Strong Association between Plunges and RSS or Links Capsules

1. 53

   janderson99posted 13 years ago

   I apologise to Marisa, as I have no intention of 'stealing her thunder' for her excellent hub gathering statistics on the Plunges and Surges - http://marisawright.hubpages.com/hub/Hu … es-survey. I have looked at another aspect which was not included in the survey. I looked at about 10 articles from the profile page of authors who supplied information for the survey (30). What I was interested in was whether or not the authors had used RSS capsules or the Link capsule on their hubs.
   
   I found that about half of the 30 had used either one or both of these capsules in  their hubs.
   
   Of the group that used these capsules 75% reported a decline in traffic; 25% reported a rise in traffic.
   
   For the group that did not use these capsules 25% reported a decline and 75% reported a rise in traffic.
   
   My surveys is very rough but there is a strong association between plunges and these capsules - though the association does not prove cause and effect.
   
   Several people have mentioned in the past that these capsules are a bad idea because they include text copied from other pages which is displayed as text for the link. Google apparently sees this as duplicate content. The problem is magnified if you have several links with text.
   
   This means that you have duplicate text on your hub and you may get penalised. I don't know the details but my understanding is that Google keeps track of the percentage of duplicate material for all you subdomain and applies as penalty if its above a threshold and this applies to all your pages.
   
   Anyway I think these capsules should be looked at as a possible contributing cause for a decline in traffic and authors should consider removing them from their pages. I removed all RSS from my sites and removed the text for all links following this advice. Google has indicated that it is getting much tougher on duplication.
   
   I think this aspect deserves a closer look. Delete that link text!
   
   I personally think that the text extracts in these capsules should be removed by HP.
   
   I look forward to  Marisa's analysis.

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      BaliMermaidposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      This is very interesting. After change to sub domain my hubs had been back, even slightly above, pre Panda traffic figures. Every summer traffic takes a nose dive in the last two weeks of August and that is what I have thought the decline, albeit larger than expected, was caused by.
      
      Now that the Labor Day holiday is over I will wait a few more days and if traffic does not pick up, and it is currently down 65 -75%, I will trash my RSS modules, which are on every one of my hubs.
      
      I also will write to Hub Pages staff and ask if they can take off the text but I can tell you that on another website I work with Google has informed us that Titles have to be original too. That means any link showing even the title will get some kind of penalty.
      
      What to do hey?

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      2besureposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      If this is the case, the problem can easily be solved by,rewriting the blurb in each capsule, like we have to do for the "Summary".  It is different and settles the problem of duplicate contact.

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         Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Yes that works for link capsules. But you can't control the text in RSS feeds.

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2. 62

   Lisa HWposted 13 years ago

   Do you have a theory about low percentage versus higher percentage, as far as, maybe, degree of increases/decreases and rate at which either took/take place goes?  For example, with a lot of longer Hubs and usually not all that many link capsules, I'm wondering if I may have a lower percentage than some (and if that could be a factor with my less dramatic, but seemingly cyclical, dips; at least as far as speed and time spent in the lows goes).

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      janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Not sure I understand the question.  Another way of looking at the data was that of the 12 people that showed a decline - 8 of them used RSS and/or Links capsules on their hubs. Of the 16 people who showed a rise only 5 of them used these capsules. My analysis is rough but the association is strong. Deserves a closer look I think.

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         Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I knew I was doing awkward wording when I did it...   Anyway, re-wording the question:
         
         For example:
         
         Subdomain A:  A lot of longer Hubs with only a few links in a link capsule (low percentage of duplicate wording)
         
         Subdomain B:  A lot of average-length Hubs with, maybe, RSS and/or Link capsules with more links in them.  (higher percentages of duplicate wording)
         
         Subdomain A has a couple/few, dramatic, drops  that stay down for two days and go back up to higher than ever and stays high for longer than Subdomain B stays high (once it has returned from a dip).
         
         Subdomain B has a couple/few dramatic drops that stay down for a longer stretch and eventually go back up.  The cycle starts again sooner, though.  The Subdomain B types I have in mind stay dipped a lot longer than I have.
         
         So, might there be a correlation between that percentage of duplicate stuff (that you've mentioned) and the degree of dip? 
         
         Or, might there be a correlation between percentage of duplicate stuff and the rate of speed at which some kind of processing/assessing/data gathering are taking place?
         
         In other words, if Subdomain A types are less dramatically impacted by the kind of dip-surge thing that goes on in that subdomain, could that be tied to a lower percentage of duplicate stuff (the link capsule text)?
         
         (I'm a "Subdomain A type".  I know other people have have more dramatic dips and surges, and have stayed "dipped" a lot longer than I have so far.  I'm trying to sort out the possible differences between my own dips/surges and link capsule uses and those of the "Subdomain B" types.  Not that I need to, or would be able to, sort those out.  I just thought it might food for thought here.)

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            janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Sorry there is not enough data to test your ideas.

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3. 96

   PaulGoodman67posted 13 years ago

   It is not clear to me why you consider 9 out of 12 to be a 'strong' correlation?
   
   One could easily argue that 25% don't fit your hypothesis, which is actually quite a significant proportion?
   
   Just saying. :-)

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      janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Its a small sample size so lets not quibble. The analysis is very preliminary and dodgy. Get HP to to a proper stats analysis - they have all the data. I've looked as a whole heap of stuff trying to find associations. This is the strongest one I've found. There is no black and white here - there is likely to be a whole heap of things contributing. Any better ideas? Just trying to help! 75% is a strong signal that this issue is worth a further look as other people including ryankett have suggested. There's a good reason to remove the text, with no major negatives - worth doing in my opinion, as I and I think you have done.

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      1. 96

         PaulGoodman67posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Silver Rose's theory is my favoured one at the moment.  She's arguing that Google is testing and people are being removed from the SERPs temporarily while this happens.
         
         My Google.com traffic is virtually zero (and literally reached zero at one point).  The plungers aren't just getting lower ratings, they are being taken out of the equation altogether, it seems.
         
         I don't have any RSS or link capsules myself.  But I personally wouldn't recommend that people panic and do anything rash like start tampering with their hubs.
         
         You are, of course, entitled to your opinion and I do enjoy speculation.  I am just offering a counter-argument.

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            Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I pretty much decided to go with the Silver Rose "theory" too,  I'm still wondering (at least when I'm thinking about the traffic thing at all, because I only think about it sometimes these days  ) whether WITHIN something like what Silver Rose has suggested there may also be a time factor related to how "complicated" the set of traits for Hubs tend to be, and whether that could add to the "tying them up" factor in terms of moving to the next "step" with them (on something like "assessing" or data gathering).
            
            Again, I'm just throwing things out there as ideas for anyone whose dips have lasted longer than my own have (so far).   I do know two things about my own situation:  1) My dips haven't appear to be a matter of my whole subdomain being "pulled" from search engine pages while data gathering went on.  My dips haven't gone to - like - 0 (or anywhere near that).  It's looked, to me, more like a 50% or so dip.  (It has occurred to me that only half of my Hubs may even "get thrown out there to see what happens" (as someone, maybe Silver Rose?) suggested occurs with data gathering.
            
            2) Once Panda happened, since I didn't know what I should/shouldn't be doing on here, I just decided to make no changes (unless HP requested it) and do nothing until/unless I had the urge to write a Hub (and then I just kept it to simple, basic, writing with very few extra capsules added at all).
            
            I still can't help but wonder if the combination/complexity of "traits" a Hub (or a lot of Hubs within one subdomain) have, combined with, maybe, lots of changes, may play a role in making some people's dips last longer than they may otherwise have.
            
            Silver Rose did mention something that might (does?) make people's dips last longer than others, but I'm not sure it went as "microscopic" as the kind of thing I'm think of.  Oh well...   Off to resume  "not-thinking-about-my-traffic" and making peace with "waiting to see what does or doesn't happen".   

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4. 65

   relacheposted 13 years ago

   I use both RSS and link capsules, and I am not seeing anything resembling a traffic plunge.

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      Will Apseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      You know what you are doing. I reckon they are dangerous instruments to hand out to newbies. God knows how they are going to be configured.

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5. 70

   lisabeamanposted 13 years ago

   I removed all of my rss feeds and link capsules after reading a hub from Ryan Kett about them causing problems with traffic. (That hub is no longer published) Most of my rss feeds were from the 60-day challenge so they were very unrelated to the hubs they were on. The link capsules were all links to related hubs, but I took them off because I was afraid that the descriptions would be seen as duplicate content.
   
   I also read a hub from relache about fine tuning hubs... that one caused me to go through and tweak a lot of my tags. My google traffic has increased and I really think both tweaks are the reason why. I'm pretty sure the tags, feeds, and links were weighing my hubs down.
   
   But who knows?

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      wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      That may be the most nearly correct thing I've seen yet. 
      
      "I'm pretty sure the tags, feeds, and links were weighing my hubs down."
      
      Not necessarily in that you are right here, but certainly that this isn't a one item problem.  There are several things happening at once, and several more giving rise to trouble.

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6. 89

   wildernessposted 13 years ago

   Sorry, I don't fit.  I use very few link capsules, but every hub has an rss feed and I haven't plunged (yet).
   
   However, all the capsules are as relevant as I can make them using tags to search for.  I only allow 4 (or somtimes 5 where I slipped up) links per feed.  Nearly all my hubs are quite long by HP standards; probably an average of 1500 words or more.  As I catch them I'm changing the RSS feeds to the "short" version to avoid the duplication you mentioned.
   
   In addition, I'm not confident of the duplication factor.  Don't these feeds pick up the summary to show?  And is that summary considered by google to be a part of the hub itself?  If it is, then each and every link everywhere as well as the SE's themselves are adding to that duplication problem by putting a duplicate of part of your hub out there somewhere.

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      janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      "Don't these feeds pick up the summary to show?  And is that summary considered by google to be a part of the hub itself?  If it is, then each and every link everywhere as well as the SE's themselves are adding to that duplication problem"
      
      Yes the feeds pick up the summary data. Do an experiment - copy the first few sentences of an article. Run it through Copyscape. If there are RSS feeds it will pick up duplicates within the subdomain - why should Google's duplicate tester be any different. Why should this text associated with the link be 'hallowed' in some way.
      
      Yes I believe that any text copied from a page and used as link text is 'copied text' and is regarded as a duplication. You have no control over what other people do and Google won't penalise you when someone else uses your text as part of a link. But by adding such text to your own page you are 'fouling your own nest' especially when it comes from your own pages!!

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         wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I think you're right.  If I copy the summary (not text in the hub, but just the summary) a google search finds several instances, including one of my RSS feeds.  Presumably, then, it is duplicate copy to them.

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            janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

            This is what copyscape.com picks up for your RSS text ( I hope you don't mind). These 6 pages have the same result.
            
            the text "Sheetrock repair made easy: how to patch and repair different sizes of drywall holes from small to large"
            
            

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               wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Hard to see, but it sure looks like the results of RSS feeds to me!

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                  janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Sorry I was sensitive about displaying this.
                  Copyscape shows 6 of  your pages that have this text = Duplicates via RSS

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7. 92

   habeeposted 13 years ago

   Okay, dumb question here. By "link capsule," do you mean we shouldn't link to our other hubs that are related?

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      janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      What the link capsule and the RSS capsule does is to build links like this
      
      How to Make Pigs Fly
      Many people have joked about how hard it is to make pigs fly. Well now it can be done. Scientists have taken genes from an angel and inserted them into pigs. Now pigs have wing and halos.
      
      The text below the link above is copied directly from the host page.
      
      Fix 1. How to Make Pigs Fly  => no text ink
      
      Fix 2. Unique text for the description
      How to Make Pigs Fly
      For many years the poor pigs have been the victims of foul jests because they cannot fly. Well now pigs can join the eagles. Researchers have extracted the 'wing' genes from angel skin stem cells, and spliced them into pigs. The halos were linked with the wings and so Voila! Angelic flying pigs!
      
      Fix 3. Simply inset the link into a sentence on your page.
      
      By the way while we are discussing making scientific break throughs, scientists have finally succeeded in what had challenged them for centuries: Giving wings to Pigs (see How to Make Pigs Fly) - Now pigs can really fly. Watch out if they fly overhead!
      
      

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   Joe Machoposted 13 years ago

   Excuse me for my newb status, but I'm trying to understand this. I use the link capsule to navigate through some of my pages. I don't use descriptions for the link, but I use the title of the article for the title of the link. Will this hurt me? sorry if the wording is off

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      janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      No - its only the extracted text - title is OK

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   Richieb799posted 13 years ago

   I've been getting a drop on some of my hubs but my best hub remains with 700-1000 views a day and it has an RSS feed on it. It ranks second on Google for its term.

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      janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah But - you don't seem to use them on most of your pages?? The damage is cumulative and applies to all your sub. Some prominent plungers use them on most of their pages. There's lots of stuff going on, with the link churn etc., but its something to consider apart from thinking 'Traffics bad 'cause I can't write'. SEO is dead. Read your stuff out loud. Google is experimenting. Sandboxes. Aliens. Just wait a few months, etc. etc. Cheers!

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         wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Are aliens messing with OUR internet?  Somebody call Sigourney, quick!
         
         I don't have RSS feeds on most of my pages; there is one on every page.  Maybe I'm courting disaster, but until it happens I'll leave them there.  I credit them with some of the high amounts of traffic from my own subdomain.

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            janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Ignorance is Bliss => => => The Thirst Horse = > => => If it ain't Broke.
            She'll be right mate! Good onya!  Have Fun! Cheers

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               wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               That's about he size of it; it ain't broke (yet) and that keeps me very happy.  Ignorant, maybe, but happy.

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               janderson99posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Aliens reminds me of a story. At home we get a barrage of spam calls offering to fix out computers. One day, my son answered a call and said that he thought that an alien had invaded his machine. There was silence and the call ended. A few minutes later the caller rang back and said: "We can fix that" !

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                  wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  OMG!  Was it a female calling?  With a rather husky voice?
                  
                  It could have been legit!
                  
                  The ones I like are when you are due big money if you will only provide a bank account or send cash to provide the transfer.
                  
                  One guy called my son and he finally turned it over to me.  The guy wanted my sons bank number, but I told him it would have to be a check.  But, he said, the US Govt (we won the US government lottery) doesn't write checks.  I told him to deposit in his own account, deduct 10% for his trouble and write a check for the remainder.  I managed to keep him on the line for almost an hour before he gave hp.
                  
                  It was a fun evening and maybe kept him from little old lady that would have given him what he wanted.

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