Serious drop in traffic

1. 78

   Ms Deeposted 12 years ago

   After the drastic drop earlier in the month my traffic was about 80% recovered, but yesterday it hit a new low for this year. I know it's just before Christmas, but this does not explain the drastic drop. sigh

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2. 60

   Mark Ewbieposted 12 years ago

   OK I am officially pissed off.
   
   A while back there was a triple whammy.  The HP server went down at the same time as a Google algo update and something else, I think HP were making a change.
   
   It seems we have another triple whammy.  The security certificate expires, another algo update and the stats which are becoming less reliable by the day are once again - frozen or on acid.
   
   I know that Google hates content farms and the generic garbage. That's one element of the 'battle'.  But some of these other things - security certificate and stats are just nonsense for a professional organisation.
   
   What we need is a site that performs the same boring job every single day.  ie. It works.  It does not need changing or fixing or 'improving'.  Just working reliably.
   
   The other thing is to improve the content and reduce spammy interlinking.  That's a more long term issue.
   
   On a personal note I am just so fed up with seeing my content blown about in the wind - one day OK, next day bad.
   
   It is pretty depressing at what should in writing terms be a fairly good end to the year.  I'm getting better at what I do but the results are not there.  This latest incident just hacks me off.
   
   Rant moving to the real world so I can kick the cat.

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3. 60

   jantamayaposted 12 years ago

   Hi everyone!
   
   Just have to report my All Time Low "success"!
   
   My views dropped around 90 %, thank you very much.
   
   The End of the Word is close... Mayans meant the Word, not World, you know? As you see, they were right!
   
   Happy Christmas anyway!!!!! :-)

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4. 81

   donotfearposted 12 years ago

   Same thing is happening to me......freaking me out.  Traffic, BOOM!

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5. 58

   Dale Hydeposted 12 years ago

   Just checked my stats...still at an all time low...about 1.4 views per day per hub, average for the 95 hubs I have left published.  Of course just one of the hubs I have has 55 of those views.  This is a hub that averaged, for months, a steady 350 to 400 views a day....now it is bouncing around the 50 mark.
   
   I can remember some 4,000 views per day days....in the distant past, lol.  That was like my average back in the day.  Guess those days are gone.

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   1. 78

      Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Dale Hyde,  Your experience sounds similar to mine, though I've not had the fortune of one hub regularly averaging that high, but more like 75-100 or so since Aug. 2011. Now it is at an all time low of 4 and hasn't gotten above the 30 mark since Dec. 9th. I'm now seeing just an average for my 114 hubs about 1.0 per day per hub. Hoping this is not a new reality.

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6. 70

   ptosisposted 12 years ago

   Damn! If top performers who are a helluva alot better than me are having tanking views then I think Sum Ting Wong.
   
   If you want to know if your website has been blacklisted by Google, you’ll need to have a Google account and access Google Webmaster Tools. Once you’ve accessed Google Webmaster Tools, register your website and an email address where Google will notify you in case of any malware infection.

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7. 93

   Thomas Swanposted 12 years ago

   Some people are saying this is a bug. Hubpages isn't updating the traffic data properly. Stats on google analytics are the real ones, and those are not down at all.
   
   Some people are saying we've been hit by a Panda update and the traffic data on hubpages is real.
   
   Can we have an official hubpages announcement about what has actually happened? Something in the announcements forum would be nice.
   
   Also, I'd reiterate that important announcements should appear on our account pages. One shouldn't have to trawl through pages of forum threads to find a nugget of incredibly crucial information among all the complaints.
   
   I'm sure some people don't even know the forums exist. I'd expect the majority of hubpages users don't have any information about this traffic drop and are wondering whether they should continue here. So it's for your own good, and ours, that you make this information easily available.
   
   The most vocal hubpages users (the ones here) are certainly not the majority.

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8. 84

   mattforteposted 12 years ago

   Analytics shows both my account and that of my other half both down about 20% from previous weeks - which is *way* more than the stat page is showing.
   
   So...the stat page is best ignored right now.
   
   The big question is: Will we be properly compensated for these unreported views? I would like to think that since Google is going to pay HubPages appropriately - that our price per view will be much higher, since the "false" drop seems to be across the board...however, we don't yet have any guarantee that it is in fact across the board. If anybody is not feeling this "bug" and the payouts worked that way, those people would take a big chunk out of our earnings.

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   1. 85

      aa liteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      This depends on whether our 'stats' are actually used to report our earnings.  I actually don't think they are.  I can't remember how many views my stats were saying I had yesterday, but I'm pretty sure that under my earnings report I have more impressions than I have views under stats (the impressions should be at most 60% of the views).
      
      So I agree with you that the stats page is broken.  But I think our earnings are calculated in a different way, possibly using data from the advertisers, which shows up under "impressions" when we get paid.  Unfortunately you can't see that data in real time.
      
      All this assumes that you are in the HP program.  If you are just relying on Adsense, then you should see your impressions on the Adsense account (which will be 60% of your views, assuming nobody had an ad blocker on your pages).
      
      Actually that is an alternative to Analytics, everybody's Adsense account should show them the right number of impressions they had.  Sadly this is also not in real time.

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      1. 84

         mattforteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I never thought to check the earnings page. I just did so - and verified everything you just said.
         So everything is peachy keen - aside from the aforementioned 20% drop. But that's just a meh. It'll pass.

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      2. 69

         SylviaSkyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Mattforte got it right. Thank you. HP, something is broken!

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      3. 95

         Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         If you want real-time, log into your Google Analytics and click "real time" and then "overview" -- you'll be able to observe your individual visitors as they read your hubs. It even shows what keywords each visitor used to find your hub and where they came from. Can't get any more real time than that.

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         1. 89

            wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Don't tell them that, Glenn!
            
            Everyone I know that has ever used that thing gets hooked.  They don't write hubs, they don't sleep, they don't even eat anymore. 
            
            Excuse me, have to tighten the belt another notch...

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            1. 95

               Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Yeah. LOL. I solved the problem by bringing my lunch in front of the computer, so I can eat while I watch people read my hubs. The worst part of it is during the "flat-line" period when I'm waiting for the next person to come along. Especially now with the low traffic.

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         2. 78

            ngurecoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Wow! You are the best. You should have educated me about this one year ago.

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9. 70

   ptosisposted 12 years ago

   I don't think the problem is with google but someohow with HP - over at my yahoo where I haven't wrote stuff for two years since been here - not big drop. then again  wasn't big views

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10. 90

    alexadryposted 12 years ago

    No, seriously something must be really amiss today. The page views on a few of my hubs that generate the most traffic are bottom low. Never touched the bottom like this. Yet, if I Google the keywords these articles are still on the first page of Google where they have always been.  I just hope it's just a glitch with the Hubpages view counts as those numbers are very depressing to look at.

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    1. 64

       mybestreviewsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Looking at my traffic sources in Hubpages, I am showing negative pages views in the last 24 hour column. Yes, something is wrong.

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    2. 52

       wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Your hub might still be on the first page on Google on your computer, but it may not be true on other people's computers.  There is now a program where the search engine gives you personal rankings, depending on what you previously done on your computer.  It might be a good idea to try out your key words on another computer.

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       1. 90

          alexadryposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Wabond, I disabled that function a while back and results are still showing at their same spot using hubby's computer.

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          1. 58

             Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             You can also open a new browser and defeat that feature or pain as I call it.  If you are logged in on Google Chrome and logged into your Google account(s) as my computer does for me, then your stories will always appear at the top if you search for them.

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11. 73

    ttocsposted 12 years ago

    So Google Analytics says I actually gained traffic, and I'm getting about my average to more than usual amount of comments.  so it looks like maybe someone flipped the wrong switch and nothing's wrong, for me at least.

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    1. 79

       AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Well my views are still mich lower than in October, but somehow I seem to be making more on Adsense. Peanuts but still.....
       
       Something is strange in the HP world.

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12. 63

    Steve Lensmanposted 12 years ago

    Woohoo! My views have moved up near the level they were a few days ago I'm relieved to say. And about 150 of my 270 hubs have had views in the last 24 hours so I can't complain.
    Of course it could all go downhill again after Xmas. Like someone here noted it's a rollercoaster ride.

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13. 87

    Nell Roseposted 12 years ago

    Mine are going down in a blaze of glory
    down like a lead balloon
    goin' dooown in a blaze of glory
    gonna kick the pc very sooonnnn!
    
    Happy Christmas Everyone!

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14. 78

    sabrebIadeposted 12 years ago

    According to Adsense, my HubPage earnings were up 107% yesterday, despite what the traffic stats look like.
    I use straight Adsense, not HP Ads, so your mileage may vary.

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15. 58

    Dale Hydeposted 12 years ago

    As many of you know, due to the HP idling of 25 of my hubs, I had unpublished them and moved them elsewhere.  I had assumed this would resolve any issues with Google.  However, as I was updating my hub on my Hep C therapy, I noticed that one of my unpublished hubs was showing as a related link.  This is not good!  That would be a bad link in the eyes of Google and pull my sub-domain down even further.
    
    I am not sure how in the heck an unpublished hub would appear as a related link on a published hub.  This is the links that are stuck in there that come from other hubs in your groups.
    
    I went back and totally deleted all unpublished hubs to try and eliminate this additional glitch that HP apparently has overlooked.
    
    My advice to any who simply may have unpublished hubs is to delete them.  If not, you have them showing up as related links...dead and broken links in the eyes of Google, on various other hubs that you have assigned to the same group.
    
    My views have still plummeted.  I am now down so far it is not even worth trying to calculate the percentage of my drop in views.

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    1. 89

       wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Could it be just a matter of time?
       
       I know that if I unpublish a hub, it can take days or even weeks for links to pop up as bad - does HP just not update their information as often as it could?

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       1. 58

          Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I ran into that problem as well on the links, wilderness.  I finally had to go through each hub to locate the links I may have to my unpublished hubs.  As you mentioned...it took up to several weeks for HP to point me in the direction of the broken links.  I tried using the tool check for violations, but that did not pick up these links either.
          
          As for a matter of time on the related links, no.  Some of these were several months old.  Once I deleted the hubs, they were dropped instantly from the related links.

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          1. 89

             wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Several months is definitely out of line.  Sounds like HP maybe has a little work to do.
             
             Are you talking of related hubs, though, or those links coming from having the hubs grouped?  HP would need to know that in order to verify/fix the glitch.

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             1. 58

                Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                It is the first two hubs that show immediately under the ratings area of the hub. These are from "your" group.  It is not in the six hubs that are listed by other authors that line up below that.

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                1. 59

                   paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   I was not joking about the orphanation. You can really do that. It will solve the problem until HP fixes it.

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          2. 79

             AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

             I have also found that HP sometimes flags liks as broken that are there when I click them

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    2. 95

       Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Dale,
       
       Unpublished hubs do not show up as related links nor do they show up as the next or last in the group below your hub for anyone else.  If you log off and look at your hub where you saw those links, you will see that they are not there. 
       
       These links to unpublished hubs only show up when you are logged on in order to show you how it would behave once the linked hub is published.
       
       There is no need to delete unpublished hubs. You can rest assured that Google does not see links to them.
       
       How do I know this? Because I was once fooled by it too. It caught me by surprise. So I logged off to see what others see and that's when I discovered what really is happening.
       
       If you want to see what Google sees, log off from HP and then take a look.

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       1. 58

          Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks Glen. However, I reckon it is best to delete them anyhow beings I had the URLs deleted manually from Google search and cache and the articles now show on Google radiating from their new home.
          
          I did not think to log out and look.  It is sort of "lame" for HP to assume that we would need to know what things looked like if the hubs they idled where still active in search on the group link.

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       2. 59

          paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I suspected as much, but I wasn't willing to work up the energy to go look. I orphanate anyway, because I like neatness.

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          1. 58

             Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Well it will clean up my stats page once the 24 hour wait period is over and the hubs actually are physically deleted.  I never quite understood why I could delete a hub, but HP feels they have to give us 24 hours to change our minds before they do the physical delete from their data base, lol.

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16. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    re: the group thing. I orphanate mine.

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    1. 84

       viryaboposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Great idea this.

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17. 78

    sabrebIadeposted 12 years ago

    Yeah I get the info off the Hub, unpublish, then delete.

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18. 81

    donotfearposted 12 years ago

    Still no change on my top hub.....only 2 views in the last 24 hrs.  Insane.  From 200-500 views to zilch.  Panic mode.

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    1. 59

       paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Go to Analytics. I'll bet the usual views are still there.

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       1. 53

          GeneralHowitzerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          You are right my friend... the real-time or actual views are all there... There's a glitch on HP page views... What you will see on Analytics is normal... People are so busy during the Christmas vacation so it is okay to see drop in page views in Analytics... It is not the time yet to panic...
          
          The earnings just dropped a bit or remained stable for most Hubbers I reckon...

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19. 93

    Thomas Swanposted 12 years ago

    Or just check your earnings for Friday and Saturday. Mine haven't changed, yet views are apparently half.

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20. 76

    Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years ago

    Well my monster traffic drop seems to have somewhat been alleviated....now that I've whacked around 60 hubs.
    
    No way to know if it would be where it was again, or not....on the upside, some of my blogs got a lot of content added to them......
    
    Anyway...Merry Christmas hubnuts, and a happy family gathering and such.

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    1. 78

       Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       And a Merry Christmas to you, Wesman, and a happy family gathering!  My huge traffic drop is seeing a bit of a recovery, too, though not up to where it used to be. May things look better in the new year.

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    2. 89

       Cardisaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Some of my traffic have recovered somewhat, but some hubs are doing really badly. One of my best hubs have been hit pretty bad.
       
       Merry Christmas all

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21. 96

    vespawoolfposted 12 years ago

    Just checked in--my views had improved the past couple of days but today they've dropped to unprecedented levels. I don't think it's just Christmas, either, because there's no rhyme or reason to which hubs have lost traffic.

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22. 90

    alexadryposted 12 years ago

    My views according to Hubpages are still record low, (loads of blue arrows) on some of my best performing hubs, but Google Analytics portrays a rosier picture thankfully. Has anybody else noticed this? Just wondering if the issue is widespread or affecting only some hubbers...

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    1. 84

       mattforteposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Everybody has noticed this. That is the point of the thread, and the conclusion we came to.

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       1. 58

          Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I have certainly noticed it, lol.  My Holiday gift from HubPages was to yet idle another one of my hubs...the 26th one so far.   Now to move it elsewhere and delete it here.  Happy Holidays, HP.

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          1. 79

             AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

             I do not know the criteria by which they idle hubs but it is not views. Idled hubs I removed and put elsewhere  seem to be doing ok.

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             1. 58

                Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                Mine are doing well. One was a top keyword go getter that was idled with decent views and an 87 hub score.  Like you, I do not, nor will not, ever, understand the criteria used to idle a hub, lol.

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                1. 59

                   Hollie Thomasposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   Can't help but think that HP are so blinded by the obvious. The problems always stem from one root- quality control. Initially they didn't subject hubs to editorial review- they got hit along with so many other sites. Solution: Filters. Didn't work. Sub domains- didn't work. Idle hubs, pending hubs- not working. MTurk, not working. Not in the eyes of Google anyway, it appears.
                   
                   Even when I read that there had been a spike in traffic- I was still reluctant to write here because I feared it was just a matter of time before the spike became a cliff. If I were a director of HP, I'd either shunt off now- or address the real issue. A human being needs to access the quality of hubs which are published, not a filter or an individual who has no real vested interest in the development of this site, but a human being who does have a vested interest because it's their livelihood.
                   
                   The reason why so many hubs are published here is not because it's a great site which is loved by Google, but because anyone can publish here and churn out garbage. The only difference now, is that it goes into pending and is accessed by someone who's paid peanuts, and all the decent writers are suffering the consequences of this dreadful decision.

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                   1. 79

                      AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                      The economics of this is basically if you pay peanuts you get monkeys for a start.
                      
                      If you hire someone to review hubs and english is not their native language they cannot assess quality unless their command of English is so good someone else will pay them a decent amount.
                      If their native language IS english and they cannot get more than peanuts the chance is their English is sopoor they cannto assess quality, whatever that means.
                      
                      If their English is good and they can assess quality they will work for peanuts only till they get  decently paying employment.  And if they are paid by the review they will skimp the review.
                      
                      Is Human review enough? as I understand it Google defines a quality site as one that has a lot of incoming and outgoing links.  Many Marketers gamed this which may be part of the problem, but I would guess  that you could post say a review of some of the great and seminal papers in science and humanity, written by people who could write better than anyone here as well as do the research and as long as it was not found elsewhere on the web (copyright etc) Google would still mark it as low quality because some papers might be short (Dirac, who later got the Noble prize got his PHd for a 15 page thesis).
                      
                      I think what I am saying is GOOGLE'S definition of quality  is probably very different from anything a human would come up with.
                      
                      Any of us could identify awesome writing  that is of high quality but Google would probably mark it down unless it was of mass interest (i.e attracted advertisers). This is why recipes  and how-to-make-a-patchwork-quilt goes down well when "What is Time" and "DO number exist"  or "How to claim a duck house against tax" (Answer be a British MP 4 years ago)  do so well.
                      
                      The internet SHOULD be big enough to provide a good income even for writers of minority subjects (Although I woiuld " Yorkshire Brewery Beermats from 1969 to 1975"   to struggle for a while) but Google, be honest has no interest in these and sometimes what is popular drowns out the good.
                      
                      As an example I have Hubs on the phenomenon of the Men in Black, who sometimes harass UFO  experiencers.  However google on Men in Black and you will get about ten pages on the films.   Now this is fine, and democratic, more people want to see the films then read my hubs, but 10 pages of almost identical stuff??
                      
                      Now I seem to be waffling so in brief
                      
                      DEFINE quality, in such a way that it meets both human and Google's definitions.  REVIEW hubs in that light. THEN see what happens
                      
                      A consequence of what I  am saying is that the Hub Scores, determined by reader ratings,  are meaningless quality estimators  as they do not correlate to Google Quality
                      
                      BUT as I wrote I remembered Triond review hubs manually, I think, and  they seem to be dying.
                      
                      OK that's enough. I think I have some understanding of the problem. I need to  work  on a solution.

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                      wabondposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                      Yes, but the people who should be assessing whether a hub pages article is good or not, should not be Google, but the general public.  Google should be unbiased search engine, which it once was.  Now it is dictating, to the general public, it's personal preferences.

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                      1. 58

                         Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                         HP is also dictating by contracting to the "Amazon Turks" to be the ones to review the hubs and based on these folks review, decide to idle perfectly good hubs.  I have noticed one thing over the year I have been here, and that is HP continues to try to fix things, but my stats only continue to decline with all the new changes.  When I get them back to semi-normal, HP tweaks or changes something else on the site and the views plunge again.  Who do they blame? Us, the authors, the one who provide the material that is needed or the site would not exisit. 
                         
                         I always have found it strange that a hub or hubs can be doing great then suddenly there is a change, like the profile page, and those hubs drop in views and all views drop.  The hubs have not changed, the content remains the same.
                         
                         HP, focus on the changes you are making and stop blaming us, the authors who are not responsible for the changes you are making. We are only informed after you make these changes.  You do not listen to our advice or desires at anytime.

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                         1. 79

                            AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                            Great comment. HP are basically panicking when they should be thinking. 
                            
                            If I have a Hub that is doing well and thenHP change something and it starts to die the quality of the hub is not changed, the drop is because of HP, not Google.  Of course it gets confusing if there is a Google and an HP change at the same time.

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                      2. 59

                         Hollie Thomasposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                         My point was, is, why do Google dislike HP so much? IMHO it's because of some of the low quality, spammy articles which have been published here in the past. And yes, ultimately the reader rates the quality of the hubs. But think about it, in the past how much rubbish have readers had to sift through in order to find quality hubs? Now they can't find many of the quality hubs because they have been idled.
                         
                         All the changes do not appear to help HP's reputation in the eyes of Google. I write for another site which manually reviews the first five articles of each new author. They are a small site which rejects more articles than they accept. However, pages are indexed within a couple of hours, they never seem to be affected by any of the updates and authors traffic gains traction slowly, but consistently.  No huge peaks or troughs.

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                         1. 81

                            SimeyCposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                            Hollie: what doesn't makes sense is that if Google dislikes HP so much why is eHow ranking as number 8 in the US? It has far more poorly written content than HP! It makes more sense to me that Google make more money from eHow and therefore their content ranks higher than ours - Google are a business after all.
                            
                            There are many great quality sites that 'review' manually every article and many are failing or struggling to get traffic - why would a site with top quality article only still rank lower than eHow?
                            
                            Again - IMHO it comes down to money - Squidoo and HP are making Google decent money, but eHow are making more - therefore eHow gets more traffic - simple economics!
                            
                            We can go around and around blaming Google, Hubpages, poor quality writers etc. - but let's be honest there's not one SEO expert that fully understands what is going on, so what chance have we! Heck - even Google don't know what happened on December 10th!

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                               Hollie Thomasposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                               Yes, I agree with that Simey. And yes, I agree that e-how content is pretty poor, but you still don't see some of the rubbish which has been published here in the past. For example, a hub offering Sri-lankan recipes that only contains ten images and a title. I could go on. E-how may have some poor quality content, but it does what it says on the tin. If they offer a recipe, you'll find the recipe etc. So I also think there's a trust issue with the readership here. Irrespective of what HP are doing to improve the quality of hubs published now, they still have that poor reputation to overcome.
                               
                               Part of Google's assessment of a page is how trusted it is in the eyes of the reader. In other words, are they clicking whilst reaching for their credit cards? A reader will not buy from a site they do not trust. I've moved a good few hubs from here to another site, and only updated them slightly, but almost instantly I was receiving clicks and Amazon sales. I've never had any here. The same content but on a different site now converts into sales. Why? Do Google ads perform poorly here, too?
                               
                               I wonder where HP would be now if they'd employed editors instead of offering sub-domains? At least Squidoo and e-how have performed some form of quality control in the past- in the main this has been absent from HP. And I'm not trying to blame anyone here, but I still believe that ensuring only quality content is published is the way to earn readers trust and confidence. That's how, IMHO, traffic will convert into clicks. Looking through a Google lens, that has to put HP in a better position with Google.

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                               Will Apseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                               eHow rates so highly because it has huge megasite SEO muscle- all those internal links, for one thing.
                               
                               HP has similar SEO advantages, but unlike eHow also has a lot of spun garbage, purely promotional garbage and every other kind of garbage. This brings Panda running.
                               
                               If HP can just get rid of the very worst stuff, it could take off again. Squidoo and eHow show clearly enough that you don't need stellar content. You just need to lose the real crap.

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                                  SimeyCposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                  In theory that is what HP are doing - I guess it'll take time!!! I guess the spinners are better on Squidoo and eHow than on here

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                                  1. 89

                                     Will Apseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                     Paul Edmondson said that they are trying to slim down from around six million pages to one million. Five million pages of poor content is a big burden for a site to carry. And it probably will take some time to shed the pounds...

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                                        Hollie Thomasposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                        Yes I can see that. But, using MTurk workers to rate hubs could be a grave mistake IMHO, and I mean no disrespect to the workers there. I also think that idling decent hubs is not the way to go either. Although I hope I'm wrong and that both work for the site and the community.

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                                        1. 89

                                           Will Apseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                           Paul Goodman raised some serious issues (very bravely, given the terrors any kind of assessment brings to the surface in some people) about the MTurk system.
                                           
                                           It is obviously not perfect. If HP really want it to work they will have to structure it properly and pay capable people well enough.
                                           
                                           This year has certainly shown that HP don't generally hit the target at the first attempt, lol. I would give them a few months. After all, no one has come up with real examples of perfectly good pages being rejected, so it can't be that bad for writers.
                                           
                                           The question is: are enough bad pages being culled?

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                               2. 70

                                  ptosisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                  eHow’s Writer’s Compensation Program is closed. But you can still write for them for free  perhaps that's why it's more trusted.

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23. 89

    Will Apseposted 12 years ago

    Well, my traffic is very good again. No idea if it will last, but pleasing to see anyway.

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24. 89

    Will Apseposted 12 years ago

    I don't understand people's fear of pages being assessed for featuring. Are sound pages being rejected?
    
    I have a feeling the bar is pretty low. High enough to get rid of spun content but not much higher.

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    1. 79

       AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I think well written informative pages are getting rejected.  I cannot think of an example at the moment.

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       1. 89

          Will Apseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Until you can think of an example, or someone comes forward with a page that was been unfairly rejected from the featured category, is it a good idea to stoke the hysteria around the subject?
          
          Idled hubs are a different issue. They are idled because of poor traffic (and, perhaps, poor read times).

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          1. 60

             Mark Ewbieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Well I am fuming.  I wrote a hub on guns and pornography which had at least two text capsules and a photo I ripped off Guns and Porn weekly - and some jobsworth from MTurk said it needed a quiz adding.

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             1. 81

                SimeyCposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                See there's your problem Mark. You have to disguise it and be politically correct.
                
                Something like "Things that don't really kill people and artistic mating rituals of Humans" should do the trick.

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                1. 79

                   AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   I am having fun imagining the sort of questions a quiz  or poll might have.
                   "do you think guns are purely phallic substitutes for  men unsure of their sexuality" should get  a few comments .... or instant rejection.

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                2. 60

                   Mark Ewbieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   Thanks Simey.  HOTD on its way.

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25. 96

    leahleflerposted 12 years ago

    Well, my traffic is on the rebound. I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief - I think the Google update coupled with Christmas knocked my traffic down temporarily. Red arrows are a welcome sight!

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    1. 79

       AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I do not get too fussed about traffic but I know that no traffic means no money. At present my earnings seem to be OK, but I will  continue to track  earnings first then traffic.

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    2. 69

       SylviaSkyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       My traffic is also recovering. Does anyone really know what happened?

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       1. 60

          jantamayaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I'm recovering too. No idea what was it... Maybe it was the Ghost of the Last Christmas...

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26. 81

    donotfearposted 12 years ago

    I'm disappointed.  My article with the highest traffic is still lagging.  That's a big gap, going from 200 to 500 hits a day on one hub to 10-40 per day.  I'm afraid to change the title, it held for so long.  It has a lot of comments on it...
    
    Oh well.

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27. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    Gazing at my stats... I am both happy and perturbed...
    
    Happy as to overall stats.
    
    Perturbed as to performance of certain hubs.

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    1. 89

       wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       LOL  I've got one hub that was often my best performer the last couple of months and always had well over 100 views.  Now it's showing 1.
       
       Of course, it's a hub on the true meaning of Christmas and Christmas has passed....

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       1. 81

          donotfearposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          I check every day to see if my best performing hub is up again.  Yet is holds at around 33 hits a day.  It got way more than that before!  Much much more!  I don't feel desperate, but I'm disappointed.

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28. 67

    Cardiaposted 12 years ago

    My traffic has definitely taken a dip in the past month or so. I've tried to combat this by updating my hubs, publishing new ones, changing titles, and even unpublishing ones that were deemed 'idle' but nothing seems to be working it's a bit disheartening.

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29. 69

    brakel2posted 12 years ago

    I am down one third now. One new hub from three weeks ago is not indexed. So up a little. I have no skulls. I don't link much to other hubs. I figure HubPages has done linking from slideshow and hubs bottom of page. I do have that deal to next hub. I have no links to staff.

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30. 78

    Ms Deeposted 12 years ago

    I'm still down a good 50% and my best performing hub of always 70+ hits in 24 hrs (for well over a year) tanked. It even got down to zero one day. Sure hoping after the holidays traffic improves.

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31. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    "Right now
    5
    active visitors on site"
    
    Absolutely NONE of which came from Google...

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32. 80

    formosangirlposted 12 years ago

    On December 19, I had over 1200 on one hub, I saw that I was on the first page of Google for the typical terms to find my article. However, when I checked the source, it all came from Yahoo search.
    
    I don't believe that anyone really can say why certain Hubbers are losing views. I remember that I had one hub that consistently had 65 views until the many Google adjustments. Now I should be lucky if I see 4 views on that article.
    
    Editing an article so that it can be featured is really not a fix. It is just like doctors who don't know what is going on and sending you home with a prescription costing $65 that is not covered by insurance. I don't know why an article is featured one day and then losing the "feature" logo another day. A published article such as in Newsweek does not lose its value (all things being equal such as relevancy, etc.) just because the magazine is now 2 months old. That does not seem to be very productive for a writer to constantly babysit his or her articles. Hubpages should continue with the review process and if an article passes, then it should keep the article featured unless there are broken links, etc. Maybe Hubpages should spend more effort advertising its site or working with Bing and Yahoo.

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    1. 79

       AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       It seems it is easier to blame the victims, us, than to try promoting HP more.

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    2. 58

       Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Very insightful and I agree. Well stated.

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    3. 72

       LeanManposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Hi Formosagirl, if you suddenly just for one day got 1200 hits on one hub from Yahoo I would check to see if that is registered in your analytics.. I have had peaks from Yahoo that all come in one block but they are not "real" views, just as many of us have had surges of traffic from facebook, but they turn out to be a bot..
       I have several hubs and other pages that rank first place on the search results in bing and yahoo but they still receive pitiful amounts of traffic because people still do not use these search engines. General searching tends to be done on Google who have very much cornered the market - you can take the number one slot on Bing and Co. as often as you like but if no one out there uses them you still get no traffic.

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33. 81

    donotfearposted 12 years ago

    Here's my question.  How long to wait until the new "whatever it is" to catch up before going in and actually tweeking the heck out of titles that once drew lots of traffic.  Like, why fix it if it aint broke.  I'm not touching the title yet, but if things don't change soon.....

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34. 78

    Rain Defenceposted 12 years ago

    There is a difference between hp stats and google analytics stats. I have no idea when hp will fix this, if they ever do. You lot discussing this do realise this dont you? Hp stats displayed have no correlation with your real stats? My fake hp stats last week were down compared to my real stats and now they're on the way up again, but what does if matter? Until hp tell us that the stats displayed are now accurate, then pay them no heed. Just keep churning your hubs out.

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    1. 89

       wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I'm finding my HP stats to now agree with analytics, given that they represent different things.  It's been that way for several days now, and I've assumed whatever glitch they had recently.
       
       Are yours still way out of whack, with HP being less than analytics?

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       1. 95

          PaulGoodman67posted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Even without all the technical issues and problems, stats is always an inexact artform, methinks.  Whatever organization is doing the counting, they decide which stats to add and which to disregard. 
          
          It isn't easy assessing movements at this time of year, but I believe that my traffic has made a partial recovery after 2 Google algo hits during mid to late December.
          
          Of course, I'd like my traffic to go back to where it was in late Nov/early Dec, but I am not confident that's going to happen!  lol

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35. 88

    Sherry Hewinsposted 12 years ago

    I'm seeing negative numbers in my traffic stats again. Anybody else?

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36. 93

    Thomas Swanposted 12 years ago

    My stats haven't given the correct numbers for about a week. Earnings are still holding up, which is why I know the stats are wrong.

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37. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    The meaning of life...
    
    "Right now
    0
    active visitors on site"

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38. 59

    A Driveby Quipperposted 12 years ago

    Maybe Estonian hackers stole your visits and clicks.

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    1. 59

       paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That was my first thought as well.

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       1. 59

          A Driveby Quipperposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          It has happened. Out of work ex-KGB techies set up in the basement and re-routed several million $ worth of traffic. They caught it at Cape Canaveral. Now those guys are out of work. Think about that.

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39. 72

    Abbyfitzposted 12 years ago

    You too!?! Lol

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40. 56

    andromidaposted 12 years ago

    After a serious drop of traffic last week, I'm seeing a significant improvement of my traffic.Hoping to surpass 1.5 million views by the next month.

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    1. 53

       GeneralHowitzerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That's great... I am expecting my 1,000,000th views next week and I can't wait hehehe...

       replyreport
41. 69

    SylviaSkyposted 12 years ago

    I'm up to about 2/3 of normal.

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42. 93

    Thomas Swanposted 12 years ago

    Woohoo, traffic stats back to normal reading. Just jumped back up the 50% they apparently lost.

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43. 69

    CrescentSkiesposted 12 years ago

    My stats are still down and have been dwindling ever since hubpage's stupid update need to figure out new ways to get in viewers since hubpages screwed over my google rankings.

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44. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    Grim.

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    1. 79

       AlexK2009posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Aye, and  no getting better.

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       1. 59

          paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Opinions on previous January's are solicited. Probably a norm.

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45. 76

    Garrett Mickleyposted 12 years ago

    My traffic has been on the up and up. I'll let you know if something happens in the next few days.

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46. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    I worked up the energy to compare...
    
    Jan 1-3, 2012
    
    vs
    
    Jan 1-3 2013.
    
    Yes, I did...

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    1. 78

       Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       paradigmsearch, So how did your two January's compare?

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       1. 59

          paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          My signing off for the day was the major clue...

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          1. 78

             Ms Deeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Oh!   So it must have shown to be worse this year, I take it.

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             1. 59

                paradigmsearchposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                I am looking at the 2 traffic numbers as we speak. I am not amused... I'd stop banging my head against the wall, but it feels so good every time I stop.

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47. 59

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    Signing off for the day...

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    1. 59

       A Driveby Quipperposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       So what?

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48. 88

    Sherry Hewinsposted 12 years ago

    After being in a pit since September, my stats climbed in November, especially Christmas related hubs. I was feeling much more optimistic until they were slammed again December 10. It really made no sense that my Christmas hubs that were enjoying so many views suddenly had almost none, just when they should have been thriving. I guess I just have to accept that this is just the nature of the beast.

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