A hub traffic drop big time since first published date added

1. 68

   Michael Willisposted 12 years ago

   My best hub for traffic has had near a 50% daily drop in views since the new layout went into effect. It is not at the most relevant time, but traffic had been rising. The date is obviously hurting this hub as people now believe this to be an old out dated hub for 2012, when the hub is all about 2012 now.
   I keep the same url and change up the title and information majorly each spring to make it seasonally relevant. This have been successful as the url "has aged" and the second year with the url saw a four times number of views in the 2nd year.

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   1. 68

      Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I typed in Google nfl football season 2012-2013 and found my hub #1 on my screen. There is no reason I shoulod lose views with this ranking.
      
      BUT...the key is the first thing displayed by Google...I am sharing what appears in Google---
      
      NFL Football Season 2012-2013 Prime Time TV Schedule|Playoffs ...Jun 5, 2010 ... NFL Football TV games Schedule. Prime Time Schedule. Monday Night Football- ESPN, Sunday Night Football-NBC, Thursday Night ...
      michaelwillis.hubpages.com
      michaelwillis.hubpages.com/.../NFL-Football-Season-2010-TV-Schedule- monday-night-football-sports
      
      
      The Date published will kill articles in this niche where viewers are constantly looking for the most recent information. If the Google date was to show the updated date for the hub, it would still be relevant to this season's viewers for NFL. 2010...I see this hub now on death's door or placed somewhere else to get viewers back.

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         Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         You should sign out of HubPages and sign out of Google, then do a search. Google will show you your post at the top is you are signed in.

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2. 94

   Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years ago

   I agree, that's a huge problem. If HP removes the date published in the layout, would that remove it from google? I assume the answer is yes, although I did see a post in another forum that stated this was part of the new google penguin update last month. I'm not sure how accurate that info was though.

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   1. 68

      Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      They could hide the date somehow I am sure from the public view. I have read many articles that do not have the date published and they are first page.  Maybe it could be added in the footer with the hub section of About us, links, etc. This might keep Google from displaying to start the search results.

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      1. 97

         Bedbugabscondposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I am a little worried about this as well. I am still new, and so are my hubs. M hubs need to age, but what if they age and then are too old?

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3. 81

   incomeguruposted 12 years ago

   This new update as it concern 'date article was published' showing in serp is now a common phenomeno which webmasters are all implementing just to satisfy the major search engine (Google).

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4. 59

   Randy Godwinposted 12 years ago

   Yes, kissing Google's A** seems to be very important these days. 
   
   
                      

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   1. 94

      Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      lmao @Randy
      
      I have heard quite a few hubbers asking for the published date to be added to the footer instead for that very reason Michael. It was in the forum question about the new layout. If I remember correctly, HP didn't comment...
      
      

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5. 0

   Will Apseposted 12 years ago

   My traffic is dropping sharply. There has to be some concern about a problem in the new format pages.
   
   For one thing, I cannot navigate using the scroll bar at the side of the page in Chrome (even after updating). I reported this but only one other hubber has the same issue and it has been left unfixed.
   
   I am wondering if this, or some other bug is having an impact.

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   1. 59

      Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Perhaps it's your writing style, Will?  Try reading your stuff aloud!  I got this advice from the very top!
      
      
      
                                     

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      1. 68

         Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         lol, yes I do Randy before I publish my hubs. And so did over 200,000 viewers in in a 4 month period during NFL football season.

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         1. 59

            Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Same here, Michael.  What was once okay is now doo doo!    I've almost given up trying to understand what's going on here.  No one else knows anything either, apparently. 
            
            

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            1. 68

               Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I do understand. I was never a fan of the publish date on our hubs. One can just type it in their text. It really is easy!
               I said the dating would hurt hubs and I guess I was right.
               
               I know Google is all about aged articles now and people are thinking showing the published date will enforce that. I disagree with this. Google already knows how old an online article is. It doesn't have to be plastered on the page. And as far as online theft of articles, Google also already knows whose article was first published!!!
               The only person I see making a change in reading online articles is the viewer who sees the date. Some cases that may be beneficial, but in others...it will kill articles that are updated for seasonal or yearly information.
               Like I have said before, I will read a 2012 article over a 2009 everytime. With hubpage articles being stand-alone articles instead of a web page, there is a difference with the first published and updated date.
               It is OK for a web page to be several years old. The articles on a web page can and do change regularly. Readers online, I am sure expect this. In our stand-alone articles, I don't believe people would expect that with an old date listed.

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6. 67

   relacheposted 12 years ago

   I've been an editor at BellaOnline.com for very nearly a decade, and those article do not show publication dates, and I've seen really top articles hold their traffic and relevance for years and years.
   
   I think revealing the dates is a mistake.

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      mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      +1

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      1. 59

         Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, the consensus seems to be fully against having the date published.  For whatever that is worth. 
         
         

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7. 0

   Will Apseposted 12 years ago

   I reckon we will have to wait until site-wide Quantcast data catches up (it is 2 days behind) to see if the new format is a problem. But something is crucifying my account right now.

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8. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

   The search results showed dates before we added them, but we are seeing some strange declines in traffic that started about two days after we rolled the design out site wide.
   
   When we tested, the new layout did very well.  It was tested on staff subdomains and a few categories.  Starting Thursday, the test categories declined as well as some of the staff accounts with the new design after several weeks of doing well.
   
   I've done a deep analysis on the page considering the technical tweaks under the page.  Nothing jumps out as egregious.  It's largely improved.
   
   Typically it takes Google about five days to recrawl the site and for the rankings to reflect the changes.  We are going to work on this through the weekend to see if we can find something we introduced, but also give it a few more days to see if Google is just digesting the layout changes.  I'll be checking this thread regularly, so please report if you see something.

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   1. 68

      lrohnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Paul - My traffic drop was within 24 hours of you removing the page views from the template. Think that had anything to do with it?

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9. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

   I filed a request to turn the date off site wide as a test.  We'll try and get it out Monday to see if that impacts things.
   
   @Michael Willis.  I see your example.  Google seems to be picking some updated dates and some original dates.  Not sure why.

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   1. 68

      Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the information you have given Paul. The Hub has increased today, but that is always common on weekends. I know you as a sports fan can understand the weekend upswing in hubs.
      I hope this is just a glitch with the google search showing original publish date only. If it showed the last update, then it would cause a boost. (Especially in this type of hub.)
      Suggestion: Is there a way to post the update only at the top and original publish date, maybe before comments at the end? It seems Google snags from the very top and the original date listed first may always show up.
      I know in some cases this is what may be desired for hubs, but in others such as my example listed, it could be detrimental.
      
      Thanks Paul for working on this.

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      1. 68

         Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Edit: I checked the stats on the hub and it was not Google that increased back to normal today. It was just from someone at Facebook sharing the hub it appears.

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   2. 59

      paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Neither is Google. And that is the problem.
      
      And even if the determinate parameters could be ascertained, they'll be changed with the next update anyway.
      
      And just to complicate things further, though I hope it will help in the analysis, I made an interesting discovery. It appears that if there is an actual full date in the Hub title, Google will pick that date over the published date and update date. Google will use the date in the hub title as the published/update date. Leastwise until the next software change... Hope this helps.

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   3. 53

      janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Here's a theory.
      The way not to get the date displayed is to ensure the text in the description tag ( summary tag for edit) is less that 150 characters. (the counter should show more than 350 characters left = 500-150) The summary displayed on the SERPs is then this summary rather than one extracted from the text on the page  - date + first sentence. PS If you change it expect to wait about 1 week before it is displayed.
      
      Compare below.  So far no exceptions - but will test more
      
      

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      1. 68

         Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Interesting. Let me know what you find on this.

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         1. 53

            janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            so far checks out for 20 of my pages - of course unsure how it affects the position on the page. But should influence the humans who read the summaries. The checking continues =>>>

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         2. 53

            janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            to check your own do a search for site:yourprofile (hubpages.com)
            There is some variability but this show the summary text displayed in the SERPS => most short ones without ....   at the end do not have dates.

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      2. 59

         paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I checked 2 of my hubs. One over. One under. Your theory was vindicated in both cases.

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      3. STAFF

         Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Google will vary the description and the title in the search results even if you write a custom summary.  So, it's a good thing to do, but doesn't guarantee Google will display it.  It's query dependent.

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      4. 82

         Millionaire Tipsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         That is an interesting theory.  It didn't work on my hubs though. The short summary has a date.  One of the long ones has a date and another one doesn't.
         
         
         
         
         
         
         

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      5. 74

         Hauntyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         This Hub has a 260-word summary and no date.
         
         
         
         It looks like somehow the date is not displayed anyway.

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10. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    Damn!!! This thread made me check one of my hubs at random. Sure enough, Google is only showing the Published date and is not showing the Last Updated date. This will kill us!!! It has to be either both or none. Since Google is not inclined to include the Last Updated date, the Published date has got to go!!!

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11. 96

    Rochelle Frankposted 12 years ago

    I notice the new layout also has an 'updated' date. Does that figure in to the changes in traffic?
    
    I have updated many of my hubs in the past couple of months, does that help?
    
    My traffic has been low since the penguin came around, but has been sloooowwwlly creeping up.

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12. 82

    Marcy Goodfleischposted 12 years ago

    Even if the Last Updated date is shown (and the Date Published info is removed), it can potentially create problems if a hub is still accurate and informative, but somethung else hits the search engines that looks more recent.  We aim for evergreen content, so traffic should be driven by quality rather than the date it hit the Internet.  There are some excellent hubs on this site that were first published years ago and that could be affected simply due to their age.

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    1. 67

       Lady Guinevereposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I agree with you on that!  Some of my older hubs don't have anything to update to them.  The information is still relevant.

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13. 59

    Randy Godwinposted 12 years ago

    I officially vote NO to having the publish date on the hub. 
    
    

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14. 0

    Will Apseposted 12 years ago

    Dates are keywords. A lot of people search for a page with a year included. So maybe a flood of similar keywords in every article could be an issue.
    
    They did test the format, though and this should have shown up.
    
    I still reckon the summaries could be a problem. Summaries do matter.
    
    Putting the original publication date in the right hand column should keep it out of summaries. Putting it at the bottom of the page should guarantee it.
    
    Using "updated:mm/dd/yyyy" instead of writing out longhand will mean summaries won't  be crowded out so much if dates do appear. So your 150 words (assuming this is true) will stretch out a little.
    
    I just hope Hubpages slow down on the changes a little. There are now so many variables in play it is hard to see what is really happening.
    
    I would also look at the non-scrolling bug with Chrome and XP (I use XP pro, maybe the home version is fine). Not being able to scroll through a page is such a major problem, even if it is only affecting a small proportion of users it could have a big impact.

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15. 71

    Isabella Snowposted 12 years ago

    I'm not an expert on Google's algo changes, but something in the latest change was meant to help people find "fresh" content.
    
    I wonder if the "show the publication date" idea has resulted in long-ago-published evergreen content getting pushed to the back pages when things are being searched for.
    
    I really wish HP would reconsider and remove the published date -- for many reasons -- but it looks like they are sticking with it.

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    1. 77

       IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Not according to Paul Edmondson. He already said in this thread he was going to get the date turned off as an experiment.
       
       http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/99316#post2122922

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16. 71

    Isabella Snowposted 12 years ago

    An experiment doesn't sound like a resolution to me.
    
    I hope they put it back the way it was and leave it be.
    
    It's bad enough that Google keeps changing everything; a little stability around HP itself would be a nice change.

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17. 75

    LeanManposted 12 years ago

    What ever the reason is, new layout, dates, pixies... my views are dropping into the toilet along with many others from the sounds of things.. my personal sites appear to be rising..

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18. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    Da dates are gone...

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    1. 68

       Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks I see that now. Now, after google re-crawls the pages, I can see if there is a difference.

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    2. 82

       Marcy Goodfleischposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Yay!  Kudos to Paul and the staff for watching stats and listening to feedback.  I think the new layout is very clean and appealing, BTW, and it's clear the site is working hard to revamp things and tweak the changes if needed.  I really appreciate that.  And Happy Father's Day to anyone who had to take time away from family to make this change.  Thanks!

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    3. 61

       Mark Ewbieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Fantastic.  And what's amazing is that within five minutes of this announcement a Google armoured car pulled up outside the house.
       
       "What's that" I thought to myself, quite intelligently.
       
       Making my way gingerly across a floor covered in broken glass and cigarette ends, it's a bit low rent where I live, I opened the front door.
       
       Two Google employees were lugging what looked like a box full of money up towards me.
       
       "Are you Mark Ewbie?" the bigger one said, and I replied, quick as a flash.. "Yes".
       
       "Here's your money then".
       
       I haven't counted it all yet, just threw it up in the air, and rolled around in it. 
       
       Anyway, just like to say a big thanks to HP, and I don't suppose I'll need to be writing much in future.
       
       Here's a commemorative picture...
       

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          Daughter Of Maatposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          
          
          wait wait...
          
          
          
          Awesome Mark! I hope you purposely spelled charcoal wrong...

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          1. 61

             Mark Ewbieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Oh my. Well so I did...
             
             Actually, it's a long and unfortunately a bit boring story about the spelling, so I'll leave that for another day.

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19. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

    I think it's doubtful that the dates were causing this because we have sections of HubPages like QnA that didn't change design wise, but saw a similar change in traffic (the portion not on subdomains).
    
    Usually with the recent updates, we see more variation in the changes.  This time it seems to be fairly wide spread.  There are other sites that we benchmark against and they saw a similar traffic pattern, but not exactly.
    
    It could be that the site wide update we rolled out and a google update coincided.  Father's day also sees a little less traffic, so that makes it a little less clear.  It was about two days after the rollout that the traffic changes started. If it's the dates, then we should know by tuesday morning.

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20. 68

    Anti-Valentineposted 12 years ago

    I have mixed feelings on the date first published feature. On one hand it does help you in the case of a DMCA dispute, because it proves that you published it first on such and such a date. On the other hand, yes, it might chase off some people who want something more current.
    
    In that case, I would wait a while to see that the traffic drop is permanent, then unpublish the article, perhaps update it, then republish it - surely then the date would be more recent. The only thing is then, what if someone copied and pasted your article and so by republishing, then your hub is flagged for having content that is available elsewhere? Sounds complicated, but entirely plausible. Then that would mean a complete rewrite, probably.
    
    In short, displaying page views and dates is probably not a good idea.
    
    Yes, I noticed that the dates are apparently gone now, but I just wanted to chip in my two cents.

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21. 60

    Alternative Primeposted 12 years ago

    Paul E,
    
    Believe me, I prefer my solitude and I'm not interested in noteriety, but I've written extensively on the subject within the confines of several different threads during the past few months expressing extreme caution should have been exercised when contemplating experimentation of this scope and drastic nature - Especially when it was a totally unnecessary venture in my opinion - It was a common sense issue -
    
    Hence, surprised at the possibility of the first signs of a major cataclysmic event materializing? I'm not -
    
    The laboratory experimentation should have been performed exclusively on a select few voluntary subjects who understood the inherent risks in an effort to limit exposure - Moreover, the duration of said tests should have been scheduled for a much longer time span verses a few weeks or months -
    
    If radical experimentation and or high stakes gambling is irresistible to staff, a lesson learned should be that it takes a considerable length of time, up to a year or possibly even longer, for tests to mature and yield accurate data for analysis - Then, and only then, a decision to implement or abort can be considered -
    
    Just a little constructive criticism and hopefully the current experience is just a temporary blip - Even if the site comes back a little stronger in the future, was it really worth the risk? -
    
    A. Prime

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22. 63

    prettydarkhorseposted 12 years ago

    We should wait until one week more at the very least.
    
    No G update since Panda 3.7 which was rolled out June 8th.
    
    Views to my other account increased the past week until now bec of Fathers day hub.
    
    Number of views in this account decreased starting Thursday, but I don't know if it is due to the new page layout which was rolled out or because it is weekend (which is expected with this account on weekends).
    
    Looking at HP quantcast we have the lowest number of views in a weekend in a month period (as of yesterday - Saturday)
    
    It is crucial for Michael Willis type of hubs for the date of publication to be removed.

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23. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

    A Prime - I think you're right that most changes take a long period of time to be reflected in the serps.  Good changes improve rankings and bad continually lose rankings over an extended period of time. 
    
    Rapid ranking changes are usually algorithmic, although there are some things you can change on a site that can make rapid ranking changes like changing all the internal URLs (we didn't do this - this time:)).
    
    Cosmetic site changes that better serve visitors create the long term wins.  It's important to remember with this update urls remained the same.  Content creation patterns are largely the same.  The overall quality of HubPages has improved significantly over the last year. 
    
    My gut is that Google did an algo update the morning of the 14th.  I'm seeing if we can get a confirmation on this.  The 9 AM hour on the 14th was like a switch flipped.  It wasn't gradual at all.  We are going through every change we made to see if there are other possibilities.  There are a few things we did that aren't visible like a fix to google anlaytics to report on site visitors properly that we are looking at as well. 
    
    Related to the design changes, when we can create a better experience for visitors, those are the type of changes we will continue to make.  Cosmetics and content are married.  Today a site needs both to be great to succeed. 
    
    Ultimately, we can't control google, we can only do our best to create sites that people love.

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24. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

    The dates have been removed.
    
    We will reevaluate it dates later this week.

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    1. 67

       Rosie2010posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I noticed.  Thanks.

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25. 77

    IzzyMposted 12 years ago

    I saw a decline in views over the weekend, as per normal really, and today after the dates were removed I was quite a big increase (across especially my non-slapped accounts), but I don't think it was date related, as the date is still showing in the SERPS.

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26. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

    The overall morning traffic looks to be bouncing back.  I'll keep you updated.  This Monday morning is a bit higher than last Monday from google - it was thursday when we started seeing the decline.
    
    I know dates in the search results are a little confusing.  Google tries to pick one to show for certain types of queries.  They don't appear to pick the same date each time which makes it a little strange as well.
    
    We'll be watching closely today.

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    1. 67

       Lady Guinevereposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Paul,
       Thank you so much for fixing or finding a solution to this anomaly.  I know it took away from your wonderful Father's Day weekend.

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    2. 71

       Isabella Snowposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Thank you, Paul.

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27. 86

    mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years ago

    My traffic is down by about 600-800 views to where it would normally be on a Monday. Essentially this is a very high percentage loss of traffic as normally I would roughly be on 3400 views plus on a Monday.

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28. 0

    DigbyAdamsposted 12 years ago

    Thanks for letting us know your take Paul. The fact that you're watching this at the crack of dawn in Seattle is reassuring that you're on the case.

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29. 0

    Will Apseposted 12 years ago

    My traffic is coming back, which is a relief. See what storms the next week brings.

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30. 93

    alexadryposted 12 years ago

    Right when my traffic was resuming from all the Google penguins and pandas, it had a huge dip as well since the recent changes.

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31. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

    Deeds and Fawntia were the ones checking in code over the weekend.  Hopefully things will keep improving now.

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32. 68

    soni2006posted 12 years ago

    Let's hope for the best. Yes traffic has improved today. It was worse yesterday.

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33. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    I decided to do an experiment.
    
    I picked a hub where I think the freshness factor would be a big deal to visitors. I put the update date in bold right at the top.
    
    We will see what happens...
    
    I would have liked to have put both dates to indicate that the page is a long-term, reliable, and constantly updated resource. But knowing Google, they'd only pick one date; and probably the wrong one at that.

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34. 0

    klarawieckposted 12 years ago

    (((GASP)))) RED FLAGS POINTING UP IN MOST OF MY HUBS TODAY!!! (((GASP)))
    
    THANK YOU, LORD! THANK YOU, LORD!!! THANK YOU, LORD!!!!! I promise to go to Church this week!!!!

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       Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Lucky witch! 
       
       

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          klarawieckposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I guess the Romany Book of Spells, Charms and Forune-Telling does work!!!

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             Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             I didn't know Mitt wrote such a book!  Gee, I may vote for him now. 
             
             

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                klarawieckposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                Ahem... wait... Patrinella Cooper wrote it. Sorry to disappoint, but if it's any consolation they might have studied together in ancient Mesopotamia.

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                   Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   Oh, a girl wrote it?  Never mind then!
                   
                   

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35. 85

    TahoeDocposted 12 years ago

    I'm glad for those of you with improved traffic, I really am. However,  I'm still sitting at half the views, with twice the number of hubs (since starting the apprenticeship).
    
    I'm an anesthesiologist writing about anesthesia (and not terribly poorly, if I say so myself). And the Livestrong crap (not all of it is crap), written by non-medical-professionals in most cases, is higher ranking now. Their articles are incomplete and often, just wrong. I wrote for them but quit because I found so many articles with inaccurate content that I didn't want to be associated with it. But, google has determined that it is now suddenly, better than mine.
    
    Sigh.

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       rebekahELLEposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That would make me sigh also.. I just took a look at some of your hubs, and I'm impressed with the valuable information and knowledge you have put together so well.  It makes sense that this is the kind of info that viewers are searching for, not something poorly put together by someone with no authority on the topic.
       I've flagged hubs which I thought were giving out questionable medical advice without any kind of disclaimer, but they're still allowed.
       Keep networking within your targeted audience, people will eventually find you. Use Twitter and leave comments on some of those articles ranking well.
       I have wondered about the apprenticeship writers during this trying time of online writing. It sounds like a lot of work during uncertain times. You have an unique screen name and one that can be easily branded. Feel good about your content, it's worth finding.

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       Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Yep, it hurts to see junk ranked high on Google, especially when there are better articles out there.  But when copied articles outrank the original, it really ticks you off even more! 
       
       

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36. 0

    DigbyAdamsposted 12 years ago

    Tahoe Doc that is very sad (and scary) about your hubs being outranked by garbage.

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37. 83

    Rik Ravadoposted 12 years ago

    My traffic is moving swiftly upwards today - my best guess is the removal of the date has done the trick - I've not found any of my hubs today where Google is still displaying the creation date in the SERPs - thank you HubPages staff!

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38. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

    We saw some very unusual swings today.  Google traffic picked up this morning to previous Monday levels, but then subsided this afternoon - like google is using different data sets.  I reviewed the site with our SEO adviser today and we didn't uncover any smoking guns.  We have a list of a few things to do, but I'm hoping to get a little more info back from Google.
    
    It's pretty unusual to see the fluctuations we are seeing now.

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    1. 85

       TahoeDocposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks Paul. I was noticing that it is like my hubs are being chewed up and spit out one by one. It's hard to explain...traffic to a specific hub will go up, then drop back down to even lower levels.
       
       I'm just taking the wait and watch approach, but it sure sucks. I write to help people, which I can't do if no one sees the hubs, and to make enough money to buy my family ski passes (how I justify the time I spend writing when I could be doing anesthesia for real money- but time away from my kiddos) or some other small token. I was on track with both of those things, but it's gone- halfsies.

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          Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          This is not unusual here.  Many of us have lost up to 80% of our traffic all of a sudden.  It may go back up and then fall again just as quickly.  A sudden drop from $700-$800 a month down to less than $100 will get one's attention quickly.  Even if money is not the real compulsion to write. 
          
          Google is usually the culprit with HP being fairly helpless to do anything about it, as far as I can tell.
          
          

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       Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Paul, I just checked and my views overall have tripled from yesterday. The hub example has just about returned back to where it was Wednesday.
       I know you are not sold on the date being behind this. I still believe the date would be on this particular hub for sure. Especially if the viewer sees the 2010 to start the description, even if the title and hub has been edited for 2012.

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39. 59

    Dale Hydeposted 12 years ago

    This certainly does explain the huge drop in my seasonal hub that is a hub that is updated sometimes as much as three times a day with new developments. That hub has gone from a high of well over 1000 views daily down to under 200 today.
    
    I posted a thread a week and a half ago, about the decline in traffic overall on my account of right at 66%. No staff commented. Same topic thread, Report a Traffic Problem. So, hopefully someone will see it here. I don't expect any individual care given, but some acknowledgement is nice at times.
    
    In hopes of pulling my views up, I took down all related article RSS feeds and had Google re-index each page. That has not helped at all, by the way.
    
    As of today, I have three out of 83 hubs with views of over 10. One is a freshly published hub, so that actually does not count as it will be viewed heavily by HP traffic when first published. So that leaves two hubs out of 82 with 10 views or more.  This drop is astounding compared to a month ago, or even three weeks ago.
    
    Edit: I am still seeing the published dates on some SERP results for my hubs, by the way.

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40. 85

    TahoeDocposted 12 years ago

    @ Randy- that would make me completely bonkers- guess I'd better check that possibility a little more carefully, too.

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41. 75

    LeanManposted 12 years ago

    My traffic although it has picked up from an all time low over the weekend has still not reached back to normal levels. Another account has seen increased traffic and my sites off of HP are also seeing extra (just a pity not as much as my HP account has dropped)
    I have noticed a change in SERPS with some real garbage floating to the top of some of the queries that I checked.
    What's going on with our lord and master G??

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       IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I made this point the other day, the SERPS are all messed up again. We are seeing a lot of garbage at the top that simply shouldn't be there, according to Google's stated aims. Articles full of copied, spun and keyword stuffed content, backed up by thousands of obviously artificial links. Exactly what Google are said to hate.

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          LeanManposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          The stuff I have seen outranking some of my pages now for various keywords literally has no content.
          http://www .saudiarabiadating.expatica.com/  This outranks my hub about dating in Saudi Arabia..  it came from no where....
          
          Maybe google sees it as an authority site or if you talk about dating then you have to have dating sites at the top of the SERPS
          
          Same goes for "working in Saudi Arabia", i am now outranked by job sites...

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             Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             I now am at 98 views total for 80 of my hubs. As someone mentioned, very disheartening. I still have three hubs only that have over 10 views that are not included in the 80 number given.

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42. 75

    Thomas Swanposted 12 years ago

    It seems like the whole of hubpages is affected, not just particular types of content. Most of my hubs are informative hubs about psychology, physics or religion. I'm not trying to sell things, and I think my content is very unique for the most part... certainly for hubpages. Has anyone NOT been affected in the last week?
    
    If anything, my earnings and views have gotten even worse in the last couple of days since the dates were removed. As a new user this is very disheartening, and I've stopped publishing new hubs for now.

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    1. 65

       psycheskinnerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Not the whole of hubpages.  Panda 2 slammed me but not other people. But none of the Google stuff since Panda 2 has affected me.  I have no idea why, just mentioning it.

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43. 77

    IzzyMposted 12 years ago

    Dale, my second subdomain was hit as hard as yours in the April update. It has 80 hubs and its daily views are down to about 30, with an average of 3 visits a day from Google. Mind you, yesterday it got 250 views from an unknown source.
    
    This account with about 500 hubs recently had a rise from 450 to 700 hits per day, which is pathetic for the number of hubs. Only 100 of them come from Google.
    
    However, I have another 2 subdomains with less than 20 hubs on each that between them get more hits than these two subdomains together.
    
    Why they should all be different is anyone's guess. After all, they have the same author!
    
    I really think that is the answer until Google gets its act together.
    
    If you get hit, start a new subdomain. It's not true that you need to have lots of hubs to get some Google love.
    
    Oh and Leanman, please break that link!

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       Thomas Swanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       By subdomain, do you mean start a new grouping of hubs? Strangely, two of my orphaned hubs seem to be doing better for now.

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          LeanManposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          She means a whole new account Thomas.. Some of us have more than one account to try to separate different niches, ideas etc..

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    2. 59

       Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I have but the one account and really don't have the time to establish other accounts for views if that is the key or answer to this problem. What I am considering is unpublishing my 80 hubs that are doing nothing and republishing them elsewhere. I realize once unpublished I will have to sit on them a while until they do fall out of Google entirely.  Not a choice that I want to make, but having them sitting here doing nothing is a waste I think.

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          IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          You seem to be very impatient. With the exception of only very few of us, everyone who has lost their Google traffic in an update, has seen it return at the next Panda run.
          
          It is entirely up to you what you do, but Google aren't getting things right at the moment judging by the amount of crap at the top of the SERPS, and the chances are it will right itself soon enough.
          
          I waited a while after losing the traffic on this account (last August) before deciding to keep writing here, but on new subdomains.
          
          If you decide to leave, many of us will be sorry to see you go, but this Google thing seems to be giving all of us extremely unstable traffic which hopefully one day will settle down.

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             Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Thanks. I am still waiting. Not making a hasty decision for several reasons, time, and what you and others have shared.
             
             It is just a "tad" discouraging to see things go they way they are, lol. I guess I was spoiled with the higher traffic.

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          mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

          If you want to unpublish them you don't need to 'sit on them for a while until they fall out of Google entirely', you can simply use the Google URL removal tool and it is done in 24 hours, (Google do say you should only use this in emergencies, but I never had a problem using it in non-emergencies, and know loads of other people who have done the same).
          
          https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools … mp;rlf=all

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             Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Thanks Misty. I did not know that this tool was available. I will certainly keep that in mind.

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44. STAFF

    Paul Edmondsonposted 12 years ago

    We are still looking into this.  There are many people that weren't impacted in the last week.  I can't say that we see a pattern, but a significant number did decrease in traffic to the tune of about 8% on average.  For a site Hubpages size, that's a pretty major swing. 
    
    It's not clear if this was site update related, or if there was a google algo update, although we are leaning toward an update after completing an audit yesterday.  We have seen other sites that followed the same overall traffic pattern as HP and others that are very similar didn't.  I've reached out to google on a number of fronts to see if we can get an official notice on an algo update.
    
    We are absolutely committed to do everything we can technically to work well with Google and to make sure we are good net citizens.  It's pretty unprecedented times with all these major swings.
    
    As soon as we hear, I'll share it.

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    1. 75

       Thomas Swanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Google seem to have the power to pick and choose which web-based businesses they want to support or kill. That's a pretty daunting amount of power.
       
       Thanks for trying to work with google. I just hope they give a decent reply. They may be getting inundated with correspondence. I wonder which other sites have been affected.

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45. 85

    rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

    Since June 3, traffic has been steadily increasing. Last week traffic picked up more and so far this week traffic is increasing more than last week.
    
    
    Are these accounts with hundreds of hubs?  I wonder sometimes if too many links on a sub-domain end up looking spammy?

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       Thomas Swanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       i only have 11 hubs, so probably not.

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46. 75

    Thomas Swanposted 12 years ago

    I did a search for one of my hubs in google just now, and it wasn't even listed. It's "What are nuclear isomers?" published 5 days ago. No wonder I'm not getting any hits.
    
    It was listed 3rd or 4th about a day after I published. Now it's completely gone, even when I type in specific parts of the hub... it's just not there.
    
    Is this something I've done, or something that happens temporarily? If not, I would recommend searching your hubs in google to see if they have disappeared; or randomly disappear from the rankings sometimes. The drop in traffic could be because they stop being listed.

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       Reality Bytesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I show you in the 7th position on the first page of Google for that keyword!

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          Thomas Swanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks for the reply, but it perplexes me even more because I still can't find my hub anywhere on google. I don't understand why it would give me different results... although google forces me to its google.co.uk address, so maybe if you have google.com it is different? I dunno... very strange.

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             Reality Bytesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Not sure, I just Googled your keyword.  I am using Google.com.

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             1. 75

                Thomas Swanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                I just used google.com too, still not finding my hub. Maybe a location thing. At least if you're finding it, some people will. Thanks for letting me know.

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                   LeanManposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   Your search results will differ according to your location in the world and even where you are within a country.
                   Also after only a few days you have not been reliably indexed, I have known hubs appear on the first page within a few minutes then vanish for a week or more before returning in a more "permanent" position..

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                      Thomas Swanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                      ah, thanks for the info.

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       Chuck Bluesteinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I did a Google search and out of 3 million sites, yours was number 10. Wikipedia was number one. No surprise there.
       
       If you do a search for "what are midi--chlorians", you only get 144,000 sites. Wikpedia is number one in that also.

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47. 81

    incomeguruposted 12 years ago

    I googled your hub 'what are nuclear isomers' and i found it in the 8th position of first page.

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48. 82

    Marcy Goodfleischposted 12 years ago

    @Thomas - I Googled your title from here (Austin, Texas) and you're number nine on the front page. Two of the ones above you are PDFs, and one is a PPT - I think you have an excellent chance of outranking the PDFs at some point. Answers.com is ranked, too, and it's my understanding that HP can outrank that as well.

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    1. 75

       Thomas Swanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks for letting me know. I was panicking yesterday about this, and its good to know people were finding the hub in google (especially in America!). It must be a location thing, although when I did a search today (in the UK) my hub came up 8th. I have no idea what happened yesterday, but it seems to be ok now.

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49. 82

    Marcy Goodfleischposted 12 years ago

    One more thing - I just read your excellent hub (and shared it - hope that helps!).  I love the graphic you have by the second capsule - do you think moving it to the top capsule would drive some traffic? Otherwise, the main thing people see at the top is the list of ads.

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       Thomas Swanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Thankyou for the positive feedback! I have read conflicting accounts about whether ads should be at the top or not. Perhaps its better to put top-ads only for hubs that are already performing well? In the hub, I am referring to the picture in the text, so I think its better to have the picture nearby.

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50. 68

    Michael Willisposted 12 years ago

    I see that my hub that I mentioned in the OP has now recovered since the date was removed from the hub. It was not until the date disappeared that traffic returned to it.
    I still see the date the hub was published in google search on a lot of my other hubs though.

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