How's the Recovery going ?

1. 39

   Ritsosposted 13 years ago

   I know there's a lot about this all over the place but thought it might be good to have feedback in one place s to whether traffic is recovering after the google hit and if so, roughly how much?
   
   I can't personally say as I've only been here a couple of weeks or so but am interested.

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   1. 77

      Garrett Mickleyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      My traffic has bounced back to normal already.
      
      I'm quite pleased.
      
      Hope to hear the same for my fellow hubbers...

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      1. 73

         snakebabyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Did you check your traffic source? If you're sure it bounced back to normal, it must be your hubs specific, or there are more traffic comes from HP itself, or traffic fluctuate, sometimes you feel it has come back but it hasn't. I thought mine had, but after all it is not the case at all. Feels like all imaginations

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         1. 77

            Garrett Mickleyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I don't get a lot of hits to begin with, but it seems my new hubs get lots of hits from Hubpages, while as my older ones get lots of hits from Google.

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   2. 0

      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      According to Quantcast the recovery does not yet exist:
      
      http://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com
      
      That graph is consistant with my traffic.

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         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Do those dips in that chart refer to weekends?

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         1. 74

            livewithrichardposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Yes

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            1. 82

               IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Interesting, thanks

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      2. 63

         prettydarkhorseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Traffic is like a seesaw for me.  HP Ads compensate for the lost Google adsense earnings. Even if sometimes views are back to normal, CTR or eCPM is not good. This is the same with all my accounts. Sales hubs are the ones not converting at all (both for adsense and amazon.

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      3. 74

         Richieb799posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I just saw that graph, shocking... I had to find a thread to rant in, I don't know where I am, one minute earnings go up..traffic did drop a little after the Google Algo hit but I wrote a hub on the weekend that is getting me an extra 200 views a day to make up for the loss.
         What I don't get is I had a good weekend with high earnings and then today the traffic is still high but earnings very poor? I seem to get a Monday low in my experience

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      4. 78

         ngurecoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         That's look like it for my case.
         
         The graph below show my traffic for the last 150 days (Oct 15th, 2010) up to yesterday (March 14th, 2011).
         
         

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2. 48

   smartme99posted 13 years ago

   yey i am si happy it turned back to normal by the way how did it go?

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3. 48

   smartme99posted 13 years ago

   opps i spelled yey haha i ment to say was yay

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4. 65

   Mishaposted 13 years ago

   I don't have any recovery. But I did not have a collapse, either...

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   1. 59

      SunSevenposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Ditto

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      1. 65

         Mishaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Hi SunSeven, long time no see. How are you doing?

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   2. 0

      TopUniverseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      What is the secret of no collapse?

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   3. 0

      kimberlyslyricsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      me too misha

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5. 65

   brandonhart100posted 13 years ago

   The only recovery will be from people writing new hubs... and my guess is that has dropped off substantially. 
   
   Additional recovery can come by getting authority to your hubs (one way or another).  If no authority is gained, then traffic will remain much as it has with increases coming from new hubs that are able to rank for keywords.

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   1. 74

      livewithrichardposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I think you nailed it but I think that the authority comes from sites with relevant topics to your hubs.  Ideally these links would come from a guest post but a link in the comments would do fine.

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6. 69

   waynetposted 13 years ago

   My recovery is going well...Still have the odd drink of red wine!

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   1. 61

      lyndreposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      
      The odd red wine can kill your recovery abstianance is the only answer.

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      1. 69

         waynetposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Abstinance???! I think you mean absinth, I'll drink some of that!

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         1. 61

            lyndreposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Tried it. Have to be careful it can make you loose an ear.

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7. 96

   PaulGoodman67posted 13 years ago

   Ryan's link is pretty accurate as an overall picture, I suspect.  Traffic has generally stabilized but not recovered.  My own traffic is too "young" to give any personal insights.

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8. 72

   tritrainposted 13 years ago

   It's about the same as it was before.
   
   Adsense is down quite a bit though, which is odd when compared to Analytics.
   
   
   
   *I am concerned about the new pages though. It may take a while before they are comparable to the older Hubs.

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9. 91

   Will Apseposted 13 years ago

   It would be helpful if Hubpages worked out what the 12% of search queries that were affected by Farmer were.
   
   They have the data.
   
   I'm guessing something happened outside of affiliate link pages.

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10. 68

    Ultimate Hubberposted 13 years ago

    I am yet to see a recovery. My traffic did drop and is still low, BUT it wasn't a very drastic drop.

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    1. 65

       brandonhart100posted 13 years agoin reply to this

       The problem is HP probably doesn't know what to say as it's across the board.
       
       We know they've said product hubs have done bad.  I suspect that's because there were too man chiefs writing about the same (duplicate) subject.  Actually I don't suspect, I've seen the trends...
       
       1 HP is on the front page for any certain 3-4 word keyword and everyone else on HP that's written about the same subject can just lick their dust or try to beat them. (Age matters)
       
       Hubs that could get at the top of google (by top I mean the very first position which gets 58% of clicks) for 3-4 word keywords have little chance now unless an authority site hasn't written about it.  By authority, I've learned that Google means lots of backlinks and PR (PR not included for HP,Squidoo, or other content farms as you have to get that for yourself now... I suspect   .  Actually I don't suspect I... you get the point

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11. 0

    EmpressFelicityposted 13 years ago

    My Adsense is back to what it was in September of last year - and I had far fewer hubs back then.
    
    I've sold four items on Amazon this month and made all of $3.50.
    
    So no recovery for me yet.

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12. 61

    paradigmsearchposted 13 years ago

    I don’t know why, but Yahoo and Bing are really coming through lately. They’ve been steadily increasing ever since the Google sneeze.

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    1. 65

       brandonhart100posted 13 years agoin reply to this

       probably just a "paradigm" shift
       
       It could also be that since google.com represents less of your traffic you notice the bing and yahoo traffic more?
       
       I certainly notice Google.CA more as it now represents 30% of my google traffic...

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       1. 96

          PaulGoodman67posted 13 years agoin reply to this

          what's worrying is if the farmer algo is "rolled out" to google.ca and google.co.uk etc and the problem gets worse!  is that possible?

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             brandonhart100posted 13 years agoin reply to this

             It's not possible... Unfortunately it's probable.

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          2. 74

             frogdroppingposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Absolutely. Which is why it's time to roll sleeves up and deal with it. We can't change what's happened. Change has happened and we have no influence on it.
             
             At the moment there will be tweaking going on (or whatever the google hounds call it), the kinks will be ironed out, then at some point it will all be rolled out to the rest of the world.
             
             Whilst many of us have gained some traffic back, it's not particularly US traffic, which is why income isn't matching the upswing.
             
             We are not yet in the recovery position yet I'm afraid.

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    2. 82

       Dorsiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I've noticed the same thing

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13. 80

    manlypoetrymanposted 13 years ago

    All I can say about this is: "Win-ning!" (Thank you, Charlie Sheen...for the new verbage)

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14. 77

    sabrebIadeposted 13 years ago

    Looking back over February and to date, my worst days were March 2,3 and 4 since the Google slap.
    Traffic seems to have held at a constant except for a few bad days.
    I am actually up 8,000 hits this year compared to last.
    (February 1st through March 14th).

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15. 64

    Greek Oneposted 13 years ago

    I'm back up to zero page impressions a day

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    1. 68

       ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I published a new hub today... first since da ding, so I am up to 5 impressions... unfortunately, I think they are all hub hoppers.

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16. 62

    Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years ago

    My traffic is up but the amounts I'm getting per click is waaaayyyy down..anyone else have this problem?

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    1. 0

       ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Yes, and I have no idea why.
       
       I saw a big fall in eCPM when the US traffic dissapeared. That is to be expected, that is the largest AdSense market gone.
       
       We are now left with the UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand. They are the English speaking countries left, that is where your decent AdSense clicks can still come from.
       
       Traffic from non-English speaking countries is almost worthless or just doesn't exist. You aren't going to be getting big clicks from Indonesia or India, put it that way. A 10p click from India is a $2 from the US.
       
       But, I also saw a huge decline in CTR with the new ad layout, this could be one of three things:
       
       a) The new ad layout doesn't convert as well.
       b) It takes a while for ads to become highly relevant, Google has to crawl 1 million pages and figure out what to put where following the move about.
       c) A bit of both.
       
       If there wasn't a change in ad layout I would be worried that Google had put the site into a lower pricing category. That is still a possibility I suppose, but it is probably too much of coincidence to be anything other than the things mentioned above.
       
       If my CTR was to return to its state one week ago then my AdSense earnings would probably be OK. I suspect that AdSense earnings will begin to recover soon though.
       
       Just my 2 cents. My punt is on c) though.

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       1. 62

          Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Ok, I'm way down and getting pretty discouraged.  I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a better site somewhere.

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          1. 0

             ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Your own private site basically, if you are prepared to do the SEO.

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                Brie Hoffmanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                That's an idea.

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    2. 85

       Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Yes and no. My traffic dropped by about 25% and has stayed pretty steady ever since - but my income has dropped more like 75%.

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17. 60

    dingdondingdonposted 13 years ago

    I'm up and down a lot. Before I was usually getting regular traffic and had a hubscore of mid-eighties. Now it drops for a few days then climbs up then drops again. Very frustrating.

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18. 74

    Eve Fossposted 13 years ago

    My traffic is climbing slightly, too, but the CTR is abysmal. Gotta admitit is frustrating.

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19. 0

    TopUniverseposted 13 years ago

    I don't see any improvement after the algo change and expecting things will be sort out soon.

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    1. 79

       cre8tiveposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Yesterday was my best traffic day since the end of the world - sorry, google algo change.
       
       Traffic isn't back up to pre change levels yet but it heading in the right direction and crucially adsense is also picking up (though my analytics isn't reporting properly at the moment so I'm not sure where it's coming from).
       
       I haven't really removed any news or RSS feeds - except some I came across when fixing amazon hubs which added no relevance.
       
       What I have started doing is backlinking (externally). This is something I think I now consider a necessary evil - I'm never going to do it to a great extent but even 3 or 4 per hub (on the ones I've done to date) seems to make a difference.
       
       Of course none of this has any scientific basis and is purely my observation - but it's given me something to focus on, and sometimes that's all you need.

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20. 85

    WryLiltposted 13 years ago

    I have not recovered.

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21. 0

    BRIAN SLATERposted 13 years ago

    My views are all up and down still, had a very good week last week but the weekend bombed, Monday was my best day ever so it's still all over the place.
    My adsense is doing OK- I have made payout again this month so I'm quite happy with that.
    My Amazon took a massive knock as a lot of my hubs are sales related. I have followed Nellie's advice and converted quite a few hubs back to adsense only. I'm on the verge of the threshold for March so will at least get a check from Amazon. Things could be better, but at least reaching payout keeps me motivated. Am really looking forward to joining the new ad prog whenever I get the invite.

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22. 84

    Pcunixposted 13 years ago

    The past few days have seen search engine traffic to my hubs almost back to the same figures that were common before TAD (That Awful Day).
    
    If it keeps up all week, I'm calling it "recovered".
    
    As to money, no, not yet.. that's still in the cellar.

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    1. 0

       ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       And have you checked to see if that is US traffic?

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       1. 84

          Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Well, it's Google.com in the Traffic Sources stats. I see a smaller amount of Google.ca, some .uk and .au and not much else.

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23. 68

    ThomasEposted 13 years ago

    As far as I can see, we have not had a recovery at all. If you check out quantcast, US traffic is basically half of what it was before the 'event'.
    
    I fully expect the changes to be rolled out to the rest of the English speaking world in the next few days (normally the big roll outs are for the end of the month).
    
    This doesn't mean that individual users will all be hit, just that the situation has not changed. Some people won't be affected. Some will.

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    1. 84

       Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Well, my SE traffic WAS affected and now it seems to be coming back.
       
       That's just a few days, though.  We'll see what the rest of the week brings.
       
       Remember that I do no backlinking other than FB and Twitter, so this is all real Google search.

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       1. 68

          ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I'm not talking about you specifically, I am talking about the site as a whole. If you look at http://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com you will see what I am talking about.
          
          I am sure there are people like you that are doing as well or even better than they were doing before the algorithm change. As a site, hubpages is not doing that well at the moment.

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             Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             I would not say "doing well".   Traffic from search engines is almost back to where it was, but earnings have pretty much disappeared here at HP.

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             1. 68

                ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Sorry, I didn't see your response. If you are just talking about hubpages, I believe that their new ad placements are not converting well yet, but should return once google chews over the substantial changes to the million or so pages it needs to crawl.
                
                Anyway, from what I can tell Panda II is on its way, google is doing an extremely deep crawl of my sites right at the moment. There is another update coming, imminently, IMHO,

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             2. 59

                SunSevenposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                I disagree

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                1. 68

                   ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Noted. What do you disagree with, and why?

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                2. 84

                   Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Earnings  had disappeared FOR ME.
                   
                   The HP ads just started, and do seem to be working better so far, but we'll see what we'll see.

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    2. 0

       ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       People need to stop thinking about when "we" are going to have a recovery, as in a sitewide one, as this may not ever happen.
       
       Instead that need to concentrate on how "I" or "you" are going to have a recovery. The precedent has already been set with Squidoo, their 2007 Google slap lasted for 2 years.
       
       Recoveries were on an individual lens basis and were relative to the amount of work that users were willing to put into off-site promotion of those individual lenses, in other words backlinks.
       
       If you are sitting waiting for Hubpages as a site to be pinged back up Google then you are likely to be dissapointed. If you want to see your own Hubpages move back up Google, then there is something that you can do about that.
       
       The hubs which have held up best are those which are mature and have mature backlinks, and this is coming from somebody who backlinked the first half of his Hubpages and not his second half. Over the next few months you will see me publishing hardly anything, and probably dissapearing from the site completely, whilst I spend my days religiously backlinking.
       
       That is how Squidoo INDIVIDUALS recovered, and that is also the reason why Squidoo as a whole did not drop as much as Hubpages. Because they have many, many, many, more links leading to their lenses. Hubbers are crap at backlinking, and they are paying the prices as a result.
       
       I'm not talking about black hat SEO, I'm talking about a few articles here and there with backlinks to hubs, a few low quality bookmarks, that is all that was needed to prop up my older hubs.

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24. 82

    IzzyMposted 13 years ago

    My google.com traffic staged a recovery last night, and its dropped back again today. Traffic overall is pretty good this week, but earnings are still way down.

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25. 82

    DonnaCSmithposted 13 years ago

    Depressing:o( I have not been one of the BIG earners, but Google adsense is holding steady at ZERO. Hubpages is coming along slowly.

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26. 59

    Randy Godwinposted 13 years ago

    My traffic is about where it was before the slap with Adsense earnings not much different either.  This is my best month ever with Amazon too!  I don't backlink much, like PC, just on FB and Twitter.  I also didn't have to change any hubs to meet the new standards, so there's that.  Who knows? 

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    1. 77

       Uninvited Writerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       It just means you are perfect

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       1. 59

          Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I wouldn't say perfect, Susan.  It's true, but I wouldn't say it! 

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27. 60

    Mike Daleposted 13 years ago

    My traffic to my rippin 4 hubs is down a bit, and my earnings are way off, compared with earnings from other sources, such as my own sites and youtube.
    
    I can say this: I had my hubs plugged into market Samurai and analyzed them weekly or thereabouts. Most of my hubs, after the initial honeymoon period, settled in on the 2nd or 3rd page of google results, rank 20-40ish. Since the algorithm change, they are ALL off the charts at over 100, which means past page 10. This is US search results.
    
    My own sites, on the other hand, are all, across the board, ranking higher than they were. One went from 80ish to 14. I'm thrilled with that!

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