Huge drop in page views over the past seven days.
I am experiencing an overall average off 66 percent less page views per day, for seven days versus a week previous and for the past two months.
Such a huge drop in page views makes me think that Google has tuned up something again. I do know that I don't have the time and energy to keep trying to tweak to please Google. What was good yesterday, as long is it is not spam or with paid backlinks and such, should be good today.
I have been on HubPages for a little over five months. I have had to tweak and tweak and tweak the hubs I have up with each Google burp. To me it does not make sense and takes far too much effort and time. By that I mean you try to find out what Google wants this time, go and check all 79 hubs, tweak them, then wait a few weeks or a month to see if the ranking comes back, and then if you see it starting to come back, bang, Google burps again and you have to start all over again.
Maybe it is just me being frustrated, but I feel that a article or hub that ranks at one point rather highly should not be brought down by these burps if there is nothing wrong with them. My main hub dropped simply because after June 1st, 20 to 30 other sites copied the concept and most of the title. Google is ranking them higher simply because the copied title and content is on a higher rated site, like "official" news sites and such. So much for having a number one on Google drop right off the page.
Edit: I think I need a break from HubPages and writing.
I don't find this to be true at all! Where did you get this info?
I never expected my fiction to garner views and these aren't the one which have been affected. My how-to hubs have always garnered the most traffic and earnings with most of them not being in the first person at all. So much for your theory!
The majority of my hubs are not creative writing nor written in the first person.
Once again, this is not one of my high traffic hubs and has never been. I'm certainly not going to point out those which are to you. You may be correct on some very personal hubs, but not all of them fit into your theory.
If this were the case, no articles which gave personal experience would ever get searched by Google or other search engines. Can you say this is indeed the case?
I find it difficult to take advice from someone who has been here over 2 years and haven't reached 100K views yet. What's your excuse if you know what Google is looking for?
There is no sure fire formula for a successful hub, in my opinion. Some readers prefer a personal touch while others are after raw info and may not care where or how it is provided by the writer. Personally, real life experience is both informational and interesting if it is written well. Just the viewpoint of someone who searches, reads, and writes occasionally and what I like. I doubt everyone has the same preferences or all articles would be similar in style. Hey Holle!
I think many of us write to please ourselves along with articles meant to provide other more non-personal info for earnings and traffic. This guy has no more clue about what actually causes lost traffic here than anyone else lately. I'm weary of all of the "experts" chiming in with useless advice. No one, including HP staff, seems to have a clue what's happening to this site.
I will respond just this once, to the "I" subject matter. First of all I am a teacher, a qualified spiritual teacher, a spiritual writer and have been for decades. What folks have asked of me is for my "personal" views and experiences to gain insight from one who "may" have garnered a "little" wisdom on this roadway called life.
The "I" factor has never been a problem before in any of my writings here and especially elsewhere. My views seem to be "I" unrelated, that is the drop in views. Not all of my material is "I" centered.
I would have to agree however, that for someone to have been here as long as you with under 100K views, where is all this wonderful insight and knowledge in reference to you receiving this abundance of views on your material?
I have referenced my spiritual material. I write reviews here and elsewhere. Rather hard to not use "I" in a review.
My drops have been straight across the board from hub one to hub seventy nine. The "I's" and the non-"I's". So that would discredit this being the sole or main reason for my views to drop. Plus, when a hub brings in well over 1,000 views a day for weeks with the "I" factor in it, and then plummets to 300 views a day consistently, well, I don't that that would be a fair "I" representation.
By the way, beings you have read all of my 79 hubs, as you reference "all" of my hubs seemingly are centered on "I", I do thank you for the reads. What a time consuming and considerate thing to do before making such a judgmental response to my forum post. What? Your posts?
Kind of makes me think of stores that have unreliable pricing strategies
low one week then high the next. Actions of others becomes untrustworthy 
like somebody inebriated. I hear you Dale, you're not alone we just have to wait it out, after all, we're only catching a ride on their tide I feel HP--among other such content farms--is being targeted for destruction by the big G. And like others here, I've lost any confidence in HP to do anything to prevent it. I'll give it a bit before I start moving all of my best hubs, though. It's too late to get them solidly established elsewhere before my peak earning season is over. I should have left back in August when I had my account decimated overnight. Live and learn!
I think a writer revealing they're 'human' is a great touch for articles. Even the techy big wigs will include their own thoughts and opinions, on their topics
don't know about that attitude of disrespect for SWAHM's
I believe what Izzy, CMHypno, and I went through earlier was merely a taste of things to come for HP. Since then many of the touted success stories have taken a fall too. So much for the advice those of us hit early were given by the know-it-alls on these forums. My motto is still Time Wounds All Heels!
Good one bro!!
Merely another way to express one's hope for karma, Alastar
I cannot say, Alastar. I don't link or backlink very much at all, and my traffic is less than 25% of what is was last August. Perhaps too many links may be a problem for some, but not for me. Like everyone else here, I have no clue what to expect anymore or what to do to satisfy Google. It looks bad now.
Yea, kinda like asking why the author score is always at it's lowest when the views and average hub score are at their highest. Wheres the balance in that
After awhile you learn not to expect things to make sense here. I used to make pretty fair money for having fun on HP. Now it's turned into something completely different and I seldom write anything strictly for the earnings. I still enjoy playing around with my fiction, though. Besides, that was the reason I began writing in the first place. I have no interest in changing things all of the time. Let the suckers have at it. I'll just write as I please!
An interesting thought Alastar, about the links to my various online places. But those links are on the profile only and have been there for at least four months, when my views were very high. My drop, this time, that is drastic, has been over the past few weeks with the worst in the past few days. However, I am not beyond dropping the links on the profile, lol. I am open to all ideas and suggestions that are reasonable.
Oh no! I keep using the "I" thing!Dale this may not have any bearing either but do you know your page rank number with google?
Haha nice motto
I'm just glad that its happening before I actually began writing here seriously. All these hubs I wrote were during University days, got a 3 month vacation and thought of writing maybe one a day (in the afternoons), but now I won't. Will try writing on Wiz... As they say never put all eggs in one basket - even if you're just carrying them for fun Yep, even though I've been here over three years I never had the desire to go all out writng hubs because of my experience on similar sites. They seem to peak out at around 4 years or so with it taking another year or so for them to start fading away.
I hope this isn't the case here, but the signs do seem familiar to me. Perhaps things will level off soon and I will be proven wrong. I hope so, especially for those who have really put a lot of time and efforts into hundreds or perhaps even over a thousand hubs. But at least they can put them elsewhere if they so choose, unlike on some other venues I've written on.
By the way, Randy, I have been following your input and do appreciate your insight and the way you tend to lift spirits.
A wonderful attribute of yours. HA! Some apparently don't think so, Dale. Especially the hall monitors!
Hall monitors are usually people who don't know their job
So nothing to worry. Actual people like hearing what you have to say.Or are simply there to quell dissent, Lobo. I've seen this done on almost every site I've written on. They always have an agenda and these guys are no different.
Hmm... Too bad this is all new to me
I have had the same experience. After having consistent and steep rise in traffic, even through the last 2 algo changes, I have seen my hub views drop about 50% since hitting an all-time high on June 2. I'm used to some traffic fluctuation and a natural dip over weekends, but this is different.
I'm putting a link to the hub I had written about the rise, and now the drop. If anyone has a problem and somehow thinks it's self promo, I'll remove it, but just in case it's useful. It's just meant to share information.
Before this, my 'best' hub on anesthesia got nearly 1000 views per day some days. That one, alone, has dumped several hundred views a day.
I don't backlink, I don't sell anything... I write content about anesthesia from a qualified professional's point of view. I had only recently started publishing here again. What you can't see on the second chart yet is that line actually continues to under 800 views per day. Sad
http://tahoedoc.hubpages.com/hub/Hub-Vi … ExperienceSome may notice I posted 79 hubs at the beginning of this post, however, I have since unpublished one and moved it elsewhere. So now it is 78.
My traffic dropped over 80% the other day. Very discouraging... I WAS going to stick it out, but now I'm not so sure. Why, you ask? Well, I REALLY don't like the fact HP is now advertising how many views our hubs have received. I have to draw the line somewhere.
I'm sad, too because I love it here.I'm sure with time everything should settle down. As I type this my traffic is falling even further and seems to be 50% of yesterday!! yesterday was already 70% lower than usual
Falling to the 200 mark at present.Sounds familiar, Lobo. Mine dropped from around 1600 views to barely 200, literally overnight in August. It still hasn't regained much traffic since then. It seems we can only depend on a short time at the top with no guarantee google will honor the original article unless we prove to them we wrote it. You'd figure they had the means to tell this already.
Too bad they aren't monetarily penalized for promoting plagiarized content over the original because it would get their attention a bit more than it does now.
An exercise in futility. Work harder for less traffic? No thanks! It may get worse and probably will.
I am not at the point of not trying, but certainly time to stop, look and listen.
It's funny you should use "stop, look and listen". I still have some traffic (knock on wood), but it's down considerably. I used to think of myself as "being in a yellow light mode" (proceed with caution). These days, I'm not in a "Stop light mode", but I am kind of in a "Stop-sign mode" (which still leaves moving forward to my discretion, but which certainly is no "green light mode". Most recently, I've kind of gotten out of the car and ventured off into the woods, to see what I could see.
I don't know.. There's not a lot of money-making in the woods, but it's been kind of nice. It is wonderful to simply get out into nature and enjoy oneself, relax and get away from the computer/internet world!
I think I need to remember to do that more often myself. True, there is not many money trees growing out there in the woods, but a lot of things have no dollar value. Thanks for the reminder!I was actually speaking metaphorically. (I hate the real woods, but I like the idea of them (for other people).
) I pretty much meant getting away from the whole traffic/earnings thing and just writing whatever/however the heck I feel like writing out there in Internet No Man's Land, or else offline completely. Lol, you had me picturing you wandering through the woods in a mental relaxation state of mind.
But true in what you reference, the simply getting away from it all at times.No... I'm as driven and horribly stressed out and attached to the computer screen as ever - worse, probably.
(Just happy to have, at least temporarily, taken a rest from the idea of hoping to make as much money in my spare time as I did in the past.) Hmmm. Maybe I ought to load on some mosquito repellant and see if, maybe, I like the real woods any more these days. Nah.... I don't. Lol, Lisa. I have other ways online that do help my overall income. I have hooked up with a great contractor on Odesk. About five to seven hours a day, and I make a third of my "regular job" salary with them.
However, it took several years to finally land a job like that and hopefully it will continue to hold up. At least it is a guaranteed weekly income addition based solely upon my performance with no Google involved, lol!I love the woods! There's no one there to bother me and I always see a few wild animals. I mean real ones, not the kind on the forums!
Same here, I haven't stopped trying. Just branching out a bit. You're very optimistic and that's nice
Would that our trying makes a difference. Some things are out of our control. Not saying give up, but there is a point of realizing things will never go back to what they were. Reality is often a cruel companion.
ha ha ha, we're in an elite group of spammers! YES!!
whoooppeeee.
Now, I'm trying to figure out if my drop is mostly due to my most successful hub which got a majority of my traffic (and has definitely seen a HUGE drop) or if all hubs are affected.
I did find one obscure site that has copied part of that hub. It wasn't easy to find, so I don't know how significant it is.
Here's their site if anyone wants to check there specifically for their stuff.
http://createwebsitebook.com/common-ane … y/#more-31
Also, is our info considered stolen if someone copied it to use as an answer on Yahoo Answers, but left a link to our hub? I don't know if that's still copied. I would guess yes, because the text shows up there-was clearly copied and pasted, it's not JUST the link
This is the description of this forum thread, straight from the main forum page:
Puzzled by traffic-related irregularities in your account? Please report it in this staff-monitored forum.
So that informs me that individual issues would be dealt with here. "Your account" is individual, lol.
Plus, it is much more than individual at this point. Numerous have expressed concerns.Most of my tweaking was working with keywords and using a keyword tool to guide me somewhat as that was an area that I was working in, Marisa. Most of what I have done was not done by suggestions gleaned from the forums.
But I did take some advice from some of the "learning" hubs that are published.
As for it being a Google or Panda issue, that may well be true, however, for the traffic to be falling here for me, but not elsewhere where I publish, well, it may possibly be a HP issue somehow. How? I would not know. I am not well versed in that area.
- DigbyAdamsposted 12 years ago
0Blame the Weather, Season
My earnings for the past 3 days are equal to what I get in a day
My traffic is still down and surely was the panda. I posted about it here http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/99087
The "I" criticism is mostly offbase, I think, since one of the basic conversion skills is to engage with a reader and establish trust. They need to know there's a human being at the other end of an anonymous webpage in order to be convinced to click that "buy" button. That's why marketing so often builds mascots and personas like Flo the Progressive gal: even though she's fictional, she gives the rather boring product (cut rate auto insurance) a personality and a face.
However, there's two things that may be giving some of us grief (I say us, because I've been posting a lot of "thinky thoughts" articles on Hubpages):
-- For the past year, Google has pushed user engagement and experience aggressively. I'm not sure to what extent it's able to monitor user behavior on webpages, but where there's Adsense, there's metrics. Are people clicking links? Reading a significant portion of the page (or at least skimming it)? Coming back to after clicking a link? Leaving comments, clicking social buttons? All the noises I've seen from Google suggest that it's refining ways to measure user interactivity and engagement on a page, which may put thoughtful pages that are just for reading at a disadvantage.
-- Useful and relevant are the bywords for search traffic. Google doesn't care if you've written a deeply moving and effective article on spiritual growth. It cares if you've written a useful and effective article on "how to get rid of pillbugs organic gardening." It's trying to match its readers' queries -- which tend to be questions seeking a solution -- to your content. So concrete, specific, problem-solving content tends to get more search traffic than opinion pieces, creative writing, or more esoteric and thoughtful content.
Which doesn't at all address your latest traffic drop. I'm stumped.
The last Panda was June 8th, the one before that April 27, and I think the latest Penguin update was May 25. But in addition to those major updates, there's always lots of minor algorithm adjustments... the kind we used to pay attention to before Panda and Penguin hogged all the headlines. And I have no clue which of them could be snookering you. So I should just delete this post and not natter into the wind, eh?
The problem I keep returning to is that Hubpages was designed to be profitable with more traffic than it's getting now. My traffic/article ratio on Hubpages is about half what I get on other sites, yet the earnings/article are a quarter as much. Quite frankly, I'm not satisfied with that ROI.
But that's still only one person's experience, and I'm keenly aware that there's always experts on any site who do better than members who haven't truly mastered what works on that site.I certainly will be sure to update here on the results of the RSS deletions on the hubs. I think I should see something maybe in two weeks or there abouts? Would be nice if I saw them earlier, in positive manner.
Let me know if the increases were on the hubs you had deleted the RSS feeds on. That would be interesting.
Thanks, Marisa. With what you shared about the multiple titles that makes me think that the suggestion that it could have been the RSS feeds even more accurate. I can not remember who suggested that, but it was a second time someone had mentioned that. The first I paid no mind to, but the second made me stop and think. Now with what you shared about the multiple titles, well that is three...and I always feel that three is a lucky number and when something appears three times within a short period of time, a message is "trying" to be conveyed to you.
Edit: I went back and looked, it was janderson99 that made the suggestion that got my attention on the RSS feeds.
Mine are averaging around 250 for the past 3 days
Happy that its not going down further, but this is lowI would also have to say that my views for a Saturday are probably the lowest I can recall in many many months by about 500 views or so. No idea why, other than the new layout possibly. Certainly my earnings on Adsense are barely worth checking now, (and this has been the case for a few weeks since the layout changes). I am on the HP Ad program, but earnings from Adsense were still okay until a few weeks or so back in spite of this. Now they are pennies a day and I will be lucky to hit payout in about 6 months at this rate. HP Ad income down too, so I really wish we could just go back to the complete old layout on both page and Ads, as this was producing far better earnings and traffic for me
Same old story, Dale. When I plunged I was making the $100 Adsense payout in a little over a week with about the same number of hubs you have now. Actually, only about 30 hubs were making most of my money and this isn't counting the many Amazon sales I made at the time. And I was small potatoes compared with Misty and some of the other hubbers with many more articles than I had. Now? I'll be lucky to make Adsense payout every 2 months, even though this is normally my best time of the year for earnings and traffic.
I am not sure which form you may be speaking of. But if filing a form would help well I would give it a try.
My earnings are down by 66 percent, lol, right along with the views. I don't have time to analyze each and every hub and try to figure out all the details. They were doing well, and then the views just stopped...did not gradually go lower, lol. Anyway, if I can locate a form I will file it. In the meanwhile, I feel that my time here for the time being could be better spent in other areas online.
For what it's worth. I understand. It's not seasonal and it's not a usual 'dip'. The line goes essentially straight down. I, also, don't have time to analyze each hub to figure out what's going on or how to 'game' the system-- are there enough keywords? too many? are the photos and videos laid out properly, is there too much refreshing or not enough, etc, etc.... I was happy when my hubs did well just by writing what I knew, as an expert on the topic. I thought maybe common sense finally was built into the algorithms a little bit. Before this, my hubs were apparently considered good, authoritative content. Now they are not.
I understand.It's the google penguin appeal form. Here's the link, I went and found it for ya
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/vie … mp;ndplr=1
I want to fill it out to, but I don't know what to put for the second question! lolI just filled out one of the forms, Dale. I went to google analytics and found which of my keywords had lost the most traffic and picked the hub associated with it and sent it in with a comment saying that all my pages were affected. We'll see what happens...
Join the crowd, Dale! It's been 9 months now since I lost 75-80% of my traffic and earnings literally overnight. It doesn't give one much incentive to publish anything with the expectations of earning from it on HP at this time. I think content farms such as this one are being targeted by Google for elimination from its search engine.
This may explain why HP is so insistent on trying to please them with putting the published date on our hubs. I wish they'd stop catering to them and focus more on Bing and Yahoo where much of my traffic is now coming from.
I don't know, but like you, I'm getting weary of the games here.
This is why I wish the moderators had to be identified when banning someone from the forums. Almost all of my bans (I've lost count of them at this point) came from arguing with christians on the forums. I truly hope this isn't the case here, but we have no way of knowing for sure since the mods aren't identified when they take certain actions. I know, take it or leave it! I've heard it all before.
Snagglepuss! LOL! Yes, I was looking for somewhere to write when I found this place, Dale! It used to be a great place to write and make money, but they allowed too much crap to be published here and Google finally got tired of it.
It is a form of insulation which protects staff but does nothing to instill trust in the writers. But hey, trust doesn't seem to mean as much as it used to not long ago. Welcome to the internet!
Maybe they will show up on Monday Dale. I agree they should have responded to concerns and commented, but would hope it is not religion based
They are probably off for the weekend, Dale. Father's Day, church, basketball, US Open Golf, you know, important stuff.
They'll probably get around to it Monday or Tuesday, Dale. You'll probably get the standard "We are running tests to see if ......" so you really won't get much in the way of actual help. When I complained back in August I was told I wrote awkwardly and this was the reason my traffic dropped. Salt in the wound always helps!
Actually, HP has never had a good PR person to deal with the writers in my three years here. Not that it hasn't been suggested several times.If you read the blogs you'll find the staff has a very loose schedule. But then, so do I. Of course, I don't have thousands of people writing articles and asking questions of me.
I have a lot on my platter as well, but I do give attention to business and detail, Randy... I have not and will not email them with the concern, which will be a suggestion from the "usual" forum poster(s), simply because this is a newly created place to post traffic issues and a place that is to be monitored by staff, lol. I am a stubborn Virgo, actually.
Plus, I am far too old to get down on my knees and beg! If I were to get down there, shoot, I would have problems getting back up, lol. I'm a virgin too, Dale! Virgo, I mean!
And yes, like you, I'll put up with a little bit of sh*t, but I won't tolerate a lot of sh*t. I've never had to before and I'm not about to learn how to now.
Peace, fellow independent Virgo!
we're all doomed!
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