cause of drop in traffic

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getpaidtopostposted 12 years ago
now I have studied seo for about 10 year now and i know why the majority of hubbers have been penalized by googles new update. the problem is with the subdomain names and categories. ill show you google looks for subdomains and list them as a niche or category. now when hubbers stick to the same niche in all there hubs thats ok but when hubbers drift from category to category thats when we see problems. we need to remove the username subdomains the ones that are there can stay but from now on we need to allow hubbers to make there own subdomain for each new hub they write this will be a category subdomain we dont want to be restricted to general categories as this will not work for niche we need to be able to make our own subdomain for each and every hub. It does not matter if more than one hubber makes the same subdomain as long as its implemented by hubpages correctly.

this is the only way to get past this current situation
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  How about posting a link to the Google statement that supports that theory?
  
  You've already seen several Hubbers say they write across a variety of subjects and haven't been hit. So your theory doesn't seem to hold good in practice.
  
  Besides, I'm surprised that someone who knows about SEO would be silly enough to call themselves "getpaidtopost". I'd have thought that was inviting Google to slap you!
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  getpaidtopostposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  getpaidtopost although I wish I never chose that name 3 years ago. Hubpages does not allow me to change it. however it does not go bad in Google just people on here think i want to spam which is far from the truth.
  I don't want to argue with people but this is what i suspect is happening. People say they are across a wide variety of subjects but the Google ads within there hubs tells a different story. The ads you see in your hubs are normally relative to you hub subject. If they are not then something is a miss
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  That hasn't been true for a very long time. Google now uses the personal history of the user to serve ads. I've turned off my advertising profile with Google, but I notice I still get served ads that are more relevant to my recent browsing than to the content of the Hub I'm currently reading.
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  mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yes what you are saying is very true, I see adverts completely irrelevant to most topics I am reading, and they always appear to be significant to stuff I have recently been browsing online.
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  Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  tis why the net is forever trying to sell me a Russian bride....
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  icnposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I think the problem is this: When you visit some sites that register cookies on your computer, when ever google BOT comes across such cookies, it tends to feed ads relevant to the informations it gets from those cookies. Recently I read a post on cookie hijack and I found out that one can be a victim of hackers stealing your commission and also, for those irrelevant ads you see while reading your post, these hackers earn commission for the traffic (you) that they sent to those other sites.
  
  Recommendation: Always try to clear your computer regularly after surfing on some rogue sites to avoid being a victim of this cyber criminals.
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  inevitablesecretsposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Very true, that explains the ads for underwater archeology equipment I get beside a Hub about throwing a first birthday.
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  Sophia Angeliqueposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Marisa, agreed. I see it happening over and over again with things I write. Wherever I browse on the web, regardless of topics, it comes up with things that it thinks I'm interested in. It peeves me no end.
  
  That said, in terms of Adsense, my blogs, which are topic specific, do better than HP.
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  Howard S.posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Google has two "opt out" settings. I don't understand the difference, but then neither have I opted out of them (yet!) as a test. Regardless, the settings are on the same page of Google. There are also a couple of links to sites where you can opt out of such behavior on all servers that behave similarly.
  
  One of the Google "opt out" settings sets, edits, or opts out of specified "categories." The other, slipperier one seems to indicate that it will serve ads regardless of the aforementioned setting--unless you opt out of this one.
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  WriteAngledposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  With only 7 hubs, you would not lose anything significant by starting up a new account under a name you would be happier using.
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  writeronlineposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  "I wish I never chose that name". How about changing it to 'cannotwriteforshit'. That'd be more honest, and give potential readers a chance to opt out before having to endure this kind of self-congratulatory drivel.
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  starme77posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  lmao that sounds like something I would say - u freakin stole my line man
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  Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Dude...I mean "Sir," - you've made my evening with that!
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  Horatio Plotposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Oh please! No more! That just cracked me up!
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  wordscribe43posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Agreed... I'd like to see a link and sources to back up this assertion. Personally, I'm not buying it. I write on a variety of topics and my traffic is fine (as is the case for others). I'm not buying the theory, personally.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I can see where it comes from though, Wordscribe. I've debated about it myself for months, ever since the sub-domains were introduced. After all, conventional wisdom says that if you have a website, it MUST be focussed on a single niche if you want it to do well. And our sub-domains are effectively individual websites. However, Greekgeek wrote an excellent post explaining why HubPages' unique interlinking makes it an exception to the rule, and I think it makes sense:
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/96873#post2068325
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  getpaidtopostposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  A link? link for what? you dont think google would tell you how to beat there search engine do you. This is one you will have to learn on your own. anyway this was left in the report a problem section of the forum and its up2 hubpages to decide not sure why every one lynched it without a second thought. Just leave the report to hubpages they will know if this is right or wrong.
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  wordscribe43posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Do you seriously mean to tell me HP hasn't considered this issue? Trust me, this isn't going to be some light bulb moment for them... They do continual research and testing... come on! The "lynching", if you will comes partially from the way you categorically insist you have the answer.
  
  When you make such self-assured claims, it's only natural for the rest of us to wonder why you're so certain. Of course Google isn't going to disclose THEIR (not there) algorithm. That's not what I'm asking for. Just provide some sort of substantiation for your claims. When you seem so sure, so positive, then please do share with the class how you've come to such a conclusion.
  
  What have you been reading? What studies have you performed? What's the design of your studies? What about the rest of us who haven't suffered traffic losses and write about a variety of topics?
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  Garrett Mickleyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Google does tell you how to beat their search engine. It's the Terms Of Service and Webmaster Guide in Webmaster tools. http://support.google.com/webmasters/bi … swer=35769
  
  What they don't tell you is how to beat the people who are using black hat tactics to rank above you.
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  Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  ....everyone is an seo *cough* expert - then there is you - and that deadly logic!
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  Garrett Mickleyposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Actually, I use a subdomain and write on a variety of topics and my traffic has gone up a little every day since Penguin.
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livelongerposted 12 years ago
My traffic is steady/up and I write across a very wide range of topics.
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  movesposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I looked at your hubs and the majority of them fall into the category of food and drink I think this is why you have not been penalized yet but if you keep writing off topic i think the inevitable will happen. sorry im using another account to reply im putting my thoughts into practice
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  livelongerposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  No, not really. 15 of my 160 Hubs are in the Food category.
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  movesposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  there are more than that i went through all your hubs on the fly and at first site and within your titles they contain words that are associated with food and drink. the hubpage categories do not reflect in google as google sees them as copies of the original and they do not show up in google. I left this here in report a problem section for hubpage designers programmers to see they will know what im talking about. wish you luck in your venture god bless
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  Uninvited Writerposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You are actually not allowed to use two user names on the same thread.
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  Uninvited Writerposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Mine too and I write on a wide variety of topics. In my opinion, quality is what counts.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  "My traffic is steady/up" - So do you have any tips/advice for us, livelonger?
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Google Penguin Recovery Tips:
  
  De-optimize the web site
  Increase quality links to pages
  Make sure link anchor text is more natural
  Remove links from blogrolls
  Scale back the internal link anchor text
  Exact match domains hurt
  Practice negative SEO
  Move content to a new domain
  Build a smaller site with very few pages
  Write better content
  Add more social elements, i.e. Google+ Sharing
  Site audit to determine problem areas
  Think more long term with my site, stop taking short cuts
  
  http://www.seroundtable.com/google-peng … 15093.html
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Interesting list, thanks for posting Janderson, I will bookmark that article for possible future use...
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Looking at it, I can't decide whether the list is a joke or not. If it's serious, it sounds more like a knee-jerk, panic reaction than a serious response by people who know what they're doing!
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  amithak50posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  De-optimizing my site ..Well,These points are nonsense ..just do basic SEO and write high quality stuff and try to write 1000 words article
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  David 470posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Practice negative SEO?
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  Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  If I had to stick to some specific niche to get traffic....I would hardly bother with all of this.
  
  It would be a better internet were each page ranked....for what it is - no other factors....should factor at all, IMO.
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Mark Ewbieposted 12 years ago
Hello. Rant mode.

What happened to being able to write, rather than a lot of garbage about SEO nonsense?

Thank you.

I hope you manage to convince the search engines that here is the "new quality" they are looking for.
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leahleflerposted 12 years ago
I write about everything from cooking to statistical formulas, and my traffic is steady. I don't think the penalization is for writing about a wide variety of topics.
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mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years ago
The latest update has not changed my traffic, and it has been roughly the same levels for the last couple of months (estimate). I write on numerous topics and also make a good part time income from Hubpages and only have one user profile on here (never needed more than one). Currently speaking I earn about the same from HP as I used to from a 20 hours per week part time job in a vets surgery.
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Lissieposted 12 years ago
As the others have said - I have a broad range of topics, penguin didn't hit my hub account. HPs has been on a long slow decline particularly this year - but that's a whole other matter.

After 10 years I thought you might have actually figured out to communicate with humans by using the most basic elements of grammar. Particularly in a writers community. Just a thought
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  movesposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  who took the jam out of your donuts? I thought this forum was to inform hubpages of problems within the site I did not realise that I was writing an article oops I shall remember next time
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  writeronlineposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  'Rembering' won't cut it. You can only remember something you're capable of doing, or at least comprehending. You're probably excellent at something. Whatever it is, it's not writing. Under either of your user names. Even your sarcasm leaves a lot to be desired. (Don't mistake that for an invitation to try again. Just cut your losses, and please close the door on your way out.)
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melbelposted 12 years ago
I'm seeing an increase (very gradual, but an increase nonetheless) in traffic and I write about all sorts of things.
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Rik Ravadoposted 12 years ago
I've considered the apparent benefits of niche category hubs but my experience suggests the proposition isn't true. I have 2 accounts. My Rik Ravado content is incredibly broad and unfocused. I've also opened an account in a narrow, focused niche with around 35 hubs.

Both accounts have weathered Panda resonably well but Rik is much more resiliant to Panda than my niche account, probably because Rik has a higher PR and 'better' content. Rik also has more low performing hubs but this doesn't seem to result in an obvious penalty.
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IzzyMposted 12 years ago
I would have to disagree with the OP too, because although I have advocated niche accounts to be a good idea, it is by no means a proven theory (for me at least). My two broad topic accounts are now slapped, yet my niche accounts sail on.

BUT, they are newer accounts and their time may yet be coming!

The fact that so many people with broad range accounts are not being slapped disproves any general theory, but in my own case (as we all have individual accounts and different ways of writing) the jury is still out.
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  bgamallposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Wow Izzy, you just proved the premise of this thread.
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davenstanposted 12 years ago
My traffic hasn't gone down but I do expect it to because of the summer months. Everybody will be out having fun.
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janderson99posted 12 years ago
Here's a Theory
The cause is the unfinished experiments.

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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Huh? You mean HP messing around with the appearances of the various categories?
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yep! Its put readers off, its stopped people writing, its destroying writer's and HP's reputations as the designs look unfinished and no one will tell us when it will end. Lets call it the Skunk - It Stinks. Change it, fix it, move on. Experiment with staff and volunteer's HUBs not mine please!
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  jenuboukaposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you janderson99, couldn't of said it better.
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  Mark Ewbieposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Looks like traffic climbed steadily after the Tech change until midweek when I went for a dump.
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah! Its the longer trend over the weekly cycle. Panda + 2 Exps = Plunge
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  Will Apseposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You should go back and label the cause of every peak and trough for the last six months. That would be a challenge.
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Panda, Panda, Panda
  Its so funny
  In the rich man's world
  Panda, Panda, Panda
  I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay
  Ain't it sad
  And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me
  That's too bad
  Panda, Panda, Panda
  Aha-ahaaa
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  Will Apseposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  My wife plays Abba regularly. Is it grounds enough for divorce?
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  Angie Jardineposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Get her a shed, it's less expensive than a divorce. Where do you think my husband is with his Leonard Cohen and the Beatles.
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psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago
Not that correlation necessarily means causation. For pandas, probably yes. For Exps? I doubt it.
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  People have reported declines in Fashion and Tech traffic post exp.
  Its probably the weather - cold and rainy here!
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  To me that just looks like a typical weekly cycle in a gradual decline...
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  psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  +1 and maybe not even really a decline.
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  The last two troughs are the lowest daily traffic in 2012. Its real alright.
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yep Paul - and getting back to the theme of the thread - What is the cause of the decline?
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  The Moon is in Capricorn and Scorpio is rising?
  
  Okay, I confess, I have absolutely no idea what's happening, all I know about the Penguin is the vague stuff that Google said. However, I have given up worrying for the evening and am drinking a beer.
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mynameisnotpaulposted 12 years ago
If anything, my traffic is increasing. FOR ONCE! Google must like something that I'm doing because I don't have much trouble anymore with ranking on the 1st or 2nd page anymore for the keywords I target. I don't really do anything besides keyword research, though. Have never been a fan of backlinking practice or anything like it... I think if you just write good, quality content, you'll do well.
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  Angie Jardineposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I would like to think I write quality content but boy, have I lost traffic. Perhaps they thought they were paying me too much?
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amithak50posted 12 years ago
I heard that Google does not able to meet the target revenue that's why they are doing updates more frequently(Google panda various versions and Now penguin) and penalizing even good sites so that they do Adwords advertising and Google meets their revenue Goal ..This is really not the good thing Google is doing
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dhannyyaposted 12 years ago
do you all feel that the traffic would automatically come back?
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Greekgeekposted 12 years ago
This is why I follow SearchEngineLand and NOT Seoroundtable, although there's some overlap.

That's another example of Flail Syndrome.

Especially the "practice negative SEO" part. It takes thousands of links and a LOT of time to do that, if it could work at all. You'd never have time to create any good content!

It's idiocy like that which gives SEO a bad name. Sane SEO is just making your content easy for search engines to understand and find, much like giving books covers and filing them on the right shelf in the library.

"De-Optimize Website." *facepalm* Yeah, that's really gonna help. So, why don't you just break all the links and homogenize site architecture while you're at it. Oh, I know! Make all the text into images so it can't be indexed, crawled, or read! That'll do it!

I think I'm just going to ignore the crazy people and keep on doing my dumb little on-page SEO, basic keyword research, cross-linking related content, responding to reader queries, and linking to relevant content that's useful to readers. Oh yeah, and write articles that people might actually want to read. There's a novel concept.

It's not the kind of traffic the real pros enjoy, but I'm getting about 30-40K unique visitors a week across all my web tentacles, a slow but steady increase over the last year. No Panda or Penguin punches so far.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Glad to hear someone else say that. I read the list and thought, "What?!"
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  Angie Jardineposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I didn't even understand that list, Marisa ... duh! But I'm hoping my traffic will build again organically ...
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, there's some strange stuff on there!
  
  I think it will take at least a few weeks to get a grip on things. I'm not going to put a great deal of energy into HP until I see how the dust settles.
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  xriotdotbizposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I think negative SEO is a real threat that Google has unleashed now. After all one can get hundreds of spammy links posted to someone else's site on Fiverr for $5. For $15-30 one could get thousands of profile links in a xrumer broadcast. No work or time involved.
  
  People didn't do this previously because links to someones site could actually help them. Why do that for one's competitors? Now, Google has made it super easy to take down someone else's site. We haven't seen it too much because Penguin is so new, but I predict it will become an issue.
  
  Of course, I don't advocate doing it because it is bad karma. What goes around comes around. But as you see, some SEO experts are already advocating it.
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starme77posted 12 years ago
yeah they can do that and get all kinds of traffic - except its not targeted traffic or high quality so I dout they make much money on it
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Will Apseposted 12 years ago
Penguin is starting to look more and more like a very big and very broad update. Its impact was confused by the 3.5 Panda update just before it which was also pretty major. It's not surprising people are jumping to all sorts of conclusions.

I am climbing off a few conclusions I jumped to myself.

Anyway, my traffic here is near to what it was at the start of last week and Hubpages overall traffic is more or less where it was last week, so I am happily breathing a sigh of relief.

The exact match keyword sites I have are almost dead. At least I made enough money on them not to feel too upset.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I don't see how anyone could disagree with your initial paragraph.
  
  I am still floating along on 50% of my pre-penguin traffic levels. Having resolved that I wouldn't panic, I found myself throwing more product hubs overboard earlier today.
  
  Maybe it's the beer I've drunk tonight, but I am finding some of the turbulence strangely enjoyable, at least on one level. Not so good when I look at the earnings figures, though.
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  Will Apseposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I have been saving money for months. Like a good squirrel building up a nut store. The day before Penguin, I lost my discipline and splashed out on sofas and kitchen cabinets.
  
  The trick is never to think you are safe. Or the Gods will play a trick on you.
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  Marye Audetposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Will - it must be you and I that jinxed it. I finally felt like I was comfortable enough to hire some help at the house. With homeschooling, a retired husband, and working at home... add 4 dogs, 2 cats and various friends in and out.. well... even in this huge place it is a mess. So I was finally comfortable with the idea of being "lazy" enough to hire help (I have 18-20 hour days).
  Perhaps not.
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Paul - Are there enough life boats? A weird Aussie is going to build Titanic II - would you sail on the maiden voyage?
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Well, I've certainly hit an iceberg. Though I was never of the opinion that I was "unsinkable"!
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Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years ago
Hi, I was wondering if people relize there are two dates that you need to look at to identify problems. Panda 3.5 - April 19, 2012 and Penguin - April 24, 2012, if your traffic stated dropping on or after these dates then you should be able to identify which one is the cause, as well as any increase that might be attributable to these.

I have Hubs and my own blogs, my hubs have been hit by Panda and my blogs by Penguin, looking at these dates. I don't think there is much that can be done about Panda on Hubpages because we do not have full control of page layout which seems to be the biggest problem with Panda. I suspect that is why the page layout is being changed by the Hubpages team, to try and reduce the effect of this issue by pushing more content to the top of the page.

It seems from reading around that the biggest problem with Penguin is links and anchor text but with Penguin being so new it is hard to be sure until I can test solutions out for myself.

Over the past year I have gained traffic from Panda until this last update, with both my hubs and blogs but have seen a drop in revenue from both also, where as it seems that since my traffic has dropped, revenue has increased but I can't be sure as it has not been in effect long enough.

I hope some people find this useful, thanks, Gareth.
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  Marye Audetposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  My frustration is that my hit was definitely penguin but I rarely link except to expert sources for info - .gov, .edu etc. I can't really help who is linking to me. and I am still dropping. I told my husband this morning that my traffic was dropping like a rock. he looked and said, "Nah, it dropped like a rock last week...now it is just sort of skipping across the creek." Smart aleck.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I find it impossible to believe that all the people being hit are involved in shady backlinking practices! Surely Google must rectify the error?
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I haven't done any "shady backlinking" at all of my work just got dumped in the garbage can. You've complained about a 50% drop? How about a 96% drop? Do you think I can come back from this? I can see no point in continuing on if nobody is going to read what I write!
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hi Marye Audet, "I rarely link except to expert sources for info - .gov, .edu etc." I take it that with this statement you are talking about outbound links which as far as I know and I am no expert but outbound links are not the problem.
  
  "I can't really help who is linking to me." This is the biggest problem that I keep reading about because people are worried that other site owners can perhaps bomb competitors sites with a massive attack of spam links from cheap trick sites like fiverr for next to nothing, pushing them out of the ranking. It is being said that in no time at all the whole internet could be a complete mess.
  
  Hi paul, "I find it impossible to believe that all the people being hit are involved in shady backlinking practices! Surely Google must rectify the error?"
  
  This is the other problem, Goggle are now saying that what has been common practice with people building highly targeted contextual links from authority sites is spam. What it means is that if you diligently took the time to build these great inbound links from high PR authority sites, like everybody has been telling everybody else to do, then you end up further down the serps than those who didn't even bother.
  
  It also seems like big branded sites, Amazon, iTunes are doing very well out of the present situation but again like everything internet, it is difficult to know what is fact or fiction. I have done searches on some of the key words used in my blogs to find Amazon and iTunes ranking where there was no sign of them before but that happens when lots of sites are demoted because something has to fill those spaces.
  
  If you are interested then you can find out more here about Penguin: http://www.micrositemasters.com/blog/pe … -to-do-so/
  
  and here: http://searchengineland.com/penguin-upd … ice-119650
  
  I hope this is useful and none of these links are anything to do with me I just find them to be informative and hope others do as well but if they don't then please let us know because most of us are in this together.
  
  Thanks, Gareth.
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  lrohnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Not sure I completely agree with that. I have a site that has tons of backlinks -- every single one of them totally organic. The majority of the linking sites are public libraries and schools, which are always authority sites with a high PR.
  
  Google has no way of knowing whether I built those links or whether they are organic, and yet my site made it through both Panda and Penguin unscathed.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I really don't want to spend the time writing about this because it's already been written and the problem is not links but contextual links, meaning I have a site or page called/titled college and all the textual links pointing to that page are from colleges, all using the link text collage. The links you have I do not know about but it seems that it is safer now to use text like, click here for more info, not the keyword you are targeting, like college. I am sorry if that was not clear but to be honest I get mixed up with it all myself, textual, contextual, bla, bla ,bla.
  
  Goggle don't have to know who built the links, only that they are links going to your page or site, they measure the value of the those links by the text used, where the text is on the page and how much authority the site they are coming from has, that's it, who builds the links is not the issue.
  
  I am not sure you have understood what I have said correctly.
  
  Google couldn't tell an organic link from a packet of frozen peas, it's just a dumb machine, that does exactly what it is told to do, nothing more, nothing less. The scientists working it might be trying to reach artificial intelligence but they haven't managed yet, that's for sure and I doubt they ever will because to be intelligent you have to be able to make mistakes and as we know, machines don't do that, they just brake.
  
  I hope this helps, thanks, Gareth.
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  lrohnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Agreed, and I couldn't have said it better myself. I think that's what everyone who's running around saying "I didn't do anything wrong" needs to realize as well.
  
  And yes -- I missed the "contextual" part of your response. Apologies.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  No problem, thank you, Gareth.
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Tinskyposted 12 years ago
I'll be honest, this topic hasn't really worried me before and I'm not sure it does now either as I write for the enjoyment and any earnings is slush fund for coffees.

Gareth can you explain how I would look at those dates with my hubs? Is there a report that I can download with that data? I'm just curious
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Go to Google analytics and see where the dips come. Bear in mind that for most people there is a weekly cycle with traffic dipping between Thursday and Saturday and climbing on Sunday/Monday.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You can do it with HP stats, but analytics tends to be more accurate.
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Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years ago
Hi Tinsky, as Paul has stated, Google analytics and your Hub stats will tell you or at least give you some idea.

Thanks to you both Tinsky and Paul.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I think your post is a good, easy to understand summary by the way. I hope that the page layout is a major factor, as you suggest, as it is relatively easy for HP to fix and steps have already been taken towards finding a new design. (The sooner they changeover to whatever design they've chosen, the better, as far as I'm concerned - I appear to have had a small penguin drop, but the major one for me was on the 19th).
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hi Paul, I hope your right and thank you for the show of appreciation, Gareth.
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Will Apseposted 12 years ago
It is very difficult to separate Panda from Penguin if you were hit last week. I had my monthly Panda surge and plunge here. At almost the same time, Penguin hit my exact keywords in the URL sites(that will hurt my income more than I want to think about).

I reckon most hubbers got the Panda treatment.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hi Will, I am not bragging or anything but I got hit 3 times, Panda on Hubpages, Penguin on my blogs and this Parked Domain Bug - April 16, 2012, which was a mistake apparently, my sites just disappeared for two days, they weren't even in the index, not one blog but two of them. I don't like losing money any more than anybody else but I have to laugh, I spent two days trying to find out what had happened then they suddenly reappeared to drop like stones again the next day.
  
  I actually wounder if Goggle are losing the plot.
  
  Thanks, Gareth.
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Marye Audetposted 12 years ago
I think they just mapped the Internet and threw darts to figure out which sites to hit, personally. That's my story and I am sticking to it.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  It has occurred to me that Google might have decided HP should get a certain share of the market and no more. They are therefore keeping it down with a dampening effect, which is why the overall HP traffic doesn't go up no matter how many more hubs are written. The first panda effectively kept HP dampened down. One problem with so-called "content farms" for Google is that by their nature they have a tendency to snowball if left alone with more and more articles occupying more and more of the top rankings. This means people earn more and so they write more and the problem continues to grow.
  
  It's also quite possible that any changes that need to be made have to be done by HP and can't be done by individual hubbers, as they are structural - page layout etc.
  
  Those ideas are just blue sky thinking by the way.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  ...but if that's the case, why is my traffic up 118%?
  
  If they were going to hit HubPages as a whole, surely they would just apply a blanket penalty which would affect everyone to some extent. Whereas I'm not the only one that's regained previously lost traffic with this latest update.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You've regained traffic and others have lost theirs and overall the HP traffic has stayed about the same. It's just an off the wall theory which I doubt is true, but your argument doesn't appear to dent it - if anything your argument seems to support it(!)
  
  I didn't expect anyone to take it as a serious theory to be honest!
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  How does it support it, though? That's what I'm struggling with. If Google wanted to keep HP's traffic down, I can't see why they would allow some sub-domains to do well, then randomly pick others to punish. That would require them to write some kind of special program just for HP, or manual intervention - and why bother, when they could simply slap the whole domain almost effortlessly.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  But do you honestly believe that your traffic went down because it was poor quality content, and then magically turned into quality content and so recovered?
  
  There is a degree of randomness, or at least, arbitrariness, as Marye alludes to.
  
  My theory that you refer to is idle crap. Or at least, way over-simplistic. The only part that is true is that Google want to limit the scope of what they see as "content farms".
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  No, it had nothing to do with quality as we understand it. I didn't rewrite a single Hub.
  
  I lost my traffic because there were certain features of my Hubs which triggered Panda penalties. In this case, it may have been too many ads "above the fold". Or it may have been the few Hubs that I deleted, which were on "saturated topics". Or maybe Google just tweaked Panda again to remove some of the unintended results. Whatever, when Panda was run this time, the problem features were no longer there, and my account recovered.
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  bgamallposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah, but watch out for the Aussie real estate market Marisa.
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  Jason Marovichposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Less stuff could be making it to published status on HP, with the new quality demands. Some stuff that's being stopped now could have ranked and drawn traffic.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hi both, I wounder about this stuff as well, especially since Goggle want's to be a social networking site as well nowadays and would love to be popular with the paying public. I have this idea of it repeating to its self, over and over, love me, love me, so I can follow you around all day with my spam like an unseen stalker.
  
  The biggest content farm on the whole planet is Goggle its self and virtually all of the information it stores, belongs to everybody else, and the maddest thing of all is, it is not even a search engine but is in actual fact a data base with a search engine attached to it, that sends spiders out to take other peoples information for it's own data base, so it can control the flow of that information for profit.
  
  At least Hubpages pay you for that content but only if Goggle lets them, I think they call it dictatorship in politics.
  
  Thanks, Gareth.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I know you're joking, but I also hope you're not just going to throw your hands up and give up.
  
  Unfortunately with over 660 Hubs, making changes is a daunting task - and since you'll have to make changes without knowing exactly what's wrong, that makes it even worse.
  
  However, for what it's worth, I have a couple of suggestions.
  
  One, I notice that you (like most of us) have set up your Hubs to get that top right-hand ad to display. I think that may be hurting you.
  
  I lost virtually all my traffic last year, just after Google announced they were penalizing sites with too many ads "above the fold". I edited all my Hubs and replaced that ad with a photo. My traffic has come back. Now, there's no proof that's cause and effect, but...
  
  The other thing I notice is that you have a LOT of Amazon and eBay capsules on some Hubs. Affiliate links are not a problem, but excessive affiliate links are. Most people find that Amazon and eBay products tacked on the end of a Hub rarely sell, anyway - so you could try removing those, it may make a difference and probably wouldn't lose you many sales.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hi Marisa Wright, "I know you're joking, but I also hope you're not just going to throw your hands up and give up." I am not giving anything up but I am only partly joking as Goggle is everything I said it is.
  
  "One, I notice that you (like most of us) have set up your Hubs to get that top right-hand ad to display. I think that may be hurting you."
  
  Thanks for this, I have edited a couple of hubs, so as to push one of the add blocks below the fold, so I can see what happens.
  
  I dumped all of my Amazon and eBay capsules after the first Panda hit and perhaps that is why I have only gained from Panda until now?
  
  Thanks, Gareth.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I doubt it. There's no evidence that Google dislikes advertising - it just dislikes excessive advertising.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  "I doubt it."
  
  That's reassuring, I will probably give it a try, I do have some new ideas, very cool, thanks.
  
  "it just dislikes excessive advertising."
  
  Almost as much as I do.
  
  Thanks for the feed back, useful stuff, appreciated, Gareth.
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nanospeckposted 12 years ago
Shorter n easier than G's story!
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Jenna Popeposted 12 years ago
As soon as I think I have a handle on all this SEO stuff, I am -- once again -- tossed back into a sea of confusion.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hey, Jenna Pope, thank you, Gareth.
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Tinskyposted 12 years ago
Gary thanks for those links and for drawing my attention to this, its a really interesting topic and while I've aways tried to promote my own hubs and blogs etc, I've never really taken a analytical approach before and I'm finding it fun! Thanks Again.

I've had a look at my analytics, not sure if my data is substantial enough.

On April 19 my visitors peaked, fell back to where it was on April 15 and then steadily began to rise again until it once more at the same level on April 24 where it peaked again then fell half way back to the April 15 mark (halfway not all the way back) and remained steady before beginning to go up again to same peak as of 4 May (yesterday for me).
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Marye Audetposted 12 years ago
I am not going to go through 775 hubs (including the unpublished ones) and try this and that hoping it will work. I actually, until recently, made about 300 a month on ebay and 400 or so on Amazon. I really can't see taking those of because of the possibility that they are hurting. i will wait and see. I have just signed a new client and I will be pulling in as much as my hubs lost. I won't have time to write here as much... but at least I will hit the status quo financially. As soon as something specific can be found I will rewrite or rework or do what I need to do. At this point I have 2100 hits a day on my hubs and, oddly enough, my little blog is getting about 10k page views. With the ads above the fold.
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  Will Apseposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I micromanage my 160 pages. It would be tough with 700.
  
  Besides, it doesn't sound as if your subdomain has been hit as a whole, so deletions probably wouldn't help.
  
  I reckon the recent Pandas have been about weighing and issuing a ranking factor for each page, as much they are about issuing the final Panda notice of complete extinction.
  
  That, of course, is speculation based only on my own experience.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I kinda thought that would be your reaction! It would be a huge job.
  
  I'm not saying remove all your Amazon or eBay capsules, because I'm sure you are earning from them. However it's been pretty well established that the capsules which make sales are the ones in the body of the Hub - people who add capsules on the end rarely make any sales. So you could probably lose those - which would cut your capsules in half - without losing too many sales.
  
  HubPages still has ads above the fold, even without the top right-hand one. I have ads above the fold on my sites, too. But the vitally important thing is the ratio of content to ads above the fold.
  
  If I'm logged out and look at a Hub with an ad in the top right-hand corner, plus the ads along the top of the Hub, plus the ad in the sidebar, it's definitely ad-heavy (unless it's a Hub in the new layout).
  
  However, I understand why you're not going to act on any of it - just explaining for others who may have smaller accounts, to whom it may be relevant.
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  Marye Audetposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I appreciate the advice. I may play around with it a little. One thing that I was reading did indicate that authors with too much variety in their subject matter did not come across as experts and would be penalized... that is something to think about as well. It's all just very frustrating.
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  wordscribe43posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I'm beginning to worry about that same thing, Marye. I found the timing of Paul E's new hub interesting. It got me thinking...
  
  http://pauledmondson.hubpages.com/video … dge-Online
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You're right, one thing that's often repeated is that Google wants "authority sites". That definitely applies if you have a blog or website. It's much, much less clear on HubPages, because we get the cross-linking with other people's Hubs, and that seems to make a difference - there are sub-domains on mixed topics that still get good traffic.
  
  If it got to the point where you had to choose a topic and stick to it on HubPages, then there'd be no point in writing here - because if you have a good topic, you'd be better off putting the material on your own site.
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  Jason Marovichposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Maybe you know the answer to this, Marisa, but does Google see/get wind of our Groupings? If so, that should suffice for authority measures?
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  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You would have thought so, but apparently not. In my experience, I had well over 500 hubs, many on similar topics and all of them interlinked in some way.
  I had interlinked groups, interlinked hubs on rss feeds of a common theme, and many hubs of well over 1000 words, with original text.
  
  I didn't have that many original photos and am working hard to change that, where possible, but did have a lot of associated youtube videos.
  
  Then I got a Google slap and no matter what I change, unpublish, or write new, my Google traffic has never returned.
  
  I think I am the only one left this happened to - even Randy's traffic is slowly returning. Mine is stagnant to falling.
  
  BUT, I have discovered that Google traffic is very easy to attract on a brand new account, especially if that account is focussed on a niche.
  
  So I have multiple accounts now, which is a nuisance when you think of a new hub idea, you have the added problem of deciding which account to put it on, where it might do best.
  
  To get back to your original question, groupings definitely work best when you have a popular hub, as you see others that are linked in that group getting referral traffic from your first hub.
  
  Whether Google sees them or not is another matter. They probably do but don't add weight to it.
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  Jason Marovichposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  We need weight to it.
  
  I'm not in a position to give you advice, because you've been penalized for such a long period of time. If you're looking to save the Izzy account, the only IDEA I can think of is to pare down. Get rid of the interlinking and let HP do it with their internal system.
  
  EDIT: Forgive me if you've already done this, I see you're speaking in past tense. How's your problem with discovering your material copied going? Are you still having an issue with that on the Izzy account?
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  IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, nearly everything I've written on this account has been copied, and the copied content ranks above mine.
  
  I have DMCA'd so many sites, and usually with a satisfactory outcome (but not always), then someone else copies it (sigh!).
  
  This will continue until Google decides to lift its embargo or whatever it is it has laid on this account.
  
  People will always steal content, but Google doesn't need to reward them for it.
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  bgamallposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Google is a dishonest thug for ranking copied material above the original. They are morally bankrupt and I hope they rot in hell.
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  Jason Marovichposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I'll be honest with you, Izzy. I don't think people that have been doing this for a long time put much stock in copyright violations. I have to say, I can't think of anything I'd put in a search engine algorithm that wouldn't be more important than stopping duplicate content.
  
  I sense many writers with hubs numbering in the hundreds have thrown their hands up, where duplicate content is concerned. I hope, too, that the internet changes, and that rights are more easily identifiable.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I'm pretty sure Google can't see groups per se. But groups do create a chain of links, ensuring that all our related Hubs are linked to each other - and Google can see those links.
  
  With the new layout, that may be less reliable, because now groups are used to create the "What Others are Reading" section, which seems to pick Hubs from the Group at random, instead of the previous and next in order. So it's possible some Hubs may miss out on being linked to.
  
  However, the important thing is that there are several Hubbers who write on a wide variety of topics, whose traffic is still very healthy. I can only assume Greekgeek's theory is right: that our interlinking with the rest of HubPages and inclusion in HubPages categories and tags is what makes the difference and allows us to be successful without a niche.
  
  Incidentally, when talking about focussing on a niche, I'm seeing a huge difference in the way that's discussed now. Formerly, the tighter the niche the better. If you could get an exact match domain for your keyword, that was fantastic!
  
  Now, most experts seem to recommend choosing a much broader niche, so you can create a really large volume of content and become an "authority" site. In fact, I'm currently wrestling with the idea that I should combine my separate ballet, belly dance, flamenco and ballroom sites into one big site on dance. I don't think I will, because my readers wouldn't like it - but Google probably would.
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  Jason Marovichposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I believe in Greekgeek's theory, but others have said I was wrong. There's no way to prove our theories, of course. But those that have written on Blogger and Wordpress have seen the trends in authority, and the highest earners on content sites, for the most part, are respected niche writers.
  
  I think HP has a model here, with the related articles linking, that will reward content, something Google should approve of. That is, if I land on your site, and don't find what I'm looking for, I'll respect what I've read enough to click on a correlating link.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hey Marisa Wright,
  
  "because my readers wouldn't like it - but Google probably would."
  
  Do you know this or are you making an educated guess?
  
  I like the idea of Branding and perhaps you might think a bit deeper, liking more than one type of dance is surely possible, interesting and possible. As a reader, what ever, would I prefer variety all under one property, as well as authority or would I enjoy clicking around? Multi disciplined professionals, duel qualification, brings advantage and gives fresh insight into subject areas, cross referencing, so putting your sites together creates an opportunity for this to happen.
  
  Branding, hope you don't mind me putting my ore in?
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I'm a dancer myself and I know what dancers are like - they live in silos and think dancers in other genres don't understand them.
  
  I'm just as bad, even though I've danced in several different genres over the years. If I'm looking for information on flamenco or want to buy a costume, I'll trust a specialist flamenco site way, way above a generalist dance site. Even if the dance site claims to have experts in each style.
  
  Not at all, I appreciate your input. I'm still quite undecided about it all!
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yes I was wondering, as my mum used to train dancers and she stole bits from everywhere if I remember correctly, especially when it came to costumes and props. So I was just wondering if it was all like that, I trust you to know more than I about it.
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kelleywardposted 12 years ago
I think that is very frustrating that authors with variety are possibly being penalized. I guess that means it would be better to write for another site in order to stay within one area of expertise.Thanks for sharing this.
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rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago
I think there's a lot of truth in that one line. Perhaps it is a contributing factor to those that have hundreds/thousands of hubs on various topics taking a huge hit.
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  tapasrecipeposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hitler's Reaction to the recent Google Penguin update (04-24-2012)
  not sure if i can post a link here or not, but i thought you guys needed cheering up http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=ES&v=0St9B1kmJ2g
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  bgamallposted 12 years agoin reply to this
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  +1
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rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago
I saw something similar last year, it looks like it was updated.
I had to google wso's.
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PaulGoodman67posted 12 years ago
I personally don't want to go much above 200 hubs in my account. Because it is unwieldy to edit lots of hubs and it has become clear that Google plans to keep adjusting its algo. I might well open another HP account at some point which is entirely Amazon/eBay free, but I have other projects to take care of first.
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Uninvited Writerposted 12 years ago
Of course, since I have been posting here my traffic was really bad last week.
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Sally's Troveposted 12 years ago
I'm disgusted with HP...from 1400 views per day in December to less than 300 over the last two months. I swear, I didn't do anything wrong (bad)! LOL...joke's on me thinking this was a good place to put so much effort into.
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  ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I'm curious, were your 1400 views per day in December spread over many Hubs or were there a few that were getting the majority of the traffic? If there were a few, had any of those Hubs gone viral. For example, were you getting a lot of traffic from stumbleupon or facebook, etc? When I have increased traffic from those types of sources it does not necessarily last.
  
  Or if most of the traffic was from a few Hubs have you checked for copied content on the Web? Each time I have experienced a loss in Google traffic I discover that one of my Hubs that is my biggest traffic-getter has been copied. I file a complaint with the offender and then traffic usually recovers fairly quickly after the matter has been resolved. This has occurred three or four times now with this one Hub.
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  Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  This has been a progression of declining traffic, overall. It's got nothing to do with scraped content, and it's got nothing to do with viral traffic spiraling down. My overall traffic was on the rise from February of last year (Panda) until January of this year. Now, it's all in the tank.
  
  Thanks for your suggestions, but it seems that something other than scraping or spiraling down from viral (none of my hubs has ever gone viral) is involved. This was just consistent, good traffic, now tanked.
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psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago
I am not sure what you expected HP to do about Google changing their algorithm.
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  Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I didn't say I expected HP to do anything. Just that I wasn't pleased with my experience here as that experience relates to traffic.
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Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years ago
I noticed my traffic tanked last week. It plummeted 67% I did quite well in the beginning of April but then the last week of April it all went to sh&^

How do we increase our traffic with google screwing around with its algorithm? Or do we just have to wait it out and hope the traffic comes back.
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  Jason Marovichposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I don't see the panic everyone else sees, I see many people penalized that will have that penalty lifted, so long as they've complied with Google's TOS.
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kimberlyslyricsposted 12 years ago
:
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hi kimberlyslyrics, ""Tinskyposted 36 hours ago" I've never really taken a analytical approach before and I'm finding it fun! Thanks Again."
  
  I don't need to say anything, thanks, Gareth.
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bgamallposted 12 years ago
It may not hurt to put a poll or picture in place of the first set of ads. I don't know if that is a long term solution but it appears to be what google wants.
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You're saying start each hub with a lead photo? I actually did that on a couple of my hubs and saw a slight rise in traffic on that hub yest.
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  bgamallposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah, or maybe a poll across from the initial content.
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Ok, I'm doing an experiment. I changed a couple of my hubs to have lead images, and I left some the way they were. Cross your fingers. Interestingly, my traffic on another site I write for has significantly increased which I thought was bizarre since I write about the same topics on both hubpages and the other site.
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charliegrumplesposted 12 years ago
a lot of my hubs have the image near the bottom so I've moved half a dozen to the top to see what happens .. fingers crossed
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Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years ago
I noticed a slight increase in my traffic, but it's all coming from hubpages. Maybe .5% has come from google. It took me 5 months to get my hubs ranked to the point where most of the traffic was coming from google. Am I really going to have to wait another 5 months..? Damn you google!!!!
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Sally's Troveposted 12 years ago
We're all shooting in the dark about this drop in traffic. We can scamper to make changes to our existing hubs, thinking that moving images to the top of a hub might do some good (that's the current bandwagon to jump on). That's an interesting exercise...let's add to that, constructing hubs as videos and adding a hundred words or so to those video hubs (in complete contradiction to prior advice from HP about writing hubs of 800 words or more)...evergreen content, long-tail keywords...there's something happening here that doesn't make sense to the way we've been writing on HP.

Who knows what the cause of drop in traffic is?
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  This is a good summary about Penguin
  
  http://searchengineland.com/google-talk … seo-120463
  
  My theory is that the current drop was due to the Panda update on 19 April - Both HP Quantcast and my own traffic started to plunge after that date. I also think we have been hit by Penguin - via a possible downgrading of links between subs on HP. I also think that the 'Great Never-ending Experiment' has affected traffic in Fashion, Tech and Food. But I'm waiting until the next Google update to see what happens before drastic changes.
  
  There maybe a sign of bounce back???
  
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  Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Again, speculation, although good speculation on your part. We can dance around this until Hell freezes over.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I have made changes to most of my pages by pushing images and videos to the top, so as to push the right hand, ad block down the page but also to put some interaction at the top of the page.
  
  Interaction will not do any page harm as far as I can tell and I put lots of images on my pages, if I can, that first image creates a slide show and a video is a video, people seem to like them, so will often play them. This creates interaction, if people use them, then Goggle will see that, as a positive, as people will not be bouncing off the page with no interaction. I only have 28 hubs so it is not hard for me to do this but some people have hundreds or thousands and that is not going to be a picnic for them.
  
  I am not waiting for any bounce back because I don't have to and I try to build pages for people, so if they can interact then that's what I want, plus I don't like seeing three ads when I land on my pages, it looks awful to me.
  
  I am not shooting in the dark, I am experimenting but not that it will do me much good because Panda is site wide, if there is too much crap on Hubpages then we will all go together, a, ha.
  
  Penguin is targeting over optimization, highly targeted links as well as interlinking, plus if you devalue links then those links have a knock on effect all the way down the chain.
  
  So I predict the next up date will make matters worse, not better, as many seem to think but I hope I am wrong.
  
  Thanks, Gareth.
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  Howard S.posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  This seems to be the common experience among Hubbers. Mine is completely opposite. Penguin restored what Panda took, plus about 50%. Panda hit me several times, and after the last time, January 11, I made no changes to my hubs until after I saw the rebound caused by Penguin.
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paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago
Paradigmsearch busily uses chaos theory to calculate tonight's lottery numbers.

Backup plan: Paradigmsearch busily continues work on new porn hub; grand opening next week.
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paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago
btw, in the spirit of sharing info. My traffic was better this week than last week.
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  Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I love/hate you.
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  paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  
  In the interests of full disclosure, neither week was any sort of indication that I'll be buying a Corvette any time soon.
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ktrappposted 12 years ago
Great post Gareth. It sounds like we're on the same page of the playbook, so to speak. I just wrote a hub about so much of what you just wrote and really try to put it all in practice on each of my hubs. Like you said, it certainly is difficult for people with hundreds of hubs to make changes, but sometimes small changes can make a big impact.
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  nakmeisterposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  My hub traffic has increased significantly over the last few weeks. This is partly because I've been more active, publishing new hubs, and because I've got a seasonal hub doing very well right now, but that by no means explains all the increase. The last few days I've been getting great google traffic on some random hubs.
  
  I'm not sure entirely what I'm doing right, but the following things spring to mind:
  
  I don't tend to use backlinks for most of my hubs (though generally link to hubpage profile on various websites) on social bookmarking sites etc. Certainly no spammy backlinks, apart from a handful of really early hubs.
  
  Quite a few of my hubs are a bit longer than average, 750-1000 words.
  
  If I have a photo, it's usually above the fold at the top of the page so adverts are lower down (contrary to popular wisdom on here that this limits your earnings).
  
  Most of my hubs are random, i.e. I write what I fancy and don't particularly do keyword research to try and find a high traffic hub. This is mainly because I'm quite poor at it - when I've tried to write what I think will be high traffic hubs, they have ended up being my worst performing.
  
  I mostly follow Google's advice 'pretend that we don't exist'. I write what I'm interested in writing, or what I think will be of interest to others and don't do much optimising of my hubs. Maybe that's why I'm not currently being penalised.
  
  And in the interests of full disclosure, I won't be buying a Corvette anytime soon either, maybe just a few extra coffees...
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hi nakmeister,
  
  "I don't tend to use back links for most of my hubs (though generally link to hubpage profile on various websites) on social bookmarking sites etc. Certainly no spammy back links, apart from a handful of really early hubs."
  
  This is interesting I never thought of it my self.
  
  Thanks, Gareth.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hi ktrapp, "but sometimes small changes can make a big impact." Yes but that is a two sided coin as well.
  
  In the interests of full disclosure, I can't drive and don't want to.
  
  Thanks, Gareth.
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  ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, the pendulum swings both ways. The one type of change that I like to make when necessary is to add or change some text based on search queries that I see in Analytics. At least it's not a shot in the dark, and almost always has had a very positive outcome. I highly recommend this analytical approach to anyone reading.
  
  I am lucky enough to have a background in web design, so when I started writing hubs I already had a solid base of knowledge about what to do SEO-wise, and honestly I care about how a site "looks and feels" so I also couldn't help but stand back and look at my work from a reader's perspective.
  
  For example, when I first joined HP I took a good hard look at some of the work and features of the success story hubs. I noticed quite a few with the ads placed at the top. Personally, I think it looks horrible and as a user it did not appeal to me, so I opted to put my own image in its place. (But in all fairness, I never used just the adsense program where I was trying to get clicks, but even so I don't think I could sacrifice user experience for an ad in that position.)
  
  Anyway - I'm rambling on, but my point is that it is best to write and layout any website with the user in mind plus use a few other seo techniques (keyword at front of title, in url, a few times in text, image captions,...), and finally make adjustments after analyzing actual search queries. That formula has served me quite well.
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  Howard S.posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  So would I if I looked like you! Sorry, I just couldn't resist; you left yourself open for that. In all fairness, and as a note to ktrapp's non-followers, she has never used her avatar as the first image in a hub.
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  ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hmmmmm Howard. I think only a linguist could come up with that comment! I had to read it a couple times to figure out what you meant or how I mangled up the English language. Got it.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Many readers, including myself, would be perfectly happy to visit a website without any ads at all!
  
  The Google Adsense website highlights top left, top right, top, and bottom of the page as the best place to put ads, so I hope they clarify what they want.
  
  I think what I am getting at is that there has to be a balance between reader experience and making some money. The reader doesn't necessarilly need any ads, but the website owner wants readers to see them.
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  ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  There definitely is a balance between the reader and making money. The Google Adsense heat map that I believe you are referring to shows ideal positioning for ads. Google says to use it as a guideline and put readers first. Unfortunately, a lot of people think they should fill all "hot" spots up with ads.
  
  The Google support page about this is definitely worth reading:
  http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/a … er=1354747
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  The new layout changes things completely (if you change things take this into account). Two of the major, mostly graphic, ads that used to be in the right column are gone. These ads used to pay for impressions as well as clicks. This redesign already reduces the number of ads above the fold to the one above the title!!!! Authors can opt to have another ad above the fold as shown below.
  
  Reading the article it says that ads above the fold are move effective. I have no data, but I believe that the ad below the title that squeezes the text around it is likely to be the most effective ad on the page (see the image below made using the Google tool). I also believe that having text above the fold is important. Its a trade-off but consider the new design and the way it changes the ads. I am unsure how the googlebot judges user satisfaction. I find it very hard to believe that Google would penalise a page where the user left early because they clicked an adsense ad!!!
  
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  janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  What Google doesn't tell us!
  Ever since Google starting putting ads on pages its SERPS have been compromised => Make money versus deliver quality results
  Google tracks payments from individual webpages.
  This implies that to make more money Google will want to put pages that make money high up in the SERPS.
  This is probably why a search for 'Paypal France' had so many pages for 'Paypal France Viagra in the SERPS - since fixed.
  So while Google tells us to make high quality pages that readers get engaged in, these pages won't make the most money.
  So the SERPS are a compromise between quality and making money (adsense clicks or likelihood of clicks that pay more).
  The point is that pages have to be designed to make Google money, otherwise they won't appear high up in the SERPS.
  
  The notion that Google will display high quality pages with ads buried way down the page because Google wants to satiate the user is a myth.
  
  Remember that Google is essentially a monopoly.
  So I say => have quality pages with two adsense ads above the fold.
  Just my opinion.
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  Gareth Pritchardposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  PaulGoodman67,
  
  "I think what I am getting at is that there has to be a balance between reader experience and making some money. The reader doesn't necessarilly need any ads, but the website owner wants readers to see them."
  
  Not in my book, if I see something I want, I buy it and if it is on the page I am looking at, all the better but I will always look for the best deal.
  
  I am a power user, so I am told, somebody said to me that nobody has over a hundred tabs open in three different browsers. I don't know about that but I do and proxy's.
  
  I think visual ads add some spice to a page, especially when its text heavy, it brakes up the visual repetitiveness of the written word, when I walk into a room full of strangers I expect to see variety and I always make judgments by first impressions, a page full of text does not enthrall me but images do, color does, peoples faces do but text, no.
  
  Am I odd?
  
  Goggle likes its ads above the fold but I don't like more than two and when I view my pages not signed into Hubpages in Internet Explorer I see an ad above the page, that looks like it is on the background, and Hubpages might be getting prepared for whole background ads.
  
  Goggle might be in on it too, anyway, counting all of the ads with the ad block in the text and the one in the side bar it makes 3 ads.
  
  I don't like it from a pure aesthetic point of view, twos company, threes a crowd.
  
  Do you know what, I don't expect to get any more page views and if Goggle measures interaction, then it counts ads in that as well as videos, slide shows and quizzes but like janderson99 is saying, they very likely favor there own ads to be the interaction.
  
  Hi janderson99,
  
  If one on those ads move, disappear and I am left with one ad it will take me about 20 mins to move them back and I will still win the same as everybody else even if I have to wait another month for the next update.
  
  Ok so if the Panda want's to eat my sox, then it can do and penguins smell really bad, anyway it's a good point, thanks for making it.
  
  Gareth.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  In expectation of terminating my account with hub pages, I went through every one of my 92 articles yesterday and deleted ALL links, videos, polls and advertising capsules. I'm going to let it all sit for a few weeks to see if anything good comes of it. If not, I'm done here. The bad news is that I haven't even reached my first payout and if I leave, I won't even be able to get the small amount of money I've earned so far. This is like rubbing salt in the wound...and just waiting for the amount to go up is futile, since nobody is reading anyhow!
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  relacheposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  According to the data I've been collecting over the last four years or so, it takes the average Hub author between nine months and a year and a half to make their first payout. My take on all this is that you are being too impatient (your Hubs are only just starting to mature) and the changes you've just made to your Hubs is just shooting yourself in the foot (you removed all the content enrichment). You also have to recognize that in order to make money, you need Hubs that engage people, not just entertain them. Which is another way of saying that humor topics don't pay.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  +1.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Relache: I would agree with you except for the fact that Google just undid all of my hard work, and I cannot see where they are going to change their minds. I have written many hubs on serious topics, but those got whacked as well. I know that humor and poetry don't pay, but I enjoy writing those topics just for stress relief. At the rate I was going, I would have made payout in about 3 more months...but that ended three days ago. I have done a lot of experimenting and have had some very good feedback from readers, but when people can't find you on Google, what's the point of writing? I was never in this for the money, but I was in it for the reads, the comments, etc. It appears that's gone...so unless you know something I don't, I will probably be gone too in about another month. By the way, I did leave photos on my hubs, but that's all. If you could see my page view counts now, you would see that nothing at all is coming in from Google. That's a hard pill to swallow.
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  relacheposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Last year, I saw a lot of my hard work undone in about a week by Google's Panda and spent about six months working to get it back. Things can come undone very quickly online and take time to build back up. When Squidoo got Google slapped for spam in the summer of 2007, it took them two years to recover, and I saw almost no change to my lenses there from Panda.
  
  If you want a quick fix, it's not going to happen. But if you are willing to take the time, traffic will come back.
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  jenuboukaposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Hmmmm....I got my first payout in less than four months. could it be because of the topic?
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  rebekahELLEposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  I can imagine it must be hard to see no google views, but I wouldn't give up already. It sounds like you removed what google (searchers) likes to see in articles, relevant links, videos and polls. I looked at one of your hubs about living in RV's and found it very informative and well-written. Why not include a video and a couple of related images. I didn't see the connection with the one image you had about rivers with the 3 women. Perhaps place a great shot of the inside of an RV, or an RV parked at a nice location, at the top or top right. I try to think about what a viewer would expect to see after landing on their search result. Don't give up, it could turn around for you.
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heleineomanposted 12 years ago
the truth is, Google will never tell us what they're really doing and what's happening. they're great minded people.
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  PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Yes. I am very skeptical of most conspiracy theories. But Google really are a secret society that run the world! lol
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  Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Google's part of the illuminati, didn't you know that? lol just kidding.
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kelleywardposted 12 years ago
Relache thanks for sharing your data on how long it typically takes a hubber to get recognized by search engines! This helps me have more realistic expectations!
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago
It took me 9 months to my first payout, so according to Relache and her study, I am your "average" Hub author. Next month will be my first year anniversary with HubPages. I have 200+ hubs in, and I don't plan on bailing from HubPages anytime soon. I still have Hubs that I'm working on. I still have other sites to explore. I still have plenty to learn about the ins and outs of online writing. I continue to write here because I want to write. If online money is so important to you, and you aren't willing to stick around to see how your account does, that's your call. I had plenty of times to quit writing for this site, but didn't. Writing has its ups, downs and major disappointments. So what? If you do online work, expect it to pay the bills and instantly be rewarded with loads of money, good luck with that. I'm done with my own pissing and moaning over things I cannot control. Que sera, sera, HubPages. Back to the writing as usual.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Arlene: If this is directed at me, TT2, apparently you have misunderstood what I'm saying. This isn't about the money per se...it's about being made to feel that you're doing a great job, and then suddenly having the rug pulled out from under every single one of your articles, no matter the topic. You said you've had plenty of disappointments? When was the last time you got NO page views whatsoever from Google? That's more than a disappointment, that's Google telling me they've changed the rules and my work is no longer acceptable to them.
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago
Hey, TimeTraveler2: No, I am not aiming this at you. When I write my Hubs, the emphasis is always on the YOU.

It's just that all of a sudden, I see people wanting to bail HubPages for some reason. In your case, I find it a shame that you want to bail and have already made some decisions to partially deactivate your Hubs when you have already built a base here. But, it looks like you've already made up your mind and given up.

Okay, so my story's a lot different from most of the writers here. I am retired. I have a pension to fall back on so I really don't need the online pennies. Hell, I can write into the night. Which, I do. I have a background in journalism and creative writing since the 70s. I have collected magazine rejection slips since the age of 12. And blah, blah, blah. At the same time, my writing has put me through college so I have not had to deal with student loans. I have earned awards, which included money, scholarships, medals, certificates, etc. What you don't seem to understand is that writing takes hard work. You can bleed all over a page and come up with NOTHING. But the rewards of writing outweigh anything you can imagine. I know. I've experienced this again and again and again.

I don't know how long you've been writing, but I find it sad that you are allowing the Google gods dictate to you that your writing is not acceptable. If you buy this, then what are you going to do the next time someone criticizes your writing? Or you don't get the attention you want? The applause that you expect? GIVE UP???

As far as the writing goes, I write because I want to write, and I don't give a rat's ass what some critic is going to tell me. The same goes with Google. To hell if I'm going to fall apart because I don't get the damn page views. I'm not bowing to the Google gods. I knew that the minute I started here.

Disappointment? Haven't you figured out that a very good bulk of writing involves disappointment? You haven't seen what I've gone through all of these years, but I continued to plug away. I bounced back. And that's long before Google was established!

In the eleven months I've been here, I've observed that people are so anal about their stats that they seem to forget what a pure joy it is to write.

Jeez. And you've only been in four months??? I turn 54 at the end of this month, and I've been writing since I could hold a pencil! If you are expecting a kind word or a pat on the head for everything you write, I've got news for you!!!

It ain't happening.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Arlene V. Poma: You obviously have a lot more experience with this than I do...and I haven't totally given up yet. It isn't that I care if Google "approves", etc....it's that if people can't find my work so they can read it, I might as well sit home and just write a little journal for my own pleasure. I am 69 years old and don't need Hub money...plenty of pensions, etc. as with you. I don't expect kind words or pats on the head for what I write, but I would like for people to be able to read my work if they want to. I am in a "wait and see" mode right now. If views start coming back, I'll readjust and continue on. Time will tell....and by the way, I very much appreciate the "butt kicking" you are giving me LOL!!!
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  jenuboukaposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  You rock Arlene. I am still having my pity party though about the abrupt format changes in the main niche I write. And what is up with the extended "pending" earnings since the 7th? I am concerned.
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago
Good for you, TT2!!! There are other ways to market your writing. Don't stick to one place. With these turn of events at HubPages, I've gone back to seriously working on my novel and getting ideas for query letters (magazines). I have looked into other online sites, but don't want to put in anymore time into online because online has never been my cup of tea. Not with the background that I have. So this is a struggle in itself--not to have a real live editor nearby. People will find your work if you put it out there. Online is certainly not the only way to reach people. When I reach my year's anniversary on HubPages next month, I'll make my decision about what I'm going to do next. All these changes here could be a sign for me to move on as a writer. I left one online site for this one, and I can surely do it again if I please. Until then, I will carry on as usual. Yeah, I do kick butt. But that's my passion for writing that's doing the talking.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Arlene: I wrote for another online site also prior to coming to Hub Pages. They paid by page views, and interestingly, my page views quadrupled when I came here...which tells me they were being less than honest with payouts. They also totally changed the way they would accept submissions, and that ended it for me. It's been much better here and what's going on right now isn't hub pages fault. However, you are right about one thing...when a site starts making tons of changes, that's not a good sign. It's even possible that what happened to me is partially the fault of the hub pages changes. Who knows? That's why I'm "waiting and seeing".
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago
It all comes down to what you want, Time Traveler. Everything in life goes up and down. To be honest with you, I didn't believe I'd last this long on HubPages. But my goal was to reach payout. It took me nine months, and it was equal the time to carry and have a baby. But get this: I took a part-time writing job for 2 week's work, and it paid me $750. Can you see the big difference? I've got 200+ Hubs here. They were written for HubPages, and they will be staying at HubPages--no matter what. I'm not jumping ship at the moment, but I stuck to my writing goal and made payout. So since I made my goal, I can set other ones. That former site? I have not made a dime off of them since, but I did break down my account to nothing. I have no crystal ball when it comes to how things will go here. But always keep your options open. To wait and see? I'm doing the same thing.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Arlene: You are spot on with your attitude and views. I have a part time jewelry business that allows me, some days, to net $2,000 in a day, so everything is relative. I left 82 articles on my other site and I earn small residuals every so often...but the way it's going here, I doubt I'll see anything because I got cut off a few months short of making payout...and if you leave, they keep it. If I stay, they'll still keep it if nothing changes. We'll just have to give it some time.
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Arlene V. Pomaposted 12 years ago
Hey, Jenubouka! I hear you!!! How's the project going??? You are so lucky to have a nice distraction right now, so I hope you are going gangbusters with your word count. I've been re-mapping my novel and looking at other projects. Catching up on correspondence. I did get a chance to see this new recipe layout, and I do agree with you. All the white space and no ads takes away your attention, and it is wasteful. I didn't really catch it until I saw a recent recipe. Ugh! My "pay" is also been on hold and has been for days, but I did make payout. I laugh at myself because I figured I was getting slapped by a Panda or a Penguin. What next? You are my online hero, so I am trying to keep up. Next thing you know, I'll be telling you that I'm being slapped by a Pony or a Pigeon. Jeez. How creative can you be when you name these buzzards???
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  jenuboukaposted 12 years agoin reply to this
  Oh my gosh, You are making me laugh my ass off Arlene! Yeah, name it what you will, it still is retarded and makes no sense.
  i am writing my ass off, well minus the last two days....I realize I have been working everyday for the past year and decided (thanks to your hub) to take a few days off and tend to the domestic duties.
  
  Thank you for the compliment, I try. I say go with what you know and just thrive in telling others and the money will follow. Show others that you are have a good time with what you know and they will be more inclined to "follow"
  
  Yeah, the earnings have been "pending" since the 7th of this month I wonder what is going on with it. Weird......
  reply report

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