How to fix damage caused by Editor's Choice

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findwholenessposted 11 years ago
I had a hub that was receiving around 1,300-1,500 views per day. It was chosen as Editor's Choice. It then dropped by about 1,000 views per day. I opted out of the program, but that hub is no longer showing in Google for the keywords that brought it all the traffic before EC messed it up. How can I fix it and get that traffic back?
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  Free Gamersposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  A similar thing happened to a hub of mine on a different account. The only difference is that it hasn't ever been chosen as Editors Choice, but the damage is similar.
  
  It went from page 4 to page 3 to the top of page 2 for its keywords within a few weeks. Then it disappeared from the search engines altogether. It just isn't there when I search for the keywords it was doing so well for. I'm absolutely gutted and baffled at the same time. It shows up when I type in the exact title, but nowhere to be seen for the keywords.
  
  According to webmaster tools, the hub disappeared from page 2 on the 15th of August. It hasn't shown up on their since then for its keywords.
  
  I've ran it through copyscape and a bunch of other plagiarism checkers. Nothing! I've even copy pasted each paragraph into Google search to manually look for copies, but my hub is the only search result that pops up. I put a lot of effort into that particular hub. I'm not willing to repeat such efforts if they screw about with your hubs like that.
  
  I've recently started a blogger blog that I'm concentrating on.
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Strange. Mine started dropping off after Aug 21. But that was just a few days after I was notified my hub was EC. I thought there might be a few days where traffic was slower, but it just kept getting worse. And the traffic on my other hubs has gone down now, because people who found that hub were visiting my other ones.
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  DrMark1961posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Why do you even blame this on your hub being chosen as ECs? Do you have a reason for believing this,or is it just that your traffic happened to go down around that time. My EC hubs have not gone down, and a few have gone up a lot. (Is this due to EC selection? I have no idea.)
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  The only thing that changed with that hub was that it became EC. I don't know of any other reasonable explanation. It would be a mighty big coincidence if that wasn't the cause.
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  CraftytotheCoreposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I haven't noticed traffic dropping on EC Hubs. What I have noticed is that traffic dropped on a Hub that was plagiarized. Once the person took their copy down, my traffic increased again.
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  creativegeniusposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Same here. Traffic dropped and pagerank dropped to zero for my Hubs chosen as Editor's Choice. This is probably due to Hubpages redirecting those Hubs to their main domain (hubpages.com/myarticle1), and no longer as part of my subdomain (creativegenius101.hubpages.com/article1). This changes the link structure from a third-level domain to a root (main) level domain. Traffic and pagerank should return to normal in a couple of weeks as Google and search engines sort out the perma-redirects. In theory, having your Hubs as part of Hubpages.com main domain should greatly improve pagerank and traffic in the long-term since its main domain already has a solid pagerank and reputation.
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Glad I'm not the only one. Well I don't think I'll opt back in anyway, because that would move the hub a 3rd time, and I may have doomed it by opting out in the first place. Time will tell.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  The reason PageRank is not showing is in my forum post here:
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/115785? … ost2466722
  
  Visible PageRank will not change until Google updates the PageRank Toolbar across the entire Web.
  
  It is not true that having a Hub on the main HP domain will increase PageRank. PageRank is just a function of inbound links. Links from the old URL are redirected to the new URL, and some of the PageRank is lost in the redirect. Some of your inbound links will be dropped from sites that don't allow links to be redirected. (They do this to avoid the possibility and penalty if a link is redirected to a spam or porn site.)
  
  PageRank does not increase until the quality and number of inbound links increases. There are no new links associated with having a Hub on the main URL. The site architecture changes for a Hub, not the links. In fact, Hubs on the main domain don't have the benefit of a structured architecture because those Hubs are not part of a separate folder and are just lobbed in with tens of thousands of other pages on the main URL.
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  EricDockettposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  A big part of the problem with assessing the effectiveness of this editors choice experiment is nobody has ever been able to get a grip on how subdomains are treated here. Subdomains are supposed to be for similar content separated out of the main site. But here they (usually) consist of a muddled-up bunch of different topics. Mgmt has said that doesn't matter, but now they seem to be reconsidering.
  
  In theory, if you take a hub out of a muddled-up subdomain and put it in a folder with like content under the main domain it ought to do better. In theory, but the redirects kind of confuse that picture too. However, what if all, or most, subdomains on HP consisted of like content? Wouldn't that be more inline with the profile of what a site is supposed to look like? Wouldn't that make the site healthier as a whole?
  
  I'm still cautiously optimistic about this editors thing. However, lately, I've been entertaining the idea that the way forward at HP is to stick to a single topic per account, like a mini wesbite. Agilitymach seems to be having success with that, and a couple of my smaller niche accounts that I"ve exempted from editor's choice seem stronger than ever.
  
  I'd be interesting in hearing how things are going from anyone else who writes in a tight niche.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Eric, the Editor's Choice Hubs are not in folders. And they appear on the 'muddled-up' main domain with far more pages than any subdomain. The Topic pages here are the effort to catalogue Hubs by subject, but the Topics are not in any URL structure.
  
  I agree that the use of subdomains is peculiar, but it is the way that blogger/blogspot is set up and seems to work well there.
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  EricDockettposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Ug. I see what you mean. For some reason I thought they were being organized by topic.
  
  Re Blogger, individual blogs sink or swim according to the person running them. Surely a blogger blog about a zillion topics woundn't fare so well. While I`m not so naive to think they don't get a boost just for being a google product, they aren't nearly as tied to the fate of the main domain, or each other, as we seem to be here. I'd welcome that kind of independence here...I think.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I think there was more opportunity for personalization when HubPages first converted to subdomains. I, too, would appreciate the ability to arrange my content by topics but that was nixed today according to this forum thread:
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/116712#post2467260
  
  As bad as traffic is for some writers here, the platform itself had almost 23 million unique visitors in the past month which is a HUGE amount of traffic.
  
  I think there are many things HubPages could do to bring in more traffic, like making the Topic pages real landing pages and doing some PPC advertising and linking campaigns for them.
  
  But, as it is now, each writer is very much on his own to use good SEO techniques and fly solo. My traffic is good so I can't complain. All but two of my Hubs were published since May so they didn't go through all of the bad times here.
  
  On a side note, Squidoo.com – which is failing miserably – is now experimenting with subdomains for its writers. Everyone is looking for a magic bullet. Me: I go for magic pencils.
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  Nitin Pillaiposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Squidoo and sub-domains? Are you sure?
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  Nitin Pillaiposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  "making the Topic pages real landing pages:-this,is something that I believe will greatly help traffic on Hubpages.
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  Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  My account should tell everything if this experiment with Editor Choice hubs works or not. They chose hubs that are good quality that never got much traffic. If my traffic zooms on those, it will be a good indicator that it works.
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I've been through the url changes several times over the last few years and my experience is that you need to give it a bit of time. My best traffic hubs suffered initially with each change, but did come back up. Sometimes it's taken a few months, other times a few days or weeks.
  
  Just hold tight
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'm not sure EC is a proven benefit for everyone yet. Google reassigned many pages from subs to the main domain and those pages did very well. HP staff are now reassigning pages in the hope that this will have the same effect.
  
  Googles' choices and HP staff choices are obviously rather different things.
  
  My feeling is that EC hubs will work out but it might take a long time for those who did not get the nod from Google in the past to really prosper.
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yep, I know about the url changes
  
  Good point about the "Google nod" - totally agree. Google has to like the pages as well.
  
  What I've found is that some of my hubs do very well whether on my sub or hp, they just do a bit better when on hp and i'm not one to forgo extra traffic and earnings!
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  Nitin Pillaiposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Are you positively sure the drop in SERPs is due to EC?
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  delleaposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I disagree. I thought the same thing at first however I realized that Google made more changes to their search engine at the same time. I think the reduced traffic on EC articles is due to Google and not the EC classification.
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  delleaposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Note that if you publish hubs on widely-covered topics they usually experience an initial boost then they drop off the charts pretty quick. This especially happens with time-based and event-based articles... once it's old news nobody cares anymore. The same thing usually happens with fad-based articles, such as articles about celebrities, TV series, soaps, weight loss, glamour and fashion trends, etc, etc. These are all relatively time-based and heavily-covered topics that vanish into oblivion quickly. As HubPages puts it you have to write "evergreen" articles, things that will stick around, timeless topics of interest and knowledge that should last a while... and if they are on heavily-covered topics then you have to implement creative writing and creative twists on those hubs, as well as investing some of your own personality into them... so people don't get bored after the first few sentences and browse off elsewhere. In my own experience, which is less than a year on HubPages but is better than 20 years in web article and blog writing, most of my writings generate a lot of traffic... in fact all of my hubs have been featured (and still are at the moment) and at least a half dozen are classified as EC. I know I'm bragging a bit, but the key points are (a) the topics you write about (b) writing at a high school level which generates the most traffic and (c) being creative by investing some of your personality into your writing which will make your hubs more interesting and unique. All in all, you need to ask yourselves if you want to be the 10,000th person to comment about an overly-examined or flash-in-the-pan topic, or do you want to be ranked with the top 10 writers on a topic that will draw search traffic for years? Which do you think will make you the most money in the end?
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  quiterandomposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am unclear as to how being selected as "Editors Choice" affects googles process in keeping that hub from ranking well in in google searches.
  
  Someone care to explain?
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  It changes the URL so the EC Hub is a brand new page in the eyes of Google. The old URL is redirected, which causes other indexing problems as well. Also, it looses posts from Facebook, Google+, etc., and PageRank dissipates in the redirect.
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  tillsontitanposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  It seriously looses all of that? Is the loss permanent?
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  quiterandomposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  That, uh... that sounds like a terrible implementation of a reward for a good hub.
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  Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  When a page is redirected using a 301 it tells the search engines that an existing page has moved to a new location (url) permanently. So EC hubs are not brand new in the eyes of google - they are simply pages that have moved.
  
  Google updates its index with the new url pretty quickly and it shouldn't cause indexing issues at all. There may be a temporary reduction in rankings, but in my experience rankings return very quickly to previous positions.
  
  http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
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paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago
I'd really like to see the opt in/out option available for individual hubs.
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  agilitymachposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  That is a great idea. I have some hubs that would benefit and some that I believe would not.
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EricDockettposted 11 years ago
Have you checked to see if there are any copies floating around out there you might be losing traffic to for certain phrases? With some of my Hubs the re-indexing seems to have confused search engines about which one came first, and in some cases copies are outranking my original. Since you re-re-indexed it might be even worse.

I hope HP has a good solution for you. I had the same thing happen with a couple of my Hubs, but not nearly as harsh a hit. I've chosen to ride it out, since in theory (nothing good ever comes after those words) HP site authority should eventually make my Hubs stronger than when they were indexed under my subdomain.

Since you opted out that course is no longer open to you, so I guess all you can do is hope they climb back up to where they were now that they're back under your subdomain.

I hope HP or someone has a more hopeful answer.
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I just checked. There are no copies. I tried resubmitting my sitemap to google webmaster tools this morning. I don't know if that will make any difference, but it can't hurt, I guess.
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  tillsontitanposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I agree, I'm pinning my hopes on HP because they usually come through. I think some of my EC hubs have picked up slightly in traffic. I have to agree that traffic issues very often come from our good friend Google.
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RMCreechposted 11 years ago
@Findwholeness: How do you submit your sitemap to google webmaster tools? I couldn't figure it out, so I searched HP and came across this question http://teamwiseman.hubpages.com/questio … nswer72055

That seems to indicate that you can't verify site ownership, so is there a way around this that I'm missing? Sorry, I'm not tech savvy whatsoever.
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  Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  RMCreech: That Q&A is three years old. I just added an answer explaining how to verify ownership of your HubPages subdomain for Webmaster Tools.
  
  Once you have done that, you can submit your HP subdomain sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools as follows…
  
  1. Go to your Webmaster Tools.
  2. Click "Crawl"
  3. Click "Sitmaps"
  4. Enter the URL of your own sitemap.
  
  The sitemap URL for your HP subdomain is
  
  http: // SUBDOMAIN.hubpages.com/sitemaps/hub/current/sitemap-hub-SUBDOMAIN.xml.gz
  
  Replace SUBDOMAIN with your own and remove the spaces (I included the spaces to avoid making this a hyperlink here).
  
  Check the URL in your browser first to be sure you have it right. You will see all your active Hubs listed in it, except any that are Editor's Choice. Unfeatured hubs may not be in your sitemap either. But I can't verify that since all my hubs are featured.
  
  If you opted out of Editor's Choice after having some chosen, make sure they appear again in your sitmap before submitting it to Google.
  
  After you submit your sitemap, Google will show you how many Hubs were submitted.
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  RMCreechposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you SO MUCH...this worked perfectly. So straightforward.
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  Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You're welcome! Glad I was able to help.
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  This is excellent, Glenn, thank you. Even easier than the hub I read to figure it out!
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  Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You're very welcome. I aim to make things easy.
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  PegCole17posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Ooohhh, this worked! It actually worked! It showed all my active hubs with the exception of the EC ones. Wow, thank you, Glenn.
  Any clues on how to do this for my blog on blogger? I already have site verification.
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  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Like a foreign language.
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  PegCole17posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Qu'est-ce que c'est? My Queen
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  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  *runs away, hoops swinging, powdered wig falling to one side.*
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  PegCole17posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I have that effect on people.
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  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  It's your "99"... it's intimidating.
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  Len Rapoportposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am a bit confused. In order to see your webmaster tools for a specific site, you have to add their code to your site so it will be recognized by Google's webmaster tools. I can see the two sites I have listed their of my own and can then go to the link Crawl but not if the HP site is not on my list.
  
  I then tried this url which you suggest would show my articles, but that doesn't work either. What am I missing. I do have an active AdSense account is that where I should be instead of the Google Webmaster tools? Can you clarify this please. Here is my url to my posts.
  
  http://lenrapoport.hubpages.com/sitemap … ort.xml.gz
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Martin Heeremansposted 11 years ago
It must be noted that in order to receive an Analytics Affiliate Tracking Code, you have to first have an active Ad-Sense account for HubPages. Without Ad-Sense you cant verify ownership!
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  Free Gamersposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You also need to have at least ten hubs or questions on hubpages before you can submit a sitemap to webmaster tools.
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Sue Adamsposted 11 years ago
It seems Editor's Choice was a rotten carrot. I made sure to opt out and submitted my site map.
Thanks Glenn.
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  Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Well Sue, I wouldn't jump to conclusions about Editor's Choice. I had just offered the method of submitting your site map. I have 17 hubs that are presently Editor's Choice and they are not doing any better or worse than before. So far, no effect whatsoever. But I learned that it's important to be patient. The effect can take a long time. My overall views have recently come back to pre-panda. But not due to the EC's. I'm glad I waited the 18 months it took.
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  Sue Adamsposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  OK then I shall be patient and wait until I see more positive news about E.C. before maybe opting in again in 6 months time IF, by then the feature has not been retired like other failed experiments, for example the suggested links tool, Exclusive titles etc.
  
  My question to the O.P. is this:
  Were you asked for your permission to have your Editor's Choice Hub's URL changed from your sub domain to the main HubPages.com domain before it happened?
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  No one asked permission. I wonder if it will be a failed experiment, too...
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  Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Sue, They did ask permission. We were given the chance to opt out when the plan to start Editor's Choice was reported in the HubPages Weekly email.
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  psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Given that the EC changes your url it added a redirection to pre-existing links. I can see how that might deter some visitors. Redirections are often used to hijack traffic to malware sites so people are cautious about them.
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Do you really believe that the average visitor is at all interested in URLs?
  
  Besides, pages and whole sites are frequently moved for all kinds of legitimate reason.
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  delleaposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Wrong. Redirections are perfectly fine with Google and other search engines if they are implemented properly. I have found 301 redirects to be the best solution and they worked perfectly fine for all of the articles that I moved from my Wordpress blog into HubPages.
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W1totalkposted 11 years ago
That is crazy. Could you see similar article and recreate keywords to draw others?
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Will Apseposted 11 years ago
Over the last few days my EC hubs have taken off, doubling their views.
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Did you have a decline initially?
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  No. They just malingered for a while. Most of my pages were indexed by Google as being on the main domain, before that severe Panda hit a few weeks ago. They had high views then but are getting better views now. Could easily change, though.
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Barbara Kayposted 11 years ago
That is interesting about Squidoo. I wonder if it will work for them and I wonder if they've gotten rid of all their spammers.
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LongTimeMotherposted 11 years ago
I'm thinking it might be a long time before I can figure out what effect EC has on my hubs. The ones they chose are very dependent on summer weather. As the Northern Hemisphere heads towards winter, I imagine their stats will drop anyway. Would have been helpful to be able to monitor a hub that doesn't rely on seasons. Oh well, guess I'll just have to wait and see.
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  LongTimeMotherposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Just noticed a few more of my hubs have been added to the EC list, not seasonal dependent, so I suspect I'll get a chance to monitor any changes to stats sooner than I'd thought. Crossing my fingers for positive results.
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  healthmunstaposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Before any of my hubs got chosen for EC, I read someone posting in the forum about how EC hubs immediately led to higher traffic. So naturally, I was excited to see a number of my hubs chosen for EC. Sadly, there was no change in traffic for a few days after the 'awarding' of the EC - and what's really vexing is that now the traffic to my EC hubs is almost scraping rock bottom!
  
  If I had known about this before, I would have opted out of EC a long time ago.
  
  Anyway let us know about how your EC hubs do.
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Len Rapoportposted 11 years ago
I also noticed a huge drop in my popular article: Secret Price Codes Can Save You Money At Costco a few weeks ago and thought it might be another popular website called "All You" had interviewed me and I gave some tips on saving money at Costco.

My weekly reads on this article prior to that date was 39,949 for the week ending July 17, 2013. The article broke and on July 14th the number went to 22,452, then on July 31, went to 10,709, August 7th, 5658 and now runs around 5,000 per week.

I was going nuts and was after the publisher of the magazine to strengthen the links to my article, thinking that was why I was losing the traffic. I had no idea what this Editors Choice banner on my article meant until now.

What can I do to have it removed and revert back to the way it was? I have close to 700,000 reads to date, I write additional seasonal Costco Score articles and keep updating this one. Would appreciate any advice. They also made me take out links to my own sites, I am the publisher of my one online mag IMPress and president of International Press Association and originally did this article to find other sites that I could recommend to our writer members of our organization.

I am not sure if I should congratulate the others that won this award, seems to be an award that will cost us all views and revenue from the loss of traffic.

I still come up on Google on the top of searches, take a look and do a search with a term like: Save Money AT Costco and you will see it there.

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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You can opt out of Editor's Choice from your Profile page. I did.
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Len Rapoportposted 11 years ago
Can you be specific on how to opt out. I don't see any links to the Editors Choice Awards in my profile.

Is there any benefit about this award?
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Go to your Profile and click 'Edit.' Then, scroll down and you will see:
  'My Hubs are eligible to become an Editor's Choice'
  
  Make your choice there.
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  It seems that some people with very high traffic pages are seeing those pages suffer. Certainly, if you have a page right at the top of the tree in search for a bunch of significant keywords getting the EC award will not help it. EC might harm it temporarily or even permanently because there is a change in the URL. Other pages may overtake yours while Google wrestles with the URL change and it may never get back to the top.
  
  Dropping from top to second or third in search means significant traffic loss.
  
  On the other hand, the vast majority of pages should benefit from being indexed in the main domain of the site. People with pages that were performing well before the bad Panda mauling several weeks ago are reporting good recovery already. That includes me.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Why do you think "pages should benefit from being indexed in the main domain of the site?" What possible information do you have to support that opinion?
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Writer Foxposted 11 years ago
There are several forum threads about the Editor's Choice awards. This is the main one:
http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/115372
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healthmunstaposted 11 years ago
I logged in today to find that all of my Editor's Choice hubs are doing very badly, getting only 1 - 30 views, while previously they were fetching me 100 - 300 views each! What a pity!

It saddens me to see that my star hub which was getting me 150 views per day is now getting very few views!

I'm not sure what I should do - should I wait it out, or should I opt out of Editor's Choice now?

Somebody help!
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  healthmunstaposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am on the verge of opting out - but what's stopping me is - will this reverse the damage caused?
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  Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I feel the same as you. So far my EC hubs are not showing any sign of being any better. Maybe worse. I was thinking of opting out at the first of the month. Doing so on a monthly calendar allows for better analysis of results. At least in the way I track things. Nevertheless, I chose not to yet. Changes to Google indexing and ranking can take along time. I decided I need to be very patient. I'm willing to wait it out longer to see what happens. The theory behind indexing EC's in the main domain is a good one (if it works).
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I opted out and no, it did not reverse the damage.
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mary615posted 11 years ago
The more I read about the Editor's Choice, the gladder I am that I opted out when this all began, and I have no intention of opting back in.
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delleaposted 11 years ago
If you opted out I suggest opting back in again. HP announced that they will be doing some great things with EC hubs in the near future and you'll be sorry that your hubs aren't a part of it. The traffic issue is always Google. You must diversify and add your HP profile to other search engines, also consider ping-o-matic to get diverse traffic, Google it.
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Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago
Have you checked to see whether you had previous backlinks that were removed? I checked your titles (and I'm impressed at your traffic in such a short time here!). It appears you write on some niche topics that could be linked from specialized sites, and sometimes those things can come and go.

I would not blame Editors' Choice designations for traffic - as others mentioned here, plagiarizing is often the culprit. Search for copies using phrases from internal paragraphs (not your lead sentences), and put the phrases in quotes.

Also, traffic is cyclical - something can be hot for a while, and then drop. Last summer, some education system apparently used one of my hubs for lessons - I had a ton of traffic, all from the same school system, to one specific hub. Then school let out, and 'poof,' it dried up.

If someone links to a hub in a popular blog, and you're the happy recipient of traffic, that can drop, even if the link is still intact, when the blogger adds new entries & suddenly your link is not featured as prominently.

Good luck! Hope you find the problem and that traffic returns!
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lovebuglenaposted 11 years ago
My hub that was chosen as an EC hub is actually seeing a big traffic increase. And I've just had four other hubs chosen as EC. I am hoping my lucky streak will continue and those hubs will see a big rise in traffic too.
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Len Rapoportposted 11 years ago
I also opted out...from up to 40,000 reads in one week with an average of about 15,000, I am now down to around 2300.

This Editors Choice has destroyed my popular Costco article and has cost me at least $125 per month in ad revenue.

I tried to reach a real person at Hubpages and they simply don't return a call. So this forum is just a bitch about what they did forum and nothing from Hubpages staff will come on to explain the problem or a possible fix.

I now have to make a decision to move my very popular article from Hubpages to my companies own online magazine IMPress. You can see what we do at: ipaimpress dot com

I am president of the International Press Association and in 2009 I wanted to see if other writer sites were worthwhile for our members. I happened to write this article that went viral so I left it here. But now that they screwed it up, it might be time to generate the traffic on our own sites.

Secret-Codes-Will-Save-You-Money-At-Costco

Funny thing is if you do a Google search of Save money at Costco this still comes up on the very top. Not sure if the reads I was getting was because of the positioning on Hubpages.

I will see in the next few weeks if things don't change I will be moving it to our IMPress Magazine site.
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  LeanManposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Don't forget your google search is personalised so if you are logged into your google account you will almost certainly see your work at the top of the list.
  Open a different browser (Chrome, safari, firefox, IE) and do your google search from there.
  Searches are also based on location so someone doing a search from one state will often see different results to those seen in another.
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2. 75
  Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I wonder if the hub lost its aging, because of the url change. I've worried about that, but most of my EC hubs are ones that weren't getting good traffic to begin with.
  
  I also agree with what LeanMan said.
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  findwholenessposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I had the same thing happen. Went from around $300/mo down to about $60/mo all b/c HP decided to make my best performing hub EC. >
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TripleFitnessposted 11 years ago
There is so much misinformation on this post. This is not how SEO works.

If you start losing traffic today, it's very likely due to damage that occurred 2 or 3 months ago. It takes a long time to trickle down.

Knee-jerk reactions won't get you anywhere. If anything, Editor's Choice will cause your traffic to increase... in two or three months, that is.

It's a marathon not a race, and not everyone is cut out for it.
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Len Rapoportposted 11 years ago
Are there any forums that are monitored by HubPages support personnel. It is so odd that this forum and our posts seem to be writers trying to guess what the issues are with no real answers.

I understand they have a huge business now, but this is crazy especially when we earn money from our written works on their site. After all if I am earning $200 per month from Adsense, I can only imagine they are earning as much. That is $2400 per year.

Multiply this by the many thousands of contributors and they have a gold mine and should offer support especially when the experiment with new features that could hurt the reads and income on many of our accounts.

Does anyone know if they do have an actual support team?
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  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yes they do. There is an "official" section this forum. The threads in that section are monitored by HubPages staff. This thread is in the Community section, which is what it says - discussion by the community.
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You have more patience than I do.
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Tilecleaninghubposted 11 years ago
I got one selected about how to repair an electrical cord. It only gets 5-10 views a day. Guess I'll see how it does.
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spartucusjonesposted 11 years ago
All 6 of my EC hubs just happened to be lower traffic hubs and since being selected as EC they continue to be lower traffic hubs. So I can't really make any comments on whether or not EC will help or not. I guess I will just have to wait and see.

That being said, overall my traffic has been steadily on the rise. Not sure the reason, especially considering I haven't been overly active the past couple of months. But hopefully the upswing will continue.
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Writer Foxposted 11 years ago
Google evaluates each new URL as a brand new page. This is why the new indexing is not immediate. Perhaps you are unaware that the main usage of a 301 redirect is to direct visitors from a removed webpage to alternative content instead of rendering a 401 or 404. Another usage is to redirect to a more current version of a webpage. Of course Google has to re-evaluate and also has to check for spam, in the case of 301s redirecting to a porn page or other spam content. A 301 is a serious tool and should not be used on a whim or some experiment to see if the same old content will rank better simply by changing the URL.

On this forum, two years after the initial 301 redirect of URLs to subdomains, people have recently complained that Google still hasn't recognized the subdomain URL for their Hubs. Just think how much more confusing the new EC URLs are because the Hubs are still listed on the subdomain page, which acts as an index to the subdomain, but the URLs are not part of the subdomain!

Indexing problems also occur when the old subdomain URL and cache are not removed through Webmaster Tools, which few EC Hubbers are doing.

Industry experts disagree with your statement that "Google updates its index with the new url pretty quickly and it shouldn't cause indexing issues at all."

The Moz.com article says: "Be aware that when moving a page from one URL to another, the search engines will take some time to discover the 301, recognize it, and credit the new page with the rankings and trust of its predecessor. This process can be lengthier if search engine spiders rarely visit the given web page, or if the new URL doesn't properly resolve."

Search Engine Watch reported last month: "Another possible downside of the 301 is that it does sometimes take a while for the search engines to attribute your new page with the search authority of your original page."

There are posts all over this forum about lost traffic and search ranking problems for EC Hubs, such as this one:
http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/117767
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1. 91
  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You keep the link juice via the redirect. And any turbulence in the index is likely to be temporary.
  
  But then, scaring the newbies into thinking they need your help is far more important than the simple truth.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You're wrong. Even Matt Cutts says that some PageRank is lost during a redirect. If you're going to give advice to be people, you should make sure you are giving accurate advice instead of misleading everyone. You are not a better source for PageRank information than Matt Cutts.
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  And how much exactly is lost? Is it enough to have the newbies running home to mommy in tears?
  
  Since you are the expert, I will expect an answer accurate to three decimal places.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'm glad you admit that you don't know the answer and that you have no idea!
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Well, I wasn't asking myself the question. Since you are obviously not in a postilion to answer, we should probably stay with the conventional wisdom.
  
  The figures usually banded about are that ninety to ninety nine per cent of link juice will flow through a 301.
  
  As far as traffic goes, you might lose some from Bing and Yahoo, if the graphic below is accurate and the case study, representative.
  
  Above: traffic from search engines after URL change (new site) and 301 redirect.
  
  http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/301 … you-losing
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Oh, so now you admit that link juice is lost. Well thank you for verifying that I was right. But, that doesn't exactly define a 'postilion' does it?
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I'm allowed to make mistakes because I'm not an expert. lol.
  
  Try it yourself. Lots to learn here and no need for too much pain if you don't take yourself too seriously.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Did you not realize that the article you referenced is four years old! Way pre-Panda! Did you fail to read all of the comments on that article?
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  How does Panda effect a redirect?
  
  Besides you can go to your personal temple of all wisdom here: http://moz.com/community/q/changing-dom … 1-redirect
  
  Discussion is one month old, same story
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  http://searchenginewatch.com/article/22 … -Canonical
  
  And, be sure to read the comments about lost traffic, which was the main subject of my post.
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Well, leaving aside the issue of your efforts to get me banned, it is worth pointing out that most SEO discussions are inconclusive, at best.
  
  In the thread you mention the most disastrous result reported was of an individual who chose not to use 301's.
  
  quote: 'I had to work with a webmaster recently who was convinced that 301 redirects would somehow signal to the search engines that they were trying to manipulate the algorithm. Hence, when they launched a new site he didn't use 301 redirects at all, even though the URL structure completely changed. The result? 4000+ 404 errors and a huge loss of traffic! '.......
  
  Anyway, what really matters is what happens here with EC hubs. A few people have reported traffic loss from very high traffic pages which may or may not be permanent.
  
  HP report EC hubs are seeing increasing traffic, overall (in the recent blog post).
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Will, that quote you gave was about someone who moved all of his content to a new website, not within the same website. It doesn't at all relate to what has happened on HubPages so you don't need to fret about it. And yes, I do think Beth should have reported you for what she considered to be a personal attack you made against her husband in the other forum thread.
  
  Specifically, what has happened to the traffic of your EC Hubs since the URLs were changed?
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  So now you are an expert on Randy? Would you say that you are more of an expert on Randy and all that stuff that happened from the first Panda run down to the present day, or on SEO?
  
  I would guess it's a close run thing.
  
  As to this question that fell out of the sky at the end of a garbled post:
  
  'Specifically, what has happened to the traffic of your EC Hubs since the URLs were changed?'
  
  I have said several times that traffic to my EC hubs has increased substantially. HP have reported that overall traffic to EC hubs has increased. Who is surprised by this, except for you?
  
  By the way, if you are going to call me Will, I think I should start calling you Foxy. That way we can be real chums.
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  Writer Foxposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Willy
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  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  We Beths need nicknames to differentiate us from one another. Let's see...
  There's bikiniBeth, who I would like to claim is me, but sadly is Beth100.
  Then there's Randy's disgruntled-with-Will wife Beth Godwin.
  Then there's Beth-who-doesn't-know-anything-about-indexing-or-even-what-an-SEO-is Beth, that's me.
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I reckon Queen Beth or just Queenie. Maybe Queenie is a bit too much 'dyed hair grown out at the roots'.
  
  Goode Queen Beth, then.
  
  As to SEO, Queens don't need to know about that kind of thing. Or money. Queens don't need to know what money is because an underling is always crawling ahead of the swarm of courtiers to pay whatever needs to be payed. Also ugly people need to hide so as not to spoil a Queen's day.
  
  So SEO, money and ugly people are all willingly unknown.
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  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I don't think I'm ever going to live that title down. Everyone will forget in a few weeks, Im assuming. Not that I don't wear the crown around the house... I just fear the serfs, to be honest.
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Serfs can be annoying if you don't have a good headsman.
  
  Sadly, the only one I could find is a wearing a frilly garter.
  
  Not as scary as I would have liked. Give me some time on that one...
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  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  I am slightly repulsed.
  Will, you are the smartest online person I know.
  Yet another hub of mine is going to remain unpublished.
  Will you look at it and tell me why it is an abomination?
  Last time it was the pic. I don't get the whole pic. thing. Did I mess that up?
  It's the one with the dog and cat... I forgot the name already.
  Oh, "What makes us different, makes us beautiful."
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  Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You cannot be voted Queen one week and renounce the title the next. Well, actually, you can. Not much more to say about that.
  
  As to the hub. Probably the image. The one that you used is from Shutterstock. Some of those stock photo suppliers will demand hundreds of dollars if you misuse their images.
  
  This one from wikicommons is similar:
  
  You need to attribute it correctly if you decide to use it. Find the correct place in the image capsule and throw in this URL: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c … tty-01.jpg
  
  Search wikicommons or maybe morquefile if you want legal images in the future. Or look at the learning center on HP.
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  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  Yea! That's awesome. Thank you!
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brakel2posted 11 years ago
He could have made Forum King and best teacher. Be a believer.
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Will Apseposted 11 years ago
Remarkable what we can learn about people in a forum, with a little patience.
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Will Apseposted 11 years ago
What about this guy?

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  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  He's like 'peter pan gone awry.'
  
  Can you imagine if that were the last thing you were to see before you died? They would find my head still laughing as it rolled down the street.
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Will Apseposted 11 years ago
You are welcome. That cat looks like the stray that is trying to worm its way into our household at the moment. I am giving it our cats leftovers. Fatal...
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1. 0
  Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this
  You are a *cat person hmmm? I still like you.
  reply report

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