Experienced Hubbers Search Engine Traffic Dropping to Zero!

1. 96

   incomeguruposted 12 years ago

   With the recent google algorithm change, i noticed that hubbers who have spent 4 - 5 years are those having their subdomain slammed by google. Why?

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   1. 62

      Charity Squidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      The Google Penguin is attacking those who are spamming backlinks and black hat software.

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      1. 86

         Dorsiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I don't do either and my traffic has gone down to 500 page views a day from 2,500. I don't know what's going on.

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      2. 0

         EmpressFelicityposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Aaargh. I'm not doing either and neither are a lot of people who are experiencing traffic drops.

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      3. 81

         CMHypnoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Which of course we all do,  as well as deliberately setting out to write totally vacuous, cr*ppy content   Can somebody please change the record - the hubbers whose work that I am familiar with who are reporting traffic drops are all good writers, who do not use any nefarious SEO practices!

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      4. 90

         Rochelle Frankposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I don't backlink either(don't have time, for one thing, don't know how, for another), don't spam, don't use link software. My traffic is down about 80% or more.

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         1. 86

            Dorsiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I'm sorry Rochelle. Me too.
            
            Have you checked your hubs for any comments with links? This is one thing I am doing and am deleting quite a few links I probably should not have allowed. I don't know if it will help or not but seems like a sensible thing to do.....

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            1. 90

               Rochelle Frankposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               If I have any-- they would be few. I delete spam, but I will go take a look. I'm lucky, in that I don't depend on the income, but after seeing it inch up slowly to a nice little dividend each month--  it's disappointing to see it fade away.
               Thanks for the tip.

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            2. 86

               Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Dorsi, be careful not to confuse links TO your Hubs (backlinks) with links FROM your Hubs (outgoing links).  The latest updates target 'unnatural' links TO your Hubs, not outgoing links.
               
               It's never good to have unrelated links on your Hubs, or links to dodgy sites, but I doubt they'd have much to do with the current problem. 
               
               I can't imagine you've been indulging in "black hat" backlink practices, one thing Google seems to be targeting is if you've placed backlinks on other sites which aren't relevant to your topic - it assumes those are unnatural.  So for instance if you had a cooking blog where you've placed links to your Hubs about ferret throwing, Google would penalize you - because clearly, you haven't put those links there to help your reader, you've done it to get a backlink.

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               1. 86

                  Dorsiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks Marissa. This has cleared up back-links for me. As far as my own hubs are concerned, just to be on the safe side, I went back through and deleted readers links that could be hinky. In fact, I am considering not allowing any outgoing links in my comments anymore to cover that aspect of links going out (unless of course it's another hubber that I trust) I found several questionable outgoing links that I had allowed. I realize that was not wise now.

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   2. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Not true for everyone.  You're just getting that impression because, naturally, those who lost traffic are making a lot of noise about it.
      
      I lost my traffic last December. With the recent updates, my traffic has come back.  The same thing has happened to LRohner.  Looks like Starme77 has also benefited from the latest updates.  Greekgeek reported that her traffic was never affected and is still consistent. 
      
      I know that's only four people, but the point is, Hubbers whose traffic is steady (or rising) aren't posting threads to share their news.  Whereas Hubbers who've lost traffic are.  So there may be many more Hubbers with positive news, and we're getting a distorted view here.

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      1. 68

         Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         My traffic is consistent for this time of year. A few Hubs have seen an up-swing. I believe it may have to do with what people are searching for also.

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      2. 75

         Reality Bytesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         My traffic has increased since the subdomain switch.  The only loss in traffic I have is the loss of traffic between my hubs, on my subdomain itself.

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   3. 73

      Barbara Kayposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      If you do a web search with your sub-domain name with the word hubpages, I think you'll be surprised at some of the places that are linking to your hubs. I tried this to see what might be hurting mine. There are 100's of sites I never heard of and some are sites I'd never allow my articles to be linked on. I don't know how'd you'd ever get them all taken off.

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2. 84

   SweetiePieposted 12 years ago

   Traffic is usually down on the weekends, and goes back up on Mondays for me.  My traffic is a little down around this time of year, and usually goes back up around summer.  It is spring and people want to go outside, go to the beach, and they are spending less time online.  Just be patient, the traffic will go back up.

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3. 81

   Draxposted 12 years ago

   I do not see any change in my traffic stats at all however there is never any guarantee that results that fall because of a Google change will ever recover, it depends very much on the links to your article(s) and how you acquired them in the first place.
   
   It always comes back to the same rule, if you create good content it will prosper !!

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      IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      It's got nothing to do with 'how you acquired them' because Google simply doesn't know this. It may well have a lot to do with 'type of backlink' because they are not all equal, but even then your link would have to come from a slapped site for Google to decide any backlink is detrimental, if they even do.
      
      Create good content and it'll prosper?
      
      Hahaha!!
      
      That'll be how that blank blogger blog got to #1 n the SERPS for 'make money online', it's content was that great, nothing to do with its thousands of backlinks!

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      1. 66

         Teresa Schultzposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Is that site (blogger blog) still there at number one for "make money online"? I looked about two or three days ago, on Google.com, using that search phrase, and the first site that had blogspot.com at the end of it's url was at the top of page 7 - and had a fair amount of content on it. I'm in South Africa, though, so maybe that made a difference to my search results I'd see on Google.com ? I was curious to see the blank blogspot blog but couldn't find it.

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         1. 87

            IzzyMposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            It looks like Google has manually slapped it. They probably had to after the furore over it on many forums after Penguin.

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4. 62

   Lisa HWposted 12 years ago

   It's not accurate to say that it's "dropping to zero".  I know mine is far from zero.  I don't imagine I'm the only one who is "far from zero".  It's just that a good-sized percentage of "x" can be pretty dramatic.  It doesn't always mean "zero" (or even a couple of hundred).  (The exclamation point on the thread title is a little dramatic too.     If it were possible, a emoticon like the following one would be a more appropriate thing at the end of the thread title.:       )

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5. 75

   starme77posted 12 years ago

   I dont have a ton of backlinks but my traffic seems to be increasing steadily over the past couple of weeks and as of now I only have 20 hubs - I took a few down and added a couple - Im getting more traffic now with the other ten gone and the two new ones in and I seriously have hardly any backlinks going on - who knows - maybe its just my lucky week haha
   

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6. 78

   shuck72posted 12 years ago

   My traffic has dropped by half in the last several days.  Not much we can do about it other than to keep plugging along and having faith it will resolve itself.

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7. 80

   dhannyyaposted 12 years ago

   Mine has gone down to bottom..am in panic..somebody pl suggest a solution...in my case am little afraid that i have a keyword overstuffing in my headings and subheadings...So I am planning to edit and resubmiting to google through webmaster toools..will that work?

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8. 60

   Xenonlitposted 12 years ago

   This is the best month I've had so far. But my numbers are still nothing to brag about. I am going to follow starme77's lead and kill a few dogs that are hovering in the 50s.

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   1. 75

      starme77posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      well , you may not want to kill em you may want to tweek them a bit and see how the traffic on em goes from there  - I found that helps alot sometimes

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9. 96

   incomeguruposted 12 years ago

   I know that all traffic can never come down to 0, because there is no way you'll not get internal traffic.
   
   But that from search engine could come down to zero when a subdomain is penalized.

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10. 62

    Lisa HWposted 12 years ago

    In the interest of not leaving a discouraging note when things have improved a little since last post; after hitting a new "all-time-post-subdomain" low (including weekend lows), and after seeing a very slow increase (like 10 views an hour, or something like that); I've picked up a few hundred in the last few hours and more at the usual weekend "come back" rate.  It was later than usual, and things have to come back more than usual (if they're going to come back) - but it's encouraging.  I'm still thinking my averages may be settling in at new, lower, averages.   Oh well, I swore off the whole wheel-spinning-over-traffic thing earlier; but I figured I should mention (after being so vocal about traffic being down) that, for tonight, it's looking a little better.  The "real work" schedule picks up tomorrow anyway, so that'll keep me away from worrying about what goes on with my traffic on here for awhile.
    
    Good luck to others who hit new lows beyond the usual weekend kind of thing.  Hope things pick up for everyone tomorrow.

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11. 83

    drspanielposted 12 years ago

    I would image that those pages which are 4-5 years old should be more trusted an valuable to Google, as in theory they should be the best quality and the most useful. however, to some degree it would seem more logical to have the pages and people who are more updated to be favoured by Google, as that can also be a sign of great quality of content.
    
    The new algorithm to me shows that Google is actually listening to some of our cries bout their service, especially when there are times where we are looking for something specific, yet there are around 22,000,000 pages of content to search through to find the best result. Before, this would have been no problem, as Google could simply find relevant content to match your search terms. Those days it was quite easy to rank for any keyword.
    
    Now... We have so much new content being poured into Google each day that new systems of filtering content and information on the web have been set, and whilst it might hinder us as writers, it certainly helps those who search on Google to have a better experience. What you've really got to remember here is that Google's main concern is it's millions of web searchers, not the people who actually post content online. Their primary goal is to find the best sites for it's users in the best time and in the best way.
    
    So how can we still make our money on HubPages and other writing sites a-like?
    
    My best bet is for us to add extra effort to each Hub we make, and to continuously update our already published content. This way, we are giving all our content the best ability to thrive and prosper in a world which is so heavily embedded with junk... (the web)

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12. 94

    melbelposted 12 years ago

    My traffic went down after Christmas, but it always does that before it starts picking up again in the fall. That said, since I've been publishing regularly, I've seen an upswing in traffic.
    
    I'm one of the few hubbers who seemingly benefited from Panda. Of course, before the subdomain switch, I did poorly. After the my traffic more than tripled.

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13. 78

    sofsposted 12 years ago

    With 50% of my traffic gone in the last few days.. I haven't seen much improvement yet... hopefully it will when the dust settles down..I have my fingers crossed

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    1. 66

       Pearldiverposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Wow.. you too sofs?
       
       But hey if it gets worse.. at least you can cross your double zeros as well!

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       1. 78

          sofsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          LOL those 00 don't mean a thing and you know that better than I do
          PD, I scrambled out of the sandbox after being in there for six months...Now after seeing my traffic improve for five months I have again lost 50% of the traffic. I wrote 30 hubs in March hoping to see more traffic.. but now I don't know what else I can do to get out of this predicament... Grrrrrrrrr...

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             Pearldiverposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             The comments about the 'Sandbox' effect are very interesting and sadly, certainly do make a lot of sense.  What I find frustrating in regards to that issue is that no one ever answered the question (asked by many of us) - Why do the majority of those hubs that were submitted in the poetry comp, not get any traffic or have any Google authority? 
             
             Some of my best poetry work was published during that time, yet gets absolutely no traffic!  Within each hub, other than the poem they contain extremely relevant and well written content of at least 500 words!  Surely a hub named 'The Essential Pre-requisites of Talent'  containing a well balanced guideline to developing one's talent (+ a bonus poem ).. would be of some interest to anyone wanting to excel at sport or music, or whatever?  That hub is my lowest scoring hub and other than not getting traffic, has an insulting hub-score of only 54!  Hell, my work is not That Bad quality-wise! 
             
             I have read trashy spun content on this site that is promoted as having a higher value... So.. what really gives sofs?? 

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             1. 53

                janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                I don't want to be critical and tell you how to suck eggs, but I think you could improve your traffic by working on your titles. I think the title of your hub is way too long and will not attract many searches
                'Essential Prerequisites of Talent’: What It Takes To Develop Your Real Potential From Within the Creative You'
                Can I suggest something like
                How to Develop your Creative Potential and Innate Talents
                'Creative Potential' is a very popular phrase - it is featured in auto-suggest - try it for a Google search. So is 'Innate Talents' and 'How to' is a great way to start.
                These phrases are much more likely to be things that people will search for.
                Can I suggest you try Niche Market finder which is Free http://www.seodevgroup.com/products/Nic … inder.html
                and
                http://www.webtistic.co.uk/keyword-competition-tool/
                which is online and free.
                There is also the Google keyword tool - but its complicated to interpret.
                
                I ran the phrase How to Develop your Creative Potential and Innate Talents   through Niche Market Finder and it showed an average PR of 1-2 so its competitive . Of course it has to relate to the contents of the hub but it illustrates the concepts.
                
                In my opinion you have to work on your titles to choose phrases that people are looking for, otherwise how are people going to find you? The Google auto-suggest feature is a great way to see what is popular and it may be better to start with the key active phrase (the kernel) that people want to find out about.
                
                For example if people want to find out about the health benefits of green tea. They are more likely to enter the search term as green tea health benefits  - try entering 'green tea'  and up will pop  green tea health benefits in the top five position (some variation depending on where you live). All the phrases shown in auto-suggest are popular - Google is trying to help! That phrase is not competitive, but green tea extract health benefits is much better - running it through either of the tools I have mentioned above will show this. [ the second one allows you to compare phrases]
                Whoops that phrase is so good I'd better go an write a hub about it!!!
                cheers

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             2. 78

                Greekgeekposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                Poetry and creative writing never get much love from search engines.
                
                Search engines are a tool to help people find pages matching a particular search query. They're a research tool design to answer specific questions like "What is X?" or "Where can I find Y?" or "What date is Z?" or "Which Q should I buy?"
                
                Also, search engines are trying to find the BEST matches for a particular query. You could write a lovely poem on a red-tailed hawk, but a hawk rescue center or a bird database entry on red-tailed hawks or a video about red-tailed hawks for sale on Amazon will outrank it in search results.
                
                Poetry and creative writing are therefore very difficult to optimize for search traffic. Instead, one has to go the social promotion route, which is harder: it means marketing to people, building up a following, publishing in a regular and public place (a blog works well), and delighting human readers so much that they share, like, and link to your work.

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14. 77

    M A Williamsposted 12 years ago

    My account also hit new lows over the last couple of days. Has improved slightly today thankfully. Still a bit grim though.

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15. 89

    Howard S.posted 12 years ago

    My traffic bounced back on Wednesday and is hitting new highs. It had been up and down like a yo-yo, but stayed down after January 11 (avg 7/day, mostly internal). Since there wasn't any use in looking, I hadn't seen anything about this--what--penguin, but I'll go search now.

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16. 66

    Pearldiverposted 12 years ago

    @ janderson99 Thank very much for your advice.. and having an Occa tell me how to suck eggs is fine.. (unless it is on the subject of rugby)
    
    I appreciate your objective critique and wisdom. 

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       janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       No Worries! I wanted to call my beach house "Diving for Pearls" and even worked on the sculpture of a female form, vertical and reaching down to pluck a pearl on the bottom - but my son (5 years at the time) called it
       "Shark Shack" and made a poster using cute writing - so it stuck - Still like the name though.
       Cheers, Go the Brumbies!!!

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17. 66

    Pearldiverposted 12 years ago

    It's Chiefs mate!  - Sorry! 

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    1. 77

       M A Williamsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Yeah, go the Chiefs! 8 in a row!!

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18. 65

    awayreposted 12 years ago

    Greekgeek makes an excellent point. Even more reasons to diversify away from Google a bit, especially if we want to be more creative. Also, a good strategy is to use what people are searching for and then direct that traffic to creative writing. Using Greekgeek's example, we can write an informative hub about a red-tailed hawk and then have a link out to a poetry about the same. It has to come together nicely and "work" as a written piece and there is a risk of having the romance sucked out of the poetry while selling stuff about the subject. :-) Perhaps we can do the creative work first and then write the info hub or vice versa.

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    1. 90

       Rochelle Frankposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That's an excellent idea-- added to Greekgeek's excellent point!

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19. 84

    SweetiePieposted 12 years ago

    Honestly, I never allow comments with links because most are dodgy and self-promotional.  I was so excited to get a Word Press blog back in October because I thought I might get a few genuine comments, but I find myself deleting mass comments from spammers trying to promote bean bag chairs.

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20. 80

    dhannyyaposted 12 years ago

    any improvement in traffic for those who have lost their traffic?

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21. 61

    brettbposted 12 years ago

    My hubs are in long term terminal decline. Google no longer loves this place. Hop some hubs and you'll see why.

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22. 78

    sofsposted 12 years ago

    Not much improvement here... traffic seems to be where it was a year ago.. Does any one has a better report?

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    1. 87

       lobobrandonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       If you consider me - I do! It's the older hubs that are getting me traffic now. The ones written last year by Dec end. However, one of the best ones is the one written early Jan

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    2. 89

       Howard S.posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Absolutely--60% better than ever before!
       
       
       
       (Link to my site--where appropriate--and you too can ride the wave of Googllove!)

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23. 74

    WriteAngledposted 12 years ago

    I copied this a couple of days ago, but the situation is still the same, i.e. fairly large variations on either side of a fairly constant level:
    
    
    

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24. 86

    Dorsiposted 11 years ago

    Traffic only slightly improved, although it's interesting that I unpublished over 50 hubs the other day. About 700 views today down from 2,500 a day.

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25. 0

    Marye Audetposted 11 years ago

    My traffic has dropped from a consistent 7-9k per day (since january - it was more before then) to 2500.
    I do not backlink. I do constantly battle people publishing my content. I don't think I write crap. Maybe I do. several of my top articles are still on the first page of google..so this really does not make sense to me. I will try t figure out what is going on, try to wait it out... but this past year sure has been hard, hasn't it?

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26. 0

    Marye Audetposted 11 years ago

    I have to also say - I seem to have stabilized and for the first time in several days I have some red arrows... but the traffic number remains the same. Hoping the worst is over.

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27. 59

    Randy Godwinposted 11 years ago

    My traffic--although only about 1/4 of what it was last August-- is about the same as it was before this last Google kick in the asp.
    
    
                                             

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    1. 0

       Marye Audetposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       maybe it's inching back up a bit. I sure hope so. I really look bad in those wal-mart greeter smocks.

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       1. 59

          Randy Godwinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          Yes, mine has slowly crept back up, but it usually does this time of year because of a certain niche I write to.  Not getting my hopes up whatsoever, though.  I wish I had better news to report, but I'm still losing hundreds of dollars every month.  sigh! 
          
          If things do not pick up shortly, I'll likely ease on down the road.  I was looking for a writing site when I found this one.  Nothing new! 
          
          
                                               

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             CMHypnoposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             My traffic has slid right back down again.  Panda giveth and Penguin taketh away?
             
             Least I now seem to be getting a few days of decent traffic a month
             
             Hope your creep remains upward, Randy - traffic Randy, traffic!

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28. 81

    David 470posted 11 years ago

    My traffic basically cut in half by 50% or close to it. This is as bad as the Google  Panda that occurred in February 2011. Of course, back then, I did not have many as successful hubs. The hit I took from this update hurt me bad.
    
    And it's not just about how our traffic is now. It's also about "if I write more hubs, will they be able to get any traffic?" 
    
    I really do not understand why my traffic went down. I don't think my ranks went down (on my best performing hubs).
    
    It really sucks that some of the most successful hubbers from 2007 are losing a lot of traffic because of this (and anyone else experiencing losses  of course)

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    1. 86

       Dorsiposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I lost over 75% percent of my traffic and it's not improving. On the bright side, I wrote and published a hub a couple days ago that was indexed by Google and sending me traffic within hours. So I guess Google doesn't totally hate me!!

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29. 88

    RGrafposted 11 years ago

    I am down to 1/4 of what I had been bringing in. It seems to be only getting worse.I was increasing until right after Christmas and it plummeted.

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       PaulGoodman67posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Same for me.  Xmas was my peak.  I expected a minor drop afterwards, but it's been going from bad to worse.

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       1. 88

          RGrafposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I thought at first it was because I had little activity of my own in February and March as I worked too many jobs and couldn't do much online. Now, it is still bad! I feel better knowing others are experiencing it.

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