Help, I Think I've Been Google Slapped!

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   andyozposted 12 years ago

   For the past few months I have really be doing well on Hubpages.  My traffic has increased several times over, I've written lots of Hubs and things have really been looking up.  Today however, my Hubs are plummeting.  I have checked and nearly all my Hubs have vanished way down Google.  Hubs that were ranked number one are now down in the hundreds.  My traffic has just colapsed.
   
   I have no idea what I've done wrong.  I have only published one Hub in the past week and that has nothing controversial about it.  Anyone else had this problem and have any idea how to solve it? 
   
   Am almost in tears, after all this hard work it's all be snatched away from me

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      lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      First of all it's very sad to hear. I say you use cuterank its a free software if you use it just for one site that is your HP profile add the keywords you wish to track.
      
      I have just 15 hubs and I'm new here but I used this software and my research has shown that the ranks go up and down and come zooming back up again...

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         andyozposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks, but I use software that tracks my Hubs.  I see nearly all of them have nasically headed from top 10 to ranked down in the hundreds. 
         
         My traffic is falling by around 200 views per hour. 

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            lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            WOW!! That's a lot. But I say wait a day or two. Hope the graphs below help. Those are just two keywords but that happens to all my keywords and the moment you think they're stabilized the next bomb strikes

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         lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Google fluctuate (old hub newly discovered keyword) - gets me most traffic
         
         
         Here's one where yahoo fluctuates (old hub old keyword)
         

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            lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            The mountains from the top to the bottom are google and you see they bounce back up the next day and remained there for 2 days now hope it stays that way.
            
            The second pic yahoo is doing the dancing around
            
            (the top line is within the top 10 search ranks and the bottom is out of top 100)

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               andyozposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I see what your saying, but surely for all my articles to just plummet in unison, this must indicate a google slap of some kind. 
               
               I do have hubs that move up and down the rankings from time to time, but for everything to suddenly drop a couple of hundred places, it can mean only one thing.

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                  lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Were you getting traffic from traffic exchange sites - this would harm your google position

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                     homesteadboundposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     what is a traffic exchange site?

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                        lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Sites where people post links just to get traffic. Izzy's hubs were found there and he deactivated his adsense and finally managed to get his hub removed from there.
                        I'll be back in the morning good night

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                           homesteadboundposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           Would that include using a service like social monkee? I've seen lots of peoplee speak well of this, but I want to know how it is viewed.

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                              Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              No. Traffic exchanges are exactly what they say - they are set up to encourage members to click on each other's links.

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                              IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              And just to make it clear, it was not my hubs that got linked up to a traffic exchange site by someone else, but one of my blogspot blogs.
                              
                              Bit silly really, because no way was I clicking on someone's else sites in return, as I suppose that's how it's supposed to work.
                              
                              Sites like Social Monkee just put your link up on one of their sites, along with the short blurb you wrote.
                              
                              It's supposed to make the google spiders think that lots of others admire your work so much they linked to you, but it doesn't work.
                              
                              But it shouldn't do any harm either.
                              
                              If you could damage a competitor just by backlinking his site all over the place, loads would be doing it.

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                                 Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                 Yes, that's the idea - but why someone else would add your site to the exchange, I don't know.  The only thing I can think of is that they did it with malicious intent - either that or they totally misunderstood how the thing works.
                                 
                                 BTW did you see my post with the detailed listing of Google updates and what effect each one had? 
                                 
                                 http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change
                                 
                                 Maybe reading through some of the info might shed some light on why you were hit?  What was your date again?

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                                    IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                    I will study that article in-depths later, thanks.
                                    
                                    My traffic stopped on August 10th. I have since seen some sites saying that was a Panda update, while others (including the link you posted) saying the 12th.
                                    
                                    Some of hubs are back in position on the global Googles (that happened round about December 6th), but dropped out of site on Google.com which is the one that counts for traffic.
                                    
                                    Just like Andy, I saw the minute it happened. My hourly hits collapsed, and so it took a couple of days to stabilise down to its new rate.
                                    
                                    Oh and as to why someone would link me to a traffic exchange site, I have no idea. Yes it must be malicious, but who would do that?
                                    
                                    They also linked me to several other sites since which have resulted in brief spikes in traffic, but it is an Amazon blog so it's no skin off my nose to leave Adsense off for a prolonged period.
                                    
                                    I suspect a hubber as this blog is linked from my profile page.
                                    
                                    But hey, he or she should read up a bit on what they are trying to achieve because I still seem to be one step ahead!

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                     andyozposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Nope, nothing like that

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                        lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Hmm then you'll just have to wait and see.

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                           lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           Maybe others who went through the same phase will know more about it. Keep us informed of any new happenings
                           I'm off good night

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes.  We'll probably have to wait a day or two to find out, but let's hope it's not another Google Panda update.
                  
                  That would mean it has nothing to do with changes you've made or people copying your work, it's just Google changing the way the search algorithm classifies your sub-domain.
                  
                  That's sickening because it means your traffic may not recover until they change things again (in your favour) - and of course there's a chance that may never happen.
                  
                  I'm struggling with the same thing - the other Pandas didn't affect me too badly, but I got hammered on 6th December, losing 75% of my traffic in one day, and apart from one brief surge for a day or two, it has bumped along the ground ever since.

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      Don Fairchildposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      You might just be a victim of copying by other web page authors.  I did a quick check on your most popular articles and I did find modified versions of your work on the internet.
      Just go into your popular article and copy a whole sentence from your article, then go into Google and insert that sentence into the search string, then put quote marks around your sentence.  Do the search, google will show all occurrences of your sentence in the internet community.  Now you can report them to the DCMA for plagiarizing.
      
      Good luck.

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         andyozposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Don
         
         I;ve just checked a few and found nothing.  Which of my Hubs did you check?

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         GmaGoldieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Don Fairchild,
         Great tip!

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            Don Fairchildposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks good luck. Go Get the bad guys....

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   LeanManposted 12 years ago

   You can rule out any "panda" update as Google announced a few days ago that they would not be making any updates until next year.. My traffic is also down, but I have not gone to check my position in the Serps (almost 1am, so time for bed not worrying!)
   Sometimes you get dips as lobobrandon says, plus these subdomains are still new and we all still run the risk of ending up in the Google sandbox.. I had a quick look at a couple of your hubs and I don't see anything horrific that you would be slapped for. Give it a day or 2 and see what happens - don't panic just yet!

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      lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      LeanMan goodnight almost time for me to say good bye to this lovely day as well

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         homesteadboundposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         How do you check your position with the SERPS?

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            andyozposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I use Market Samurai, it has a rank tracker tool

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               lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               How much is it monthly? I'll use it when I make enough out of HP

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                  lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  It's a keyword research tool as well right? Is it better than the traditional google keyword tool?

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                     andyozposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Yeah it's excellent.  Think it cost me around $90 as a one of payment and then you get it for life.  Has been worth the money I would say.  They also offer it for a trial period.

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                        lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Oh that's not bad provided it's for life. And I'll be trying out the trial in my holidays to check it out

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                        homesteadboundposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        And they do a great job of sending updates.

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                           lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           So do you have it as well homestead?
                           Do they get low competition long tail keywords?

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                              lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              I'll be back in the morning it would be nice if you answered that

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                              homesteadboundposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              yes I do. I wrotw a hub about it. Learning the foreign language of SEO. Yes they do long tail key words.

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                                 homesteadboundposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                 going to get ready for work now. Check you later.

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                                    lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                    Ok thanks so much I'll check it out Glad you got a hub about it

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                     homesteadboundposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     I think it is because it searches for relevance, competition also

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                  homesteadboundposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  It's a one time fee. was $99 a few months back. how do you check yours?

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         andyozposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I go to Cyprus for 2 weeks tomorrow, no internet access.  What a time for this to happen.  I've just deleted my past 10 hubs.  Just in case something in there was upseting google.

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            lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Oh! Actually it would be a real test as you could do nothing now and it will prevent you from doing anything unnecessary. I mean you would try changing parts of your hubs etc. But in 2 weeks everything maybe back to normal.
            
            And how do you check your position with SERPS?

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   leahleflerposted 12 years ago

   I just looked up Panda updates and it says that the big G is holding off on any updates until the new year. The last update was November 18... maybe someone else has more info? I hope your traffic comes back, andyoz!

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      lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I've heard of people being afraid of many things but here Google makes us scared of Panda
      I got my highest google traffic today but hope it stays that way

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      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That's odd, because I had a huge plunge on December 6th, and a lesser plunge on one of my websites on the same day - and when I posted about it here, a few other Hubbers had the same thing happen.  I even found a couple of posts about it on forums on other sites.  They may not have called it a Panda, but it was definitely something!
      
      It's important to note that Google only calls its major updates "Pandas".  We're only up to Panda 3.1, but they've actually made over 500 updates to the algorithm in 2010.
      
      So even though they said in November there would be no more Pandas till next year, that doesn't rule out the possibility of other "tweaks".
      
      Here's a timeline:
      http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change

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   CASE1WORKERposted 12 years ago

   As a plunger who has some recovery:
   When you plunge all the google traffic dries up immediately and thats it- maybe the odd view gets through but not much,
   I usually check real time through google analytics, to see if there is a lull or a plunge- there does seem to be a lull at the moment, but the fall is only 25% so i am pretty cool about it.
   Most plungers report 90% losses.
   I hope you are not a plunger and just a victim of everyone going out andabout getting their presents and groceries in.

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      andyozposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Pretty sure it's a plunge.  Just lost another 200 views.  That's about 5% of my traffic disappearing per hour.  By this time tomorrow I will have gone from 5000 views to somewhere around 500.  Very sad.

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         Rosie2010posted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Sorry to hear this, Andy, sounds like my plunge on October 22nd, when I lost about 100 views per hour.. it took about a month to get my traffic back.  I had another plunge on Dec 6th when I lost 1000 views in one day.. my traffic is holding for now.  I hope your traffic recover soon. (((andyoz)))

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5. 83

   Rik Ravadoposted 12 years ago

   I've had this happen twice on my secondary account in the last few months.  The good news is each time the traffic fully returned a few days later.
   
   Like you there was no obvious reason other than a rumoured change to the Panda algorithm. My primary account (rik ravado) wasn't affected.
   
   Anyway, Here's hoping your traffic comes back very soon!

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      andyozposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Me too!  Thanks Rik, I'm hoping that this will just me a very minor set back and I can get back to where I was around six hours ago.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 12 years ago

   It's bad news that people are still plunging.  I think you did right to delete recently published hub(s) that might have triggered it for some reason.  I think the next step is to sit back and hope everything's okay when you return from Cyprus.  Most plunges do seem to recover of their own accord.  My plunge in September lasted 6 days, when I went down to zero search traffic from Google.com, but I did make a full recovery.

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   Richieb799posted 12 years ago

   One of my hubs that gets 1000-2000 views a day dropped completely for about a week not so long ago, its always been first for a particular keyword and its back first now.
   
   I don't know if it was because I removed a backlink on my profile or because I saw one site had copied the hub. I got the content thief to remove it and I'm back first.

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   Randy Godwinposted 12 years ago

   I had a brief spike back to normal for 2 days a week or so ago then back down to no Google traffic again.  Mine fell Aug. 10 with only the one spike.  I hope Andy doesn't experience the same thing.  This is a very frustrating experience for anyone.

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      IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Now, both you and me are in the same boat. I also had a 2 day spike, and if I ever have another, I will assume it will only last for 2 days as well.
      
      I have NO idea why Google hates us. Just yesterday I unpublished all my hubs that have had ads banned on them.
      
      There were 4 of them, 3 health related that were well-written and well-researched and I know they have helped a lot of people since they were first published, which was why I was reluctant to remove them.
      
      I already unpublished my weaker hubs, but I just can't bring myself to do what Paul whatshisname (sorry Paul, your name keeps escaping me) suggests and unpublish them all, then add the back in one by one. I can't do that!
      
      Well, maybe in the New year I will.
      
      My mum is terminally ill. My dad wants me home. I will no longer be dependant on hand-outs to survive, so the risk is worth it then.

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         WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I'm sorry, Izzy.

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            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            yeah thanks I shouldn't have brought into this thread. My dad just emailed me earlier to say that she has Alzheimer's. I did notice actually anytime I phoned her recently that she has no news for me like she usually does. She's forgotten.
            
            My dad, who is well over 80 and in poor health himself, has taken over the household tasks and things must be bad when he has asked me to come home.
            
            He worries that if he goes, what will happen to her? I'm all they have left, and they are all I have left, so its time for me to go.
            
            January, probably, now. Just need to sort a few things out here first.

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               Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Sorry Izzy.  It seems stuff just piles on at times.  You already have this mess on HP to deal with and if that isn't enough, now you have your Mom to worry about.  What a Christmas this must be for you.  But be sure to take care of yourself and don't get too down about your situation.  I know, that's easier said than done. 

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                  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Thankyou, but I have shut myself away from reality for too long. In case you hadn't noticed, I am always online, which means I have no life.
                  
                  I am a carer by birth. I was a nurse when it a vocation to be nurse.
                  
                  I have known my Mum was slipping. It is a fact of life that these things happen. Yes it hurts when it's one of yours, but I will never let my Mum be cared for in a nursing home, when I can take care of her.
                  
                  So, I am going home.
                  
                  On the bright side, I will have a fast and steady internet access

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                     Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     My mom is still quite active at 90 years old.  She's driving here tomorrow morning so my wife and I can take her shopping.  She'll insist on buying us lunch, of course.  I'm so thankful for her good health.  Good luck to you!

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                        IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        How fascinating! Seriously, people at that age that still have all their faculties have tremendous knowledge to pass on to the next generation, when they are ready to listen.
                        
                        It is so sad that people like me leave home, start families, get on with life, then one day those people who had all that knowledge to help us, are just gone.
                        
                        They maybe faced different issues in their lives, but they learned how to overcome them, so the next generation could learn too.
                        
                        Does your Mom write? Is she a member of Hubpages? If not, sign her up.
                        
                        A 90 year old has so much to teach us!

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                           Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           Yes, my mom is still as sharp as a tack although her hearing isn't as good as it used to be.  She still works like heck around her huge house and grows a major vegetable garden too.  My dad died about 5 years ago in an accident while running a tractor at age 85.  The Great Depression made them both tough as a lightard knot! 
                           
                           No, my mom doesn't write but was the cause of me being such a voracious reader at an early age.  She still goes through many books a month.  And damn, she's still the best cook in this part of the country and is very well known for it.  I'll never live that long myself!  I do indeed count my blessings. 

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                              IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              Please give your mom a big hug from me this Christmas! I've never met her but I love her already!
                              
                              Both my parents lived through the 2nd world war and the rationing of everything, and they brought us (me and my brothers, both dead now)up to not be wasteful.
                              
                              Yet here am I wasting my life, doing nothing except writing, researching and reading bloody stats for the umpteenth time each day, when they need me.
                              
                              2012 is going to be another challenge, but I think I will be happier than I've been in 2011, back with my loved ones
                              
                              My Mum is the greatest cook in the world. I was going to ask her for the recipes, and I might just have left it too late.
                              
                              Don't you do that.

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                                 Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                 I won't let her secrets go with her, Izzy.  She was once asked by a television network owner to be allowed to film her making biscuits but she was to shy to acquiesce.  I think she may let my son--who has his own film business--film her cooking a bit.  I hope he gets her making fried chicken!
                                 
                                 Like your folks, they both went through WWII and all of its sudden changes.  My dad landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day and also fought in the Battle of the Bulge.  He and Mom had only been married a short time when he was drafted.  They didn't see each other for a few years but they spent the next 50+ years together.  When my father died he had the most people attend his funeral than for any common--and I use that term loosely--man I've ever seen.  Everyone loved him and I could never hope to fill his shoes.
                                 
                                 Sorry, I got carried away a bit missing him.  We have a lot to live up to, don't we? 

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                                    IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                    I loved all your post, but I guess this is the most important bit.
                                    
                                    
                                    We learn from those before us, they make us what we are. For better or worse, we can only hope to emulate them.

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                                       Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                       We see things the same way, Izzy.  But one last thing about my dad.  He also helped liberate the holocaust camps in Germany.  He saw terrible things.  When he finally returned home after the war he had already seen the very worst life had to offer.  After that, everything else was a piece of cake.  I'm through now.  I suppose I've ruined Andy's thread anyway. 

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                                          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                          Andy's been google-slapped. Join the club Andy
                                          
                                          Tomorrow is another day for Google to put things right, they don't usually but you never know, you might be lucky.
                                          
                                          Thread returned

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                     lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Great job

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                     Lisa HWposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Izzy, I'm sorry to see that your mother is terminally ill.   Take care of you too.  Maybe, if nothing else, you can pop on here and let us know how you're doing, and how things are going with your mother.

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                        lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Yes Izzy will be coming on here and that's the reason I said great job. She will be with family and also have a better internet connection.

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                           IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           I'm not a he LOL

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                              lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              Ya I know sorry - it was a mistake I got you on G+ and just a typo sorry

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               EmpressFelicityposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               So sorry to hear that Izzy - you're doing the right thing in going back though.

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         lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Izzy do you think that will help? I say get a new account and add them there instead after they're delisted from Google. But first check that they're not copied otherwise the copy will seem to be the original.

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            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            No, too much work. ALL of my hubs have copies out there, just about. And removing them will lose them their 'age'.
            
            Although the subdomains are new, all our hubs still link through a re-direct back to their original positions.
            
            I have a new subdomain I started a couple of months ago, and it is doing OK. It gets new stuff I have written, though I still write new stuff here too.
            
            One day, it will all even out.
            
            It's just such a mess just now!

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               lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Yup that's true. Glad that your new account is doing well. I joined after the subdomain thing so I hope to remain fine

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         Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Gosh that puts things in perspective doesn't it. I lost my Mum while I was living overseas so I appreciate why you need to head home.  What a thing to discover just before Christmas though.

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   IzzyMposted 12 years ago

   I am 2000 miles away from my family.
   
   I will be here, and in January hopefully I will be there, but I will always make sure I have an internet connection
   
   Thanks for the comments about me and my situation, but this is the wrong place
   
   I do apologise.

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      lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Oh! I just noticed, but it helped bump the thread for others to see it anyway
      Be optimistic

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      mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I am sorry to hear about your Mum too Izzy. I just hope she has many years before it effects her too badly. I don't even want to think about losing my Mum, and she is in her mid 70's with all kinds of aches, pains and problems, but thankfully nothing that is likely to kill her. My thoughts are with you and I hope all goes as well as is possible in cases like this.

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    thisisoliposted 12 years ago

    You are not alone, my traffic nosedived on the 8th/9th (Just before the biggest spending spree of the year).  I also know several other writers who got hit hard, and all of them are the ones who have the most training/writing experience. 
    
    Not sure what happened, but my Hubpages Christmas earnings dropped by several thousand this Christmas because of it.

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       sortapunditposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Like thisisoli, my traffic vanished completely on the 8th/9th.  I was lucky enough to have it return for a couple of days, only to see it vamoose again a few days later.  Google seems to have divorced me, and this is the worst possible time to experience a plunge.
       
       Nothing like this has ever happened on my own sites.  I write content, my traffic increases.  I build backlinks (legitimately), my traffic increases.  It's a simple, positive trend, and it allows me to watch my hard work paying off.
       
       At HP, though, I feel a kid living with a violent, alcoholic parent.  I never know whether I'm gonna get a hug or a slap one day to the next.  Pretty tired of it too, so I'm emancipating myself.  This is more trouble than it's worth.

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          Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          It is indeed depressing.  Like you, I slowly built up my traffic over two years without having to backlink them all over the place and finally began making decent earnings.  Suddenly, right in the midst of my best earning time of the year Google decided I needed slapping around a bit.  I still don't know why. 
          
          I've lost quite a bit of money because of it and so have others here and elsewhere.  I sure hope they don't agonize too much over the problems they cause honest folks.  Perhaps the extra profits will help ease their consciences somewhat because they need the money.       
          
          Let's face it, we are at the mercy of this mindless creature and will be until they are brought down to size.  I think it may be too late, though! 

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          Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Same, except mine happened on the 6th/7th.
          
          
          
          I've had a couple of sites slapped in the past - I soon worked out it was because I had several very short posts. I consolidated them into bigger posts and the traffic came back.
          
          However, on the exact same day my HP traffic dropped by 75%, my flamenco site dropped by 25%.  It, too, recovered briefly a few days later, then dropped down again.  It's rather weird looking at the two Analtyics graphs going up and down in perfect unison!

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    Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

    well i guess I'm going to join the crowd of fellow Google slapees...
    my traffic is way down...

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       lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Don't worry mines down as well!! I know I don't get a lot but I can say when it's down. Everyone's busy with Christmas so you may see a pickup mid Jan or so - I'm not sure hubbers who went through this time of the year will know better
       
       Like you

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          LeanManposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I thought you were gone till the start of Jan, addicted to the forums??? You need to go cold turkey!!! Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays / Have a nice Day....

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             lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Ya that's true
             Oops

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    Max Daltonposted 12 years ago

    Hey Andyoz,
    
    You back? Just out of curiosity, how's the traffic doing? I'm pretty sure I got Google slapped a few days ago and my traffic is nosediving. I was looking for a little hope and thought I'd see if your traffic bounced back.

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       IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Hey Max, this seems to be happening with new accounts too, as it happens with my other one. Google traffic will disappear for a few days, then come back, then a while later go away again, then return....
       
       Don't know when it settles down. My new account is 4 months old.

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          Max Daltonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Cool, Izzy. Thanks for taking the time to explain. My account is around two months old. I'm slowly seeing traffic come back to some articles. It's my first time going through this, so it's tough to stomach because I've never been through this before. I was really cranking them out, too, and I'm sure that may have caused me to be flagged in the Google system. It's all good. I'll just step back for a bit and see what happens.
          
          All the best,
          
          Max.

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             IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             It's a new thing that's been happening since the subdomains were brought in, in the summer, Max.
             Everyone's accounts went through swings though I think most of them have levelled out now.
             Most new hubbers don't notice but folks like yourself who see the Google traffic disappearing will be wondering.
             Funny how its only Google.com? Bing, Yahoo, the other Googles all seem to be stable, but Google.com is either all there, or all gone (just about).
             Just ignore it and keep publishing. It's not a slap. It's just weird.

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                Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                Judging by the posts today, I don't think that's true, Izzy! 
                
                Greekgeek wrote a good Hub about Panda:
                
                http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/googl … ounce-rate
                
                She proposes that our sub-domains are affected by the Panda rank of the main HubPages site - I'm not sure how true that is, because if it were, we wouldn't see some sub-domains flying while others are floundering, which was the case in the second half of last year.
                
                However, the main point to note is that Panda is a site-wide score, not a page rank on individual pages.  And that even a few bad pages on your site can have a dramatic effect on your Panda score - so maybe Andy did the right thing by deleting his most recent Hubs.

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    Winterfateposted 12 years ago

    @Max Dalton: What IzzyM said. It's the second time it's happened to me within a few months. I thought I was getting sandboxed. Maybe I am? Like Izzy said, it's just better to ignore it and keep publishing. Dwelling on it leads only to frustration.

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    eddiecarraraposted 12 years ago

    Well It happened to me too... I looked at my traffic on 1/6/12 and it was gone, like I had 12 views and I have been averaging 350/400 per day. I'm thinking about moving most of my hubs to their own domain. FYI my account is not new so I don't know what's happening. You're not alone Max!!!

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    andyozposted 12 years ago

    Hi, sorry I've not updated this thread.  I got back from my vacation a few days ago, to my huge relief my traffic is back.  It dropped by 90% for three days then rose right back up to where it was previously.  I know all my Hubs plummeted in rankings for those three days, so I have no idea what caused it. 
    
    Soon as it happened I deleted my last 10 Hubs, just in case something in their triggered the slap.  So maybe when Google realised I had removed the content they restored my repuation.  Just wish I knew what I did wrong as I have no idea.  Am scared it might happen again.

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       lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That's great to hear

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    Will Apseposted 12 years ago

    I keep deleting poorly performing pages. Low visitor numbers after a few months and poor user metrics (view duration) means the page gets the push.
    
    My account is shrinking but visitor numbers keep rising.

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    LoriSoardposted 12 years ago

    Each page/hub should be ranked individually, depending upon what keywords the user is searching for. Even if you wrote an article that Google absolutely hated, it shouldn't impact all of your pages.
    
    However, there may have been an issue with the site overall that could have caused it, or it could just be that it was during a time period when people are busy doing other things and were not surfing online (holidays are notorious for this).
    
    At any rate, I'm so glad your numbers are back up. It's scary to see income plummeting like that.

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       Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Lori, read Greekgeek's Hub, it explains it well.  Every page on the internet has its own rank, but that is affected by the Panda score for the domain (or in our case,sub-domain) as a whole.

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    Winterfateposted 12 years ago

    Ah, my views have dropped a grand total of 50% or so in the last week. It's a bit frustrating, but I swore I wasn't going to stop writing. Not this time.
    
    How is everyone else doing?

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    Dorothee-Gyposted 12 years ago

    I read yesterday that Google had completely overhauled its algorithm 'to provide for a more personalized search experience' and was wondering how that will affect those who write for money. Guess we'll find that out soon.
    
    Good luck, guys!

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    eddiecarraraposted 12 years ago

    From 1/6/12 - 1/10/12 AM, my traffic was down about 96%. I checked my traffic 1/10/12 PM and it was up 65% and still rising. I'm not sure what Google did but it made me realize that I need to diversify my traffic sources so when Google makes a change in there algorithm it wont effect me as much. I never knew how vulnerable my hub traffic was until this happened. There changes effected my sub-domain and not individual hub pages. Hope everyone else is making it through the storm.

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