. (What I didn't like was when I got the Google Plus thing (not just the profile, which I first had), up came all my contacts from my Google e.mail. None of the contacts (that I don't think I even saved) from that account are exactly my pals.
Google has both of my names. The public doesn't.
I'm not quite sure about that. It may have to do with how one goes about signing up. Those who are currently on GP can issue invitations to others. Initially I don't recall seeing a set number as a limit to the invitations, but now (several people have remarked) there is a limit (!) of 150 signups per GP member. Is that what you have already tried and some of your invitees have been made to stand in line?
Again, I'm not really sure I agree, although I may have overlooked some things. So far, I have had the impression that it's possible to include as little or as much as you wish. One thing that I really like there is that messages or posts can go out to various groups that the poster delineates. In other words, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition. And, a person can be in more than one circle. For instance, I could have a circle for Politically Liberal Hubbers and one for Politically Conservative Hubbers; all of them could also be in another circle for All Writers or for Special Friends. (This is not the way I have them divided up, by the way, but it has occurred to me that it could have some merit. )
That is a concept that I definitely do not like, and I see exactly what you are saying about it. (I think I see, anyway.) But from what I have read about PostRank, I really like the idea of measuring a poster's "authority" in some manner, and I believe that the Google-Plus site and the +1 button both contribute to evaluating it.
I signed up for G+ ages ago, but when I was rooting around earlier to see how easy it would be to sign up from scratch today, it took me into a screen where it stated that Google were currently not letting any new people sign up and to leave your email to be informed when you would be allowed to sign up.
It just seems to me that we are now adding more and more of our details online. If you take Facebook, for example, I always have the highest levels of security on my account, only accept friend requests from people I know or know about and add the minimum of personal details, but I'm also aware that when it comes to promoting my hubs etc that this is restrictive, as the more friends you have and the more open your account is, the more exposure your work gets.
The balance between privacy/protecting your id and being able to promote your work feels like it is getting harder and harder to maintain
With Facebook, there's a way around this. Rather that promote your own hubs on your own wall, set up a Facebook fanpage for your hubpages persona.
You can do this from your personal account, and the fan page will not show any personal details, and will also be public.
Traffic down by 75% over the last 40 hours Maybe HP are transfering our hubs to their new servers?
I received the following message from Hubpages about 8 hours ago:
We want to let you know that you have been assigned a subdomain on HubPages. Since you did not choose your subdomain by August 10—the deadline we mentioned in our previous email we sent to you on this subject—we have chosen one for you. Your new home on HubPages is:
http://ericgraudins.hubpages.com/
My one remaining hub has had 18 views in the last month, and one view in the last 7 days.
I look forward to closely monitoring my stats for the new sub domain, and to bringing you regular updates on the great improvements that I am expecting as a result of this wonderful gift from HubPages.
NOTE: I have not seen an increase in traffic since the change to a subdomain. I still have zero views for my hub, and am getting worried.
Apologies if I give you false hope but I followed the link to your pages and got a Google error - the "om" bit isn't right at the end of the link.
Undetterred I managed to look up your profile and from there visit your Hub.
So I may have doubled your traffic inadvertently.
lol... must visit too - then we can add another page view!
Thanks Mark.
The URL was correct when it was put in. The corrupted link is due to some HP magik.
Can't have a working link to a profile in a forum post now, can we!
Hallelujah! The switch to subdomains has had an ENORMOUS effect already.
In under 24 hours, I have had 3 visits to my hub.
At this rate, I'll have 21 visits in 7 days, an increase of 2100% since subdomains were implemented.
And if you're tempted to scoff at this conclusion - It's just as sound as most of those that have been drawn elsewhere in this thread.
Here is a thought, I just visited my account and just about every one of my hubs is displaying a broken link alarm. When I go in and check they are all hubs linking to other hubs. I put the user name in front as per the sub-domain changes and all is fine again. I have had similar problems with the article directories I use that link back to my hubs. Makes me ponder the question, is the re-direct working properly and if not is that why my page ranks have all tumbled? Wonder if anyone knows in Hub world.
That's a good question. If some of the 301 redirects aren't working or are not set up, that could have a drastic effect on our sub-domains.
@BrianS - I took a look at a few accounts (yours included) and didn't see broken redirects to hubs that were still published.
If people see them, report them and we will take a look.
I posted before that my traffic dropped drastically right after my switch to the subdomain. It has been maybe a couple of weeks or so since then and my traffic has already gone back up... my earnings as well.
According to Alexa, there has been a quite large decrease in traffic. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/hubpages.com
Not sure I'm with you? The graph on the first tab is the so-called daily reach, which gives HP's traffic as a percentage of overall Internet traffic - not an absolute value. What I'm saying is that if the graph shows a decrease in daily reach, it doesn't necessarily mean a decrease in overall traffic.
Unless I'm missing something blindingly obvious, which is always possible.
I meant to say traffic rank , HP traffic rank decreased by 80 according to alexa, although that does not necessarily mean that overall traffic fell, but it sure points that way.
Decreased since what date? I haven't been checking with Alexa for as long as I have been checking with Quantcast (and both of them only since I pulled my subdomain switch). When I first checked with Alexa, the HP traffic rank was 345; yesterday or two days ago it was 344; today it is 343. Or are you checking the US traffic rank? Also, Quantcast (worldwide) traffic rank for HP started at around 133 when the subdomain switch started. Now it is 110. It seems to rise by one position every 3-4 days.
Actually HP traffic rank was rising, it reached 240 on 6th of August. Traffic rank fell 80 points compared to the day before 10th august.
I appreciate the clarification. Evidently I only started checking with Alexa after that fall - but I certainly thought I had checked earlier than August 10! I must have gotten dates wrong or something.
Also, you do know that the US traffic rank is 241 (today). You aren't possibly getting the two different ranks intertwined, are you?
What was the US rank at that same time?
Why would Alexa and Quantcast be so radically different? I know that they are not the same. But for Quantcast to show a steady, continuing increase at the same time that you say Alexa dropped so precipitously just seems unreal. I would like to know more.
I also noticed this comment about Hubpages on that site:
"Average Load Time for Hubpages.com
Slow (1.933 Seconds), 66% of sites are faster.
Note: Slow sites may be penalized by search engines."
If all these cosmetic changes that are constantly being introduced are making Hubpages slower, perhaps it is being penalised for that by Google?
The horrid flashing and moving adverts favoured by HP Ads could also be slowing down the site. Possibly people whose hub content concerns subjects which are less likely to attract such dreck advertising are the ones who are not seeing a drop?
by Jean Harris 7 years ago
Google indexed my new hubs quickly but, according to the hubpages traffic source report, have not sent a single visitor to any of my hubs yet. Even Yandex has, but not Google.Just curious, is there a known issue for Google traffic not appearing on hubpage reports or are they really ignoring my hubs...
by Baileybear 13 years ago
My HP ads have earnt less than a dollar so far this month. Previously, was earning around $12 per month. Traffic dropped, but not nearly as much as earnings.
by Anish Patel 12 years ago
Why is it happening? All my hard work down the drain.
by aa lite 12 years ago
This might be a complete co-incidence, but I switched to the new profile a couple of days ago, and today Google is pretending it doesn't know me. Hubs that ranked on the first page for main keyword are not found in the first 10 pages. Even more worrying, I can't find them in Google even...
by Nathan Bernardo 4 years ago
I have had articles that started getting traffic from Google within a couple days. Most of them I think take a little longer but it surprises me when Google traffic comes in within a couple days. Curious if anyone knows why that is. Is the article actually on results pages for keyphrases/words or...
by Louise Fiolek 17 months ago
Hi everyone,Since Google's updates these past couple of months, I've noticed a significant traffic drop (about 20%). Every time I gain some traction and hope, it's a case of going back two steps again. I'm sure I'm not alone! I thought it might be a good idea to start a healthy discussion here to...
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