Hub Views Dropping Like A Rock!

1. 56

   toygurusposted 13 years ago

   I have more than one account on hubpages in different niches. For two of the accounts, when one sinks the other one rises.  I'm not sure what is going on. After couple weeks they switch. One account receives traffic and the other one doesn't. It's really all or nothing for some accounts on hubpages. It has nothing do with quality or anything the author is doing. I also have an account that has been completely steady since the subdomain change.
   
   

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2. 64

   wampyriiposted 13 years ago

   I hate having multiple accounts on the same site but I'm starting to feel it might be necessary here right now. A moving target is harder to hit.
   
   I've been poking around my stats in webmaster tools and I can kind of see why G. is getting its knickers in a twist over my subdomain. I have over 28,000 incoming links from hubpages and other hubs with my next biggest referer giving...7. That's quite overbalanced. That 28,000 figure used to be 22,000 but I guess they found another 6,000 hubs pointing my way in recent times which probably caused the algorithm to throw my subdomain back into some kind of evaluation period.
   
   Just speculation of course, but since google is so touchy about anything it sees as spam (which is just about everything these days) I could easily see that kind of link activity causing issues especially if it is seeing these new subdomains as essentially being fresh sites.

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      wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      That's what I see in webmaster too, and why I think google is having a problem with our subdomains.  Add in that those links come and go as HP changes the "related hubs" section (where most of my links are coming from) and it is compounded.  Then add that google now considers those links to be external instead of internal and that algorithm just squirms around trying to make sense of it all.
      
      Eventually it may settle down, but there will always be new hubs being created in large numbers and thus new links from them coming into play.  I wonder if there is another site on the web with a quarter million subdomains?  What are they seeing?

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      1. 82

         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I just went and spent some time poking around in the webmasters tools, and I am concerned about the crawl errors. It seem the Google bot is hardly crawling my site anymore, but they still managed to find 11 'file not found' hubs - the url was broken in every one of them - and 29 'restricted by robots.txt'. most of which seem to be rss feeds but not ones I set up.
         
         This is out of my control. Is anyone finding those kind of errors who have not plunged? Is there a link?

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            toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Perhaps the google bot will not crawl pages unless you update the page. You can try pinging the page at autopinger if you update it.

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         2. 89

            wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I found 7 and 44 of those errors respectively.  It has jumped a great deal in the last few days; there used to be just a couple.
            
            I can't tell what they are, though.  I've found a few in text links that changed somehow in the hubs to nonsense - could that be it?

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            1. 82

               IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Mine were listed - they were broken links like -  http://izzym.hubages.com/hub/buy-choc..
               Others had a /right in the middle of the hub title instead of a -
               
               I also found an interesting one - mysubdomain.real-x-ray-glasses.
               
               I've never written a hub called Real X-ray-glasses!!
               
               But I did find that link in a hub of mine a week or so ago. That was a hub that had a broken link I could not find. It turned out to be under a full stop. That was the link but it read the old hubpages url so I assumed it was someone else's hub that they had unpublished, but now the Google bots found it too. It doesn't exist!! It NEVER existed. There are gremlins in the works!

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               1. 89

                  wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  You're right about that - HP reported 3 broken links a week or so ago.  All of them had suddenly grown an alien phrase in the middle of the link.  An extra "hubpages.com" or something similar.  Took out the extra characters and everything is fine.
                  
                  It makes me wonder if we should go through all the links and replace them with the correct, subdomain, address.  With an average of 6 or 7 in-text links plus an RSS capsule in each hub I don't really want to think about it.

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               2. 64

                  wampyriiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  I was about to make the same comment about the broken links with the truncated urls and ... at the end.
                  
                  I'm seeing several like this:
                  
                  http://mysubdomainnamehere.hubpages.com … -my-url...
                  
                  The only place I have seen links which look like this on Hubpages is under the a heading of "that Page Doesn't Exist" where they link to supposedly similar hubs. But those links are not even clickable! Google is following them anyway???

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         3. 64

            wampyriiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Izzy, my crawl rate has also slowed to a erm,...'crawl' also. My average was around 50 - 60 per day now its saying my lowest day is 2 and by the look of the graph, that was on the most recent crawl dates. My pages crawled graph takes a big nose dive around the time my subdomain did. I'm not sure whether that's related of just an indication of some other kind of penalty, after all, if G. thinks the subdomain is garbage, then the chances are it's not going to make visiting it often a big priority.

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            1. 82

               IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               My average is 351 but it down to 21 from a high of 640. So what changed?

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               1. 89

                  wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  This is interesting.  Until about a week ago I was being crawled at around 260 pages per day (with 108 hubs), but then it just dropped straight down to 20.
                  
                  Does that mean big G is satisfied they've figured me out or does it mean I will now plunge?
                  
                  I've gotten a couple of comments since that decrease but no other changes - did they get tired of looking for something new?
                  
                  I guess time will tell.

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                  1. 82

                     IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     Here's hoping you are not about to plunge. I've actually never really looked at those tools before so not sure of its usual pattern at all.

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                     1. 89

                        wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        I haven't looked either; a few minutes ago was the first time.  I still haven't searched out all the goodies of webmaster; I just signed up a couple of weeks ago.
                        
                        And here's hoping that it doesn't mean G is satisfied now and won't change anything on your end, Izzy.
                        
                        I suspect it just means G has spent its time playing havoc with other writers (probably on HP), but who knows?  Like you, I would love to see a long term graph of someone that's been using this tool for years.

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   2. 56

      toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Me too, but I never like to put all my eggs in one basket so when hubpages announced subdomains I thought it would be a good idea to spin of some niches for branding purposes. I really think the reason for the turbulence is because google sees the subdomains as new sites. It usually takes 3 months for everything to settle. However new sites are not supposed to get so many links in a short period of time so I don't know what is going to happen on some account. I know that the account that is steady was switched almost as soon as hubpages announced the switch over. I think the accounts that were switched over when few people had subdomains are doing fine(no surges or sinking). At least mine is.  I pretty sure the initial group of people who switched over have no idea what we are experiencing.

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3. 85

   Len Cannonposted 13 years ago

   Those happen all the time, Izzy. Especially for someone with the number of Hubs that you have. Unless you see one that hasn't been checked in months I think it should be fine.

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   1. 82

      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Len
      
      I'm glad all is OK, but I'm still not seeing anything to explain why my subdomain is slapped - even when I went and looked at the google help files.
      
      But they did say crawl errors could be a problem and they should be fixed as soon as.

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      1. 56

         toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Hey Izzy since you have a webmaster account have you tried posting in the google webmaster forum? Sometimes they can explain the crawl errors. Sometimes you get really stuck up posts as well. If you decide to post, let them know the crawl errors and that your hubpages traffic keeps fluctuating ever since the subdomain shift.

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4. 56

   toygurusposted 13 years ago

   I don't know if this explains what we are experiencing but I found a thread on the webmasters forum where another site restructured their website using 301 redirects. The issue is doing a whole bunch of them at the same time. They say you are in for a "bouncy ride".
   View the thread here:
   http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/W … &hl=en

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   1. 82

      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      That was interesting thanks, but I am not planning on posting on the webmasters forum, as I will just feel stupid there. They all use words I don't understand so they would rip me to shreds!

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   2. 96

      PaulGoodman67posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for posting, toygurus.  Very interesting and useful. 
      
      Are you two still suffering?

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      1. 56

         toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Paul for inquiring. One of my other accounts is soaring but my toygurus account is not receiving any traffic. Before it was getting over 1000 views a week.

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5. 74

   Richieb799posted 13 years ago

   My best hub is just about hanging in there with 700 views, think the highest amount of views after that is about 50 a day. I have been working on my bosses site and dealing with some heartache so haven't got much done here or seen any of yall.

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   1. 82

      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      We were talking about the crawl rates under Google webmasters tools Richie, not hub stats.

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      1. 81

         cameciobposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         
         
         thet's how my crawls are looking like...
         
         Also, when I click on a cached page they tell me time last crawled and many ofmy hubs have not been crawled since late august, early sept, before teh 6th.

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         1. 82

            IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            That graph looks like mine. Think you've been Google-slapped too.
            
            Put the complete url of your hub into Google search, and if it comes up, it is still indexed, it has just lost its position in the SERPS because your subdomain has been sandboxed.

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            1. 81

               cameciobposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I put the complete url and it came up
               but
               here is an interesting thing:
               I did the search for the keywords for this hub in Yahoo and bing and it cames on position 2. The keyword is : the old and the new zodiac dates and signs
               
               So must be google.

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6. 81

   cameciobposted 13 years ago

   My best hub had dissapeared from google. I cope/pest a whole pasaje in search and I cannot find it. But, at the end of the page i get this:
   In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.
   
   What does this mean?
   
   the result removed was my hub, i bet.

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   1. 82

      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Click on the link where that notice appears and you'll be able to read the complaint.

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      1. 81

         cameciobposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         this is what I get when I click:
         DMCA (Copyright) Complaint to Google
         Sent by: Camelia Krausmann
         To: Google
         
         The cease-and-desist or legal threat you requested is not yet available.
         
         Camelia is me

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         1. 82

            IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Did you send a DMCA notice about someone else then? Have you checked your emails recently? If your name is on that complaint, you must have put it there. I don't think you can send a DMCA accidentally.

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            1. 81

               cameciobposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Izzy, I did filled up a DMCA about another hub that has been duplicated down to the pictures and captations. It is called "Biggest Coffee Producers".I don't understand why the complain is showing under the zodiac hub.
               Tonight - after work, shopping, fixing the toilet and dinner - I did a search for the hub that I filled up the DMCA. I did not find it.
               Then I searched "biggest coffee producers cameciob" and on page 3 I got this message:
               In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 20 already displayed.
               If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.
               
               I click on the linked words and sure enogh the omitted results show my hub.
               
               Then I get to a website http://www.virante.com/seo-tools/duplicate-content
               
               and I get the explanation I'm looking for :
               Similarity Check: FAILED
               Google indicates that it has "omitted some entries very similar" to the top 1000 pages on your site. This similarity may be a duplicate content penalty preventing these pages from being considered uniquely valuable in Google's index
               may be the reason for my plunge?

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         2. 62

            bgamallposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Perhaps you filled out a DMCA complaint backwards. Goofy Google.

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            1. 81

               cameciobposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               lol I could have done that

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               1. 85

                  Rebecca E.posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  I have to double check with everything now all the time with that!  sigh!

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7. 81

   cameciobposted 13 years ago

   I get the omitted result for most of my articles
   

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   1. 82

      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I don't check most of mine so have no idea on this, no traffic either.
      
      We discussed this last night, briefly.
      
      I have a slapped domain. From all accounts you do too. Until we know why Google hates us, there is nothing we can do.
      
      You will notice more, with only 65 hubs, what results Google are returning, but it doesn't matter, if at the end of the day you have been slapped.
      
      Look up 'Google sandbox'. that is where we are, and we will come out of it at the other end. At least we'd better, or I will send the boys round

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      1. 81

         cameciobposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Izzy, first, thanks for the replay.
         Second, you better send the boys
         because if we are penalized for any known/unknown reason, we won't come back until we take care of the "problem". My opinion. Probably, most of us have no idea what that "problem" may be.
         I'll go now and check "google sandbox".

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            Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Welcome to the "Plungers" club, Cameciob!  None of us joined willingly either!

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            1. 81

               cameciobposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you Randy. I'm honored.

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8. 62

   CASE1WORKERposted 13 years ago

   Hi to all members of the plungers, is there room for another? Had a 90 per cent drop  yesterday so maybe I qualify?
   Just done the google sandbox checker and it confirms that I am being temporarily blocked- well I hope their idea of temporary is the same as mine!

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   1. 64

      wampyriiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Sandbox checker?

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      1. 62

         CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         google the term and you will be amazed what you find!

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         1. 64

            wampyriiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I did but I was just wondering which one you used. The top result for "sandbox checker" I found on my search (something-something-genie.com) says my ip address is temporarily blocked from Google, not the hub url I gave it.
            
            Ah well, I'm pretty much convinced I'm in the sandbox anyway so now it's time to decide whether its worth putting effort into getting out or spending that effort writing elsewhere and hope it happens naturally.
            
            I never thought I'd say this, but I want my POST panda traffic back. At least that was something!

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9. 82

   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   Welcome to the plungers club Case!
   
   Sorry to hear about it, hopefully its only temporary.
   
   I doubt very much if you are sandboxed, as I believe Google has to run an update first to put you there (I could be wrong).

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   1. 62

      CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Izzy, I have always had sympathy with the plungers because when I read their hubs I could not understand why they had plunged. Most plungers like yourself write good quality hubs  compared to the utter rubbish that you get with some internet searches. I guessed my day would come, and it has. In my case I think it is best to sit tight and wait and see what happens. What was annoying was that my traffic had jumped by 139% from panda levels, was growing  but steadily, not an over night shift, maybe an extra 3-5 views each day, but by the end of the week another 30 or 40 added on to the daily count.  I think I was lulled into the "it can't happen to me mode", well folks it can and it has and it is quite frightening when you look at your traffic sources and for google there is a great big ZILCH!
      
      To make things worse I just checked my HP ads. At first I thought the earnings had not updated but then I realised, they had to a great amount of 8c whoopee!

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      1. 96

         PaulGoodman67posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I am sympathetic with the plungers too.  Some people who have not experienced it, seem to think that it's just a drop in traffic, when the truth is that you lose *all* traffic that is of use.  The plunge is devastating in my experience.

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10. 69

    DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years ago

    Just checked...saw that I'm in the sandbox, too...sigh...
    
    I thought I remembered the sandbox being alot more fun?!

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    1. 60

       Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Apparently the cats use the same sandbox we are in, from the smell of things!

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11. 64

    Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years ago

    Does anyone know if the hubpages team is trying to fix this?  I mean my ratings have just plummeted.

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    1. 62

       CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       As I understand it, we have been told we are in for a bumpy ride with vague advice for the sandboxed. The thing is the big G are giving general advice rather than specific which is obviously what hubbers want

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    2. 56

       toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I think the reason why hubpages doesn't see the issue is because traffic to the overall domain remains the same. In other words when one group of hubbers surges the others sink to almost zero views. Also the test group that they initially switched over isn't experiencing any volatility. It's when they did the whole domain overnight that the problems started showing up for certain hubbers who haven't done anything wrong.

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       1. 96

          PaulGoodman67posted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I think HP is well aware of the issue.  There were comments from Paul E and staff in the very early days on the plunges when it seemed to just effect a pretty small minority of hubbers - there were convos with Izzy and Randy G, for instance, in the forums.
          
          I suspect (speculate) that staff are not speaking on this matter because they have been asked not to, the underlying reasoning possibly being: 1.  HP are not sure exactly what is happening and how it will pan out.  2.  They don't want to get dragged in to pointless arguments with upset hubbers, and after all it is Google's fault at the end of the day, not theirs.  3.  The situation is very complex post-subdomains with multiple traffic patterns for different hubbers and it is not easy to get an accuarate overall picture that is straightforward to understand.  4.  They don't want to give Google the impression that they are giving advice to hubbers on how to get around Google changes that are intended to reduce spammy and low quality hubs.
          
          I am just speculating, of course.  But that's part of what forums are about isn't it?  :-)

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12. 87

    Stacie Lposted 13 years ago

    well I'm going to join this club,but hopefully it will be a short membership..

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13. 60

    Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

    
    
    I don't think I have been... yet.  Difficult to tell.  I get very little traffic anyway.
    
    The picture is just a comment on the situation.  Doesn't work really, supposed to look like the Google logo. 
    
    But having gone to the trouble of doing it...

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    1. 62

       CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       oh no, Mark, not you as well- I had this theory that it was owing to Amazon links but if you are sand boxed it blows that theory out of the water as you dont have many Amazon capsules.

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       1. 60

          Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Hi Case, no.. don't let me spread false rumors.  I HAVE NOT been Sandboxed.
          
          I just did a little picture of it.  My version of supportive.

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    2. 62

       CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       You know when they take the traffic away as all the google searches show 0- however one brave little bot did get through today - it was an american google search and bravely went into my subdomain- I

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       1. 60

          Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Let me try again.  I am so sorry you and Izzy, and many others have been hit.
          
          I had a look at your hubs today, a couple.  What on earth is wrong with them?
          
          I don't understand what the game is with Google and I hope that this starts to resolve itself for all of you soon.

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14. 44

    iQwestposted 13 years ago

    After the subdomain implementation, I saw a decent spike in traffic (definitely not to the degree other Hubbers noted).
    
    However, slowly, but surely, my traffic levels tanked and were horrendous (as low as 27 hits for 80 plus Hubs whereas my best days, with roughly 15 less Hubs, were back in March 2011 where my page views fluctuated from roughly 300 - 700 visitors daily).
    
    Then, on August 29, 2011, my page views popped and maintained a steady level around 200 page views daily.  This continued until September, 20, 2011, and my page views popped again to over 400 for the day.
    
    However, on the very next day (September 21, 2011), my page views tanked back to under 100 daily views where they now remain.

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15. 64

    wampyriiposted 13 years ago

    So, did anyone who plunged get their traffic back yet? I'm seeing people saying they joined the club but did anyone leave?

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    1. 64

       Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Mine are still way down.

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16. 69

    DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years ago

    Mine have popped back up twice and are back on the decline again.

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17. 62

    CASE1WORKERposted 13 years ago

    Have a look at Quantcast today - there is a distinct drop.
    
    Will take someone morre IT skilled to copy it here, but there is a drop and its quite noticeable, so the plungers must be growing

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    1. 89

       wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I'm not seeing it.  The bottom of the "weekend trough" is the at the same place it has been for several seeks now, and is going back up at about the same rate of increase it does each week.

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18. 87

    Stacie Lposted 13 years ago

    The only traffic I'm getting is from my latest hub, and that will probably end soon.
    Such dismal numbers!

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19. 69

    DIYweddingplannerposted 13 years ago

    The Google sandbox checker claims I am temporarily blocked, but when I go to look at my traffic sources, they're almost 100% Google.
    
    ????

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20. 90

    Jerry G2posted 13 years ago

    Has anyone gotten a good handle on why these movements happen?  I know the first time I went to subdomains my traffic shot up, then two weeks later plummeted to their lowest levels ever, then shot up again, then plummeted, and after 3 weeks in the hole they just shot up again for a week, but now I'm watching the numbers drop again.  I can't make heads or tails of any of it!

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21. 60

    Randy Godwinposted 13 years ago

    Nope, mine still down 80% and holding since Aug. 10.  No spikes at all before or after.

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22. 53

    kmackey32posted 13 years ago

    My traffic is staying steady....

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23. 64

    Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years ago

    Does anyone know if hubpages is working on this?

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    1. 60

       Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I believe it is out of the hands of HP at this point, Brie.  Google trumps HP!

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          toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          There is nothing hubpages can do. It's the google algorithm. I have noticed that my account that was switched over well in advance of the Aug 10 subdomain switch continues to remain steady. I'm not usre if this means anything. I think hubpages should have implemented the switch in waves instead of doing it all at once. There is nothing they can do now. I think traffic to the overall domain has probably remained the same.

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24. 87

    Stacie Lposted 13 years ago

    we have to submit our work to other search engines in the meanwhile and stop waiting for the big G.
    They are placing searches to the highest bidders.

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25. 66

    hardlymovingposted 13 years ago

    This is hysterical!  If you do a search on one of my articles that was formally on pages 1, took over a year to get there and has now disappeared or relegated to page XX, it will appear on page 1 or 2 with any other search engine (e.g. AltaVista, Dogpile, Bing, Excite, etc.)  Just what are these guys at Google doing?

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       sagebrush_mamaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Before the plunge, a couple of my articles in particular were gaining momentum, and then disappeared into oblivion.  Ironically, they are still on first page of Bing and Yahoo, as high as positions 1-2 for the keywords in question.  Who knows?  Did Google just turn 13?  It's acting as spastic as my almost 13 year old does on a bad day!

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          CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Could it be hormonal? Google may be entering a phase of PMT?

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    Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years ago

    I don't know but it looks like the death knell for hubpages...at least for me.

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    1. 62

       CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       i think that it is the lack of info on what we have done wrong that hurts. I got directed by HP to a hub about quality etc, which I believe that I already do. I am at a loss to know what to do . I am just  leaving it for a little while ( 30 days ) and then decide what to do.

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27. 77

    psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago

    Even of the Hubstaff don;t know what is going on, that would b nice to know. Instead we get told it is 'random fluctuation' or to just make better hubs'.  It's been over a month now and it is clearly something bigger than that.

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    1. 62

       CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I would agree- No Doubt I could write better Hubs, but to be honest when I look at the rest of the net- the quality is pretty Ok

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          IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Yes we've maybe been lulled into a false sense of security.
          
          My top hubs are well-beaten by the articles above them in the search engines in terms of quality. Having said that, there are a few sites above them now that are NOT quality, but written on quality sites.
          BBC etc who happened to put a news item out marginally related to the hub topic.
          
          Having said that, my Facebook hub, which let's face it must have been good to have been copied 600 times, is still being beaten by its copies!
          
          A lot of the Chinese sites that stole it were .edu or .gov sites, but it is still getting copied daily by English speaking scraper sites and all are ranking above mine which is the original.
          
          So yes something is very wrong with Google at the moment.

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       2. 62

          CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I have a total of 27 hits this morning! arrgh!!

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    iQwestposted 13 years ago

    None of this adds up!
    
    I agree, writing quality content should be important, but you don't have to spend too much time searching the web to see very spammy looking sites still ranking very well in many instances.
    
    Furthermore, for those of us who may be poor writers or anywhere below good writer status, we're the same quality writer regardless of which site we're writing for.  We don't have special powers here that disappear when we go somewhere else and vice versa.  I think we can all agree upon that, right?
    
    With that said, I have nearly 90 Hubs, most of which were written before the subdomain change.
    
    According to Google Analytics, these collective Hubs have received 8,260 views from July 14, 2011 to present.
    
    Over at Squidoo, I have published 29 lenses.  Most of these lenses were written in the last 3 months with 3 still yet to be indexed by Google.  So, to be fair, I'm dealing with 26 lenses.
    
    According to Google Analytics, these collective lenses have received 31,377 views from July 14, 2011 to present.
    
    To boot, I have many sales lenses that are loaded with Amazon links, eBay links, contain news feeds, essentially all of the attributes that were supposed to be the downfall of our Hubs.
    
    This was not written as a rant, but merely to provide one Hubber's reality.  I really like HubPages and, when my Hubs are getting traffic, they perform better than any other site I've written for.
    
    So, throw me in the camp that's frustrated with what's going on, but willing to do whatever I can to work to find a solution that improves the situation for all Hubbers.

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       Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       So...are you Squido articles doing better than your Hubpage article?

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          toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I completely agree. This is a problem with hubpages. I have squidoo pages that are doing just fine with similar content. Even my webpages are doing just fine. Hubpages at the moment isn't a viable solution as the ranking fluctuate wildly. I published a hub to one of my accounts and the entire domain disappeared out of the search engine. The pages were ranking over a year.

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             Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Maybe its time to check out Squido?

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          toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          honestly, I find out of all the web 2.0 properties google makes it very easy to rank blogger. Maybe because they own it. With squidoo you will need to build backlinks to get the lens ranked or create really good content that people link to. It's also harder to use.

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          iQwestposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Drastically better, Brie!  Essentially, 26 lenses receiving over 31,000 page views in the last few months with nearly 90 Hubs receiving a little over 8,000 page views during the same period.

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    psycheskinnerposted 13 years ago

    How much can hub quality matter when my exact same, unmodifed hubs averaged 20-40 hits for over a month, then over 500 for the last week.  Weird.  but I have made 50$, so: yay!

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    wordscribe43posted 13 years ago

    I agree, iQwest.  I'm currently in another slump after coming off a crazy-good surge.  My slump started this past Sunday and shows no signs of improvement.  I don't care what anyone says, these aren't normal, natural fluctuations.  They're all-or-nothing peaks and valleys.
    
    I do wish the staff would give some feedback at this point.  I love HP and won't give up, but it's very discouraging nevertheless.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason as far as I can see.
    
    Will it settle down?  Is this the way it's going to be?

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       wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I really don't think HP has any feedback to give.  They don't know any more than the rest of us about these surge/plunge effects many are suffering from.
       
       It seems to me that if they did, they would be the first to let us know - their income depends on the same traffic ours does.
       
       Google, of course, knows but they aren't talking.

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    Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years ago

    Things were better before the subdomain thing.  I got a bump immediately after but then it's been downhill ever since.

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    relacheposted 13 years ago

    You guys all realize that Squidoo is presently testing subdomains, right? 
    
    They announced in mid-September that they have switched over all their staff accounts to see what sort of results they get and if things look good, they're going to switch the whole Squidoo site over to that structure too.
    
    So, if you think you're going to escape subdomains by going to Squidoo, chances are you'll arrive there just in time to see your content organized the same way.

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       Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Well if they are testing them hopefully they will see that IT ISN'T GOOD..if we are any example!

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          relacheposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          My experience with subdomains here hasn't been anything like yours. 
          
          My traffic and earnings have returned to what I saw post-introduction of (then new) Hub ads and pre-Panda adjustments in Feb 2011.  As of the end of September, my monthly average earnings are up 12% over last year's averages and that's on the cusp of going into what is traditionally my strongest-performing quarter of the year.

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             wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Now that's an interesting tidbit of information, Relache.  I hadn't noticed anyone else "stalling out" at pre-panda traffic levels; they all seem to surgers, plungers or surger/plunger in a huge roller coaster ride.
             
             I wonder if you are lonely in this category or if there are lots of hubbers there.

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                Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                She is the only person I've heard this from

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                relacheposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                I didn't say my traffic was stalled, you extrapolated that out of thin air.
                
                Traditionally, things get pretty quiet for my Hubs in the summer compared to a month like February and I've seen a steady upward trend since I got asked to be part of the subdomain beta test in early July. 
                
                I just ran a comparison graph for my traffic stats in Analytics, comparing Sept 2010 to Sept 2011, and I had just about 50,000 more pageviews this year for just that month.

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                   wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Boy, I sure did!  I figured that your current traffic had been stable since the subdomain at about equal to Feb. pre-panda levels.
                   
                   Still, it doesn't sound like you are one of the surgers, either.  So many saw a good bounce upward on the subdomain switch, but then a huge surge later to several times pre-panda levels.  I'm one of those; Feb. saw around 350 views/day and at the subdomain switch I went from 200 back to around 300 but then later surged overnight to 1000 and has remained there with a very slight upward trend ever since.
                   
                   I wonder what the other "early birds" to subdomains have experienced lately.

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                      Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      I was in the test group at the beginning of July, and I've had the subdomain since then.  After a couple/few days of my pre-subdomain average of about 1300 drop down to - like - 800, maybe 600's one day), I seemed to be getting a new average in the 1800-21 or 2200 range after those initial days.  The averages stayed around that area until that first big, dramatic, surge in traffic that shocked "everyone" and that so many people experienced.  If I recall correctly, I started out (after that surge) with a new average in the high 4000's.  Soon after it started to gradually shift up to the mid 5000's.  More recently it has seemed to settle around 5500, then 5600.  Most recently it creeped up a little past 5600 and looked like it might be headed for 6000 - and that's when the "weekend" drop (very late night Wed and/or wee hours Thursday, oddly as far as I'm concerned).  Of course, the weekend starts and ender hours sooner in Europe.  If I've noticed correctly, over the last several weeks my "upward turn" seems to begin quite early Sunday a.m. (Eastern/US) time.
                      
                      (The rest of what I've been seeing is an earlier post above.)

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                   toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Relache did you switch your account early and not with the rest of us? I have noticed that my account that was switched over before the mass switch over is experiencing great levels of traffic and earning. It's traffic has gone up and has never once sunk. I branched out several accounts to target specific niches when hubpages switched to subdomains. The account that was switched over when everybody else switched over is plunging and surging. A lot of people think this is an issue of content when it is not.

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                      wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      No it is not a matter of content.  Several have speculated that it is at least partially a result of everyone switching at once.
                      
                      These are only two results, but give at least some credence to the idea - your experience with multiple accounts in particular.

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                         iQwestposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                         I agree, wilderness.
                         
                         Despite there clearly being different levels of writers, with countless Hubbers who generate content that I deem to be much better than what I produce (not that I'm not trying!), I don't think it is a matter of content for many "plunger" Hubbers.
                         
                         I had one Hub that I just wrote during the past month that hit #2 on the first page of Google for the exact keyword phrase I optimized for.  Sitting in first position was another Hub!  I received 245 hits on this Hub back on September 20, 2011.  Nearly all of these hits came within a two-three hour window.  However, as quickly as my Hub popped into position, it vanished as quickly.
                         
                         I have another Hub that was published at the end of February 2011 that's received nearly 18k in page views.  Most of those page views came during the month of March before the page views drastically declined.  One day I might receive 200-300 hits, then the page views would disappear for a good number of days, come back, you get the point.
                         
                         After just checking, with nearly 90 Hubs, I've received 1 (yes, only 1!) organic search engine result from Google today despite "spot" checking to ensure that my pages are still indexed (which they are).

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                      relacheposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      I was invited to the beta test of the subdomains, and picked a subdomain name that was not my user name, since you could at first.  A little over a week later, when they began opening up subdomains to everyone, my subdomain was changed a second time, this time becoming my user name.
                      
                      So although I did switch over to a subdomain a bit earlier than most site users, I was made to switch a second time, and the timing of that change corresponded to the full site roll-out.

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                Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                What I've seen with my own stuff is this:
                
                For at least five weekends now (I've lost track) I'd get about a 1000/1500 drop in 24-hour views around Thursday, with the number gradually decreasing in increments of about 100/150 views per hour (that type of thing).  On Sundays I've seen it reverse (same increments), and on each Monday it has reached a somewhat higher than before (and ever) figure.  There's been this pattern so often that I've come to see it as a new version of "stable".  This week the decrease waited a little longer than it had been to start.  (Every time it starts I wonder if it's the beginning of a giant plunge.  )
                
                Still (and so far - knock on wood), each Monday has brought a new "all-time high" by a couple/few hundred views.  My overall traffic averages used to (pre-Panda) be in the 1300 range.   Monday it was getting close to 6000, from the more "usual" (post-subdomain/post-major-increase thing) of 5000's. 
                
                As Sense wise, I just hit a new all-time high (although pre-Panda I'd come close to September's AS a time or too).
                
                What I've also seen is that stuff that was better performers before is still among the better performers, although may not perform quite as well as before.  A  lot of stuff that either didn't perform or performed poorly (but well enough to combine with other poor performers to make up a bigger percentage of my earnings) now performs better.
                
                I'm under the impression (and even if something happens with my own account that results in a big plunge) that subdomains are working, the HubPages is doing something very right, and the "the Google Authorship thing" are factors. There's the chance that a few things I've done/changes I've made to my stuff (either on here or somewhere else) may have helped to some degree (although I can't be sure).   (I'm pretty much scared-to-death of doing anything different right now, though.)  The one thing I'm very wary of (justified, wise, or not) is "cheap" backlinks.  I'd rather get no traffic than risk having someone/something (Google's bots) think I'm engaging in anything "iffy". 

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                   CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   What you are seeing is exacty what I was seeing though on a lower scale, then on September 23rd I lost 90 per cent- made up 10 per cent during the week but back to 90 per cent loss for the weekend

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                      Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      It's kind of good to see someone else seeing the same kind of pattern.  (I don't know why...   I guess, maybe, because it makes it seem a little more as if there IS a pattern going on, rather than some weird, willy-nilly, thing.  )
                      
                      This week, it looks to me as if, maybe, the incremental numbers are a little less dramatic than they had been.  While I may have once lost - like - 100/150 views as each hour passed (or something like that), this week it's far fewer.  The number of views per hourly increase also appears to have been decreasing.  Right now, I'm down about 1000 views from my most recent average.  Other weeks, this far into Friday I would have been down more.   Friday is still reasonably young, though; so even if by midnight (Eastern) I see another 100 views gone; that would still be 1100 (x 2 for all of Saturday before Sunday kicks in, if it does "the usual" that it's been doing).  That wouldn't be a 50% drop, but a couple of thousand views is a pretty drop when the total is only in the 5000's.  The increments in which the views go up or down do seem to now be (maybe) more like 70/80 of what they been for awhile (but I'm just estimating here).  For the last couple of weeks it has appeared to sort of be getting more "stable-ish".  Every weekend the question is always whether it will keep going down, down, down; or whether on Sunday morning it will start to creep back up (and get to a new all-time on Monday).  I remain prepared (and kind of expectant of) the worst-case scenario.   

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                         SomewayOuttaHereposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                         ...ditto...i think ...hey Lisa...just sayin' hi...

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                            Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                            SomewayoOuttaHere, hi back.  You haven't been around for awhile (but I guess I don't need to tell you that..  )     

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          Silver Roseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Actually, the reason Squidoo are probably testing sub-domains is due to graphs like this:
          
          
          
          Squidoo didn't plunge with panda - but they haven't experienced the normal rise you would expect during the last eight months from having more content on their site. If you look at the all-time graph, Squidoo stops growing in about May and is only now recovering.
          
          

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             Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             interesting

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    Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

    One thing is that the Quantcast figures for HP indicate that they have recovered considerably since the introduction of subdomains.  Not back to pre- Panda days but well up on where they were.
    
    So for HP, subdomains are working.
    
    It is for individuals that the position becomes a lot muddier.
    
    Rather than being exposed to Google (who hated us) as a whole million page domain - we are now all subject individually to classification, ranking, slapping and whatever else goes on.
    
    I don't get enough traffic to tell what is happening.  For me, it feels like Google is allowing me a set number of hits per day across all my pages - I could almost set my watch by the regularity of visits.
    
    My guess is that at some point it will have enough hits to make some sort of assessment.

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       wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Given the number of hubs that have been removed from HP (including aged, high traffic hubs) can we really say that HP is not back to pre-panda traffic levels?
       
       Yes, we have had new hubbers come on board and new hubs written, but it would not seem to make up for the thousands that were lost.

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    Sunnyglitterposted 13 years ago

    My traffic was back to Pre-Panda levels, and now everything is dropping again...majorly dropping.  I only had 28 page views in the last 24 hours.  I don't know what's wrong.

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       CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Sunnyglitter- welcome to the plungers club- I believe there is still a seat left!

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          Sunnyglitterposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          LOL Thanks, Case1Worker.  I guess I'll write a few more hubs and see if that helps anything.

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             CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Good luck- I did that last week, no change as at yet!

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    Eleanor's Wordsposted 13 years ago

    I was one of the plungers of 10 August. In all this time I have had virtually no google traffic and no signs of any surges at all, until today. It is very early days, but suddenly at least two of my best hubs have regained their former position and google traffic has took a considerable upwards turn. It is the first day since 10 August that I have seen any light at the end of the tunnel.

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    hardlymovingposted 13 years ago

    Conspiracy Theory:  Perhaps executive management at Google determined that Hubpage s articles were directing too much traffic away from other revenue generating Google ad producing sites and put the kabash on everything Hubpages?  I was getting some decent sales revenue on Amazon products listed on my sites. Its now all dried up.  Not one sale in a month since the change.

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       Kangaroo_Jaseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Conspiracy dispelled: I have had consistent Adsense and Amazon sales and incremental traffic growth since the beginning of August.

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          wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Agreed - the last few months of Amazon sales has been about normal until this month, which has nearly reached last Christmas levels.

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       toygurusposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I don't think is true but google owned properties don't get slapped and naturally rank better than other properties due to them being google owned. Blogger and youtube missed being pandalized even though they are content farms.

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