Dramatic Loss of Hub Traffic Today

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Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years ago
I've noticed that there is at least one post claiming to have gained a significant amount of traffic this week, but for me, my traffic has dropped by 50%. One hub, which at its height was getting over 4k hits a day, is now down to 500 hits daily, and every other hub on my account has dropped by about 50% across the entire account.

This is for my Pregnancy Now account.

Does anybody have any idea why this might happen? Has my subdomain been dinged for some reason?
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  Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I've noticed that going down from #2 to #3 on a Google page can cut my traffic in half. I had one hub that did that and that is what happened. Maybe that is what happened to you.
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  NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I was wondering the same thing. I was getting great traffic, better than ever, and yesterday and today it's dropped dramatically. This has also happened on my own websites. I'm really thinking it's an Internet thing. Like people aren't on the Net right now. Is anything going on that would cause that this time of year?
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  runningexpertposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I can't speak for Hubpages traffic with my one hub, but I experience also a dramatic drop in traffic starting yesterday. Today I have/had 25% less vistitors on my articles. It must be an internet or Google thing. It's very weird.
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Nell Roseposted 9 years ago
I was on approx 4,000 views a day for months, then woomp straight down the pan about a month ago, now down to approx 700 a day across the board, its happened to a lot of people, don't know why, but I wish it would come back its driving me nuts!
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Jayne Lancerposted 9 years ago
Mine is also drastically down today. My Google rankings are also falling. Something is wrong.
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  It's obvious, then, that this isn't a Hubpages glitch, but that something is going on with Google. Maybe it will fix itself, but I hate to sit around waiting for an improvement. I've been doing that for a few weeks since my traffic dropped after I deleted the comments from my pregnancy symptoms hub.
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Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years ago
I can't find the previously top hub at all in Google, no matter where I look. It would appear that I've been dropped from Google on that one hub, at least. I've not done enough research on the other hubs to know which keywords were feeding those hubs, so I can't track them down and find out if they've been dropped as well.

The question is, do I edit the original hub or create an entirely new one? Assuming Google will re-crawl my hub, it seems that editing is probably the right way to go.

As of right now, it looks as though this is affecting the entire subdomain, which is concerning :-/
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  Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I guess my answer above isn't it then.
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paradigmsearchposted 9 years ago
My traffic is also significantly less this year than it was at this time last year. I was thinking of starting a thread about it, but this one will do. I'm definitely starting to become disconcerted.
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Mine's up for the year, but it's down dramatically from two months ago. When I posted about under age teenagers asking about how to become pregnant, traffic dropped considerably right after that, then has slowly (but steadily!) been climbing back up to its normal levels. Now the traffic is simply gone, and I can't find the hubs at all in Google.
  
  Obviously this has something to do with the way that Google is featuring the hubs, but the question is: Why? Have I not updated the account in too long? It's been about three weeks, so if that's it, I can understand that and get on doing some updates to get traffic coming back up. However, even updating another account recently didn't bring the traffic up, even on timely topics that should have sprung into action immediately.
  
  I'm confused and angry. It shouldn't be this difficult to stay in the SERPs if the information we're providing is rich and informative.
  
  Now I'm torn between moving on to writing the Sims 4 Guides that I had intended to do or whether I should keep working on that account. This is frustrating!
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  calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Sorry your account has lost favor, mine has also gone through periods of being invisible, and then gone back to normal after a while without me doing anything. It's possible it's just one of those temporary shuffles.
  
  What kinds of pages are coming up instead? Are they health sites, pregnancy sites, or forums for new and expectant mothers? It's hard to outrank WebMD and Mayo Clinic, but if you're being usurped by forums and the like you should check out what the pages might be doing differently or better and try to improve on your hubs based on that. Maybe add a section of FAQ to address things you see on forums. Wish I could help more.
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Believe it or not, for a while I was actually outranking Mayo Clinic and Web MD. For a brief period, I was #1 for Early Pregnancy Symptoms. Now I can't find the hub anywhere on the page.
  
  I edited it recently due to criticism that the hub itself had received. Traffic dropped, so I completely revamped the hub and republished it. Right now it's unpublished so that I can repair it and republish it fresh in the next few days. It's not the best way to go about things, but since the hub updates as I edit it (live, published), I felt I didn't have much choice.
  
  Right now I'm outranked by the obvious -- Mayo Clinic, WebMD, and BabyCenter, along with American Pregnancy Center. Interestingly, I've linked to articles on all of these sites as references in the articles that are losing traffic to them, so that might have been my mistake. It serves me right for listening to what other people think I should do with high-traffic hubs!
  
  Health topics are never going to hold consistent, and I know that, but it is exhausting to be constantly babying these hubs. Oh, well. That's the nature of the beast.
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LeanManposted 9 years ago
We are all on different parts of the Google roller coaster, it's as simple as that...

What goes up, has to come down and visa versa..

The bigger changes tend to happen in the last third of any month in my experience. My views have had a significant increase which is nice, but then if I go back in history they are just returning to where they have been in the past. Back a couple of years in this case!

I am certainly not going to be having any wild celebrations as I am sure that if I give it a month or two it will change yet again..

My advice is hang tight...

BUT - If you compare your hub to what is in the search results now and they are better then you know that you have to improve..
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I believe that my hubs are more detailed than the articles that are out-ranking me, and that they are more visually appealing to the reader. In addition, I strive to provide thorough information about why the body does certain things at certain times, while most of the pages outranking me force the reader to do additional research.
  
  The difference is my tone, which for some reason I've been incapable of adjusting to make it sound more affable.
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  NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  You're right about these things happening in the last third of the year. Here are some threads:
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/82452#post1771230
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/115218
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/99009
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/96562
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/115185
  
  What people seemed to experience each time was a dramatic loss in traffic and, with some, a recovery.
  
  This is a first for me. I was accustomed to steady low traffic for quite awhile, then traffic increased quite a bit; and now this decrease. I see that it's something that just happens and you see more of it the longer you do this thing.
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Kierstin Gunsbergposted 9 years ago
Ugh, yes. Hubs that were once First Pagers on Google are no longer there. But the thing is, we have to keep updating and improving our old Hubs and continually writing new ones to keep up.
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sara0129posted 9 years ago
I noticed that too. Hoping the traffic will come back.
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paradigmsearchposted 9 years ago
Ya know... I looked at GA. again. I have just realized that my overall traffic is essentially no better now than it was during the middle of summer.
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promisemposted 9 years ago
I've also had a stunning plunge in traffic in the last two days after months of a predictable pattern.

What's odd is that the rankings of my articles on Google have barely changed at all.

Do any of you link your Hubs to external sites that you own?
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  One or two might, but most of them link to reputable sources of information on the topics that I write about, or to other hubs of mine, so this probably isn't what the issue is. I've checked the inbound links and the hubs hardest hit don't have any that I need to worry about as far as I know, so I'm baffled.
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Jayne Lancerposted 9 years ago
My traffic has halved since Tuesday night.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  To all of you who are suffering right now: Welcome to my club. It has been almost exactly one month since I lost 90% of my traffic over night across the board. It has come back to about a 75% loss, but remains flat.
  
  I have done a tremendous amount of research trying to figure out what happened because, at the time, I was one of the few people complaining about this. Here is what I have learned so far:
  
  Google changed the way it is now ranking sites. It updates once each month for each domain or subdomain, but even if you try to update, you may not see results for some time. The updates roll over a 10 day period, so not everybody who is going to take a hit gets one at the same time as everybody else. So, it is possible that you guys have upset Google with something you have or have not done, and it could be just about anything...which is pretty scary!
  
  One thing you need to do is go to WMT and check yoru links. This is a very difficult, tedious and time consuming thing to do, but when I finished I discovered that three highly malicious sites had linked to some of my articles in the weeks preceeding my big drop. I contacted Google using their Disavow Tool to have them block those links, but this is very tricky to do. The reason I did this was that I found out that Google really is going after malicious links and spam, and so this may be part of what happened to me. It is, however, too soon to tell.
  
  I know exactly how you feel. My views fell from 28,000 a month down to about 7,000, and I still do not know why this happened. However, I have been going through my hubs one by one and fixing whatever I think may be the problem: bolded print, oversized pix at the beginning of a hub, too many repeat keywords, too many ads, titles...you name it. It will be months before I upgrade everything, and in the meantime, my income is mostly gone.
  
  I do not know if I or any of us can overcome this issue, but all we can do is try. I know one thing: I am one tired cowgirl right now!
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  Mark Ewbieposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Your lower traffic is fairly close to mine. Well done for trying to 'fix' everything - not that anyone knows exactly what was 'wrong'.
  
  One thing people have tried in the past is to set up a separate account and create content under that new one. It is a pain and it does split the income and you must not palgiarise one account to build the other... but it is one thing that might allow you to start again.
  
  Hey, let's hope you don't need to and Google 'fixes' whatever.
  
  With me they just tighten and loosen the noose - but it always gets a bit tighter. I cannot see any way I could be more squeaky clean.
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I'm obviously out of the loop here, but what's WMT and GA?
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analyltics
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  promisemposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I would like to think this is the result of spam links, but I checked my backlinks and found only one or two that are suspect, and only one links to my most important page. I'll see if removing them helps, but I'm not filled with hope.
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paradigmsearchposted 9 years ago
Twice in a row, when landing on this thread just now, my browser has automatically been sent to some other website.
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  paradigmsearchposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Update. Found the problem. My fault. Don't ever download tuneuppro. Not malware, but still a very tacky thing for them to do.
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Jayne Lancerposted 9 years ago
I just checked my Google rankings again, and notice that my hubs haven't fallen that much. Those that were on page one still are, even though some are no longer at the number one spot. I don't think the slight changes I'm seeing justify my traffic being cut in half.

I'm getting my numbers from GA. Is it possible that something is broken there? Our HP stats haven't updated for the past 24 hours, although earnings have--and mine have halved overnight, which could confirm my greatest fears.

I noticed a thread by Paul Edmondson today about inserting too many/non-contextual Amazon and eBay ads. It seems a bit out of the blue--have we indeed been slapped?
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  paradigmsearchposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  There is indeed a 20% traffic drop re: this Wednesday versus last Wednesday. I have told HP twice regarding that 4-month-Amazon-spam amnesty being a really bad idea... https://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com?country=US
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I hope HubPages does something to rectify this.
  
  Wouldn't you have thought HubPages would have researched the transfer process thoroughly in order that this sort of thing couldn't happen?
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Jayne Lancerposted 9 years ago
A hub I published last night is now in position 14 on google.com--I'm using Google encrypted to make sure I see accurate results.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Jayne: How do you do that? I have been dying to find a way to get real results from Google but have never heard of using Google encrypted. Please let me know about this asap. Thanks.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  https://encrypted.google.com/
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks. Now at least I can see where things are instead of guessing.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Don't bank on it, TT2. I can't find any articles which say encrypted.google gives you a true picture. I'll be interested to see whether Jayne has more info on that.
  
  The only info I could find is that encrypted.google is a way for Google to hide search information from businesses, so they can sell it to them instead - which means Google is still tracking everything themselves!
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  angryelfposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I get much different results when I use Google Chrome under an incognito window. I also use my smartphone to get reliable rankings.
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  angryelfposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Oh, and GA gives you rankings too, but there's a 48 hr delay. Go to acquisition > SEO > queries and you'll see how you were ranking for different search terms. In a few days, compare different time periods. Many of you probably already know about this, but this is the most reliable way to see where your page ranked when. Rankings bounce constantly, but this gives you a great average. This should be helpful to those who are kind of new to the game.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I looked at encrypted Google but I don't think it's really doing what you think. Encrypted Google means that the websites you visit don't know how you got there: but Google is still keeping track of which websites you visit, so they can still tailor search results to you.
  
  http://www.searchenginejournal.com/2013 … ans/71443/
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I think it works if you're logged out of Google, which I am when I do my searches.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Logging out of Google works the same way whether you're using encrypted or non-encrypted.
  
  The problem is that your history is still in your browser and accessible to Google, and Google also uses your IP address.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I actually got that from somebody here on HP, but I can't remember who or when.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I think this is where I got it from, and I do have that add-on installed on FF, which is the browser I use when not logged into Google. I otherwise use Chrome. http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/114639#post2437458
  
  Using that, I don't think it makes any difference whether I'm logged in or not, but FF just happens to be the browser I've always used when not logged in.
  
  Anyway, glad you asked, because the link I gave probably doesn't do anybody any good without the add-on, which I'd forgotten to mention.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Jane, I read that forum post and followed the directions, but when I click on the butterfly, I get a message telling me to navigate to a search page to be able to use it...but I am already on a search result...what am I doing wrong?
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I'm wondering if I installed the addon with encrypted in mind at all. I'd always assumed I was getting the correct .com result with the encrypted address, which is all that really interested me. Maybe they've changed the addon, or maybe I was using it wrong, but taking a closer look, the button works if you use a non-encrypted Google address.
  
  It's likely that I got my information here, since I did take part in the thread: http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/120604? … ost2556232 That could mean the addon and encypted have nothing to do with one another--I'd probably installed the addon earlier for a different purpose.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I confess to being utterly confused by the advice on that forum post. I can see that the add-on allows you to check how your Hub is ranking in different Googles around the world, but it doesn't say anything about blocking your personalised results - just, presumably, your location. I guess that helps a bit.
  
  Encrypted doesn't appear to have anything to do with the add-on - the intent, presumably, is that it will block your personalised results, but if you read the information about it, it says clearly that it blocks websites from knowing them, but Google still collects the lot. In fact, there's a suggestion that it's a cynical ploy on Google's part, because now the only way websites can get that information is to buy it from Google!
  
  So I'm not seeing how it helps the situation at all.
  
  These days, the only way I can see to check your rankings is on Google Webmaster Tools.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  The add-on has an option to 'de-personalize Google search results'.
  
  I'm going to compare the results I get with encrypted Google to the ones I get with the add-on to see if it actually does work as described. I was assuming it did, because the results I got were different to those I got on google.com/ncr. Anyway, after messing about, I don't think encrypted has anything to do with the add-on, especially because they don't seem to work together.
  
  Apparently, encrypted also allows you to visit websites without them knowing where you're coming from, which could be useful, I guess.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  As far as I can see, ALL encrypted does is allow you to visit website without them knowing where you're coming from. It doesn't do anything else, and it certainly doesn't prevent Google from collecting that information. Let us know how you go with the comparison.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I now strongly suspect the same. But I think the add-on is doing what I want it to do, so at least something useful has come out of this.
  
  ... So, I've just compared, and no, encrypted doesn't do what I want it to do, although results are sometimes slightly different to those I get on google.com/ncr.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for that, good to know!
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Mark Ewbieposted 9 years ago
Latest Quantcast...
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  This is pretty scary.
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  Mark Ewbieposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  One day doth not make a bummer.
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  Kierstin Gunsbergposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  ^^ Right on!
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  promisemposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  The overall trend for HubPages is up. The total for the last few days is still above two weeks ago and longer. I'm not saying the site hasn't been hit, but we need to see a few weeks to spot any kind of downward trend.
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promisemposted 9 years ago
I just discovered something unusual. My HubPages audience report is stuck at 26 hours ago. It always updates much more quickly than that.

This comes on the heels of a major delay in revenue processing. I don't know about you, but I had about six days that were stuck at pending.

That makes me wonder if the problem is HubPages itself.
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  Kierstin Gunsbergposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  It IS HubPages. This is the note on my account (I'm assuming all of us have this note):
  
  Possible Hub Stats Delays (9/25/14)
  We are preparing to change our primary data center, and as part of that work we've temporarily stopped processing the Hub traffic stats. Things should be back to normal with the stats in a day or two. Rest assured that data is still being collected.
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  SpaceShantyposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Yes HP stats are delayed but Google Analytics report similiar trends.
  
  I suspect this is just a Google Update/refresh, the last time it happend my views dropped dramatically but then returned better than before.
  
  It could have something to do with the Squidoo merger too.
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  NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, I checked Analytics too, definitely showed me with a heavy loss in traffic. I'm hoping it's related to the Google update like you said and plays out like it did for you last time.
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  ologsinquitoposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for pointing this out Space Shanty. Views on my main blog fell off of a cliff today. I'm hoping things are better tomorrow.
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Torrs13posted 9 years ago
I've also experienced a drastic decrease in traffic today and yesterday. I'm not sure what is going on but this is so strange!
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Healthyannieposted 9 years ago
I have also experienced a dramatic fall in views over the last 3 days. Does it have something to do with the new stuff from Squidoo?
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promisemposted 9 years ago
Notice that nearly everyone posting on here has scores in the 90s. So it's not like we're a bunch of spammers getting hit. I think it's safe to say that, as a group, we publish quality hubs.
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Jayne Lancerposted 9 years ago
Not yet sure what to make of this: http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/125240
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  SpaceShantyposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  +1
  
  Thanks for bringing that to our attention.
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  NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Kind of sounds bad. Hope the migration isn't affecting established accounts here. It's my fear because I've had heavy loss of traffic and lost positions in the SERPs.
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  jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Yeah, Jayne I saw that, too. Not sure what to say except I feel bad for those who worked so hard and are suffering. Nate, he did say that "established accounts" are doing okay, but as you and others have said, not so true. I pray that this works out sooner than later for all involved. Did you see the explanation about frozen stats? Another major change is taking place that will hopefully be completed soon. Whew! Hard times indeed.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  This established account is certainly not doing well. What I don't understand is that my Google rankings have barely changed, yet my traffic is way down. As for HubPages suddenly changing its primary data center ...
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Jayne: I saw the same trend when this happened to me. First everything completely disappeared from view, and then a short time later, everything came back with views mostly gone, yet I still saw my articles on page 1. However, I was not using encrypted Google...however, right now my best article is first on page 2, but the views still suck!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  janshares: Yes, I'm not buying that established accounts are not being bothered too much...I lost 90% of my views exactly one month ago tomorrow and they have not returned. This is a bit too coincidental for my taste and aside from that, Google does not like massive changes all at once, and boy are we getting them now! We better hang onto our hats.
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  jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, TIME, put on our seat belts for a bumpy ride.
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  jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Oooooooweeee! The ride is now officially bumpy, traffic disappearing. Hohum.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  It's a little comforting to know we're all in the same boat. Many of us, at least.
  
  My traffic is down to a third of what it was two days ago.
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  jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Ditto, Jayne, roughly one third for my best performing hubs.
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  paradigmsearchposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I suspect that whatever happens in the next 7 days will pretty much tell us our future for the next 3 months.
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  jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Wise observation. Hang on and don't let go.
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  Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  The trouble is, in the next 3 months is the Christmas season. I don't know about everyone else, but that is when I make a good part of my earnings for the year.
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  Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Mine just started travelling downward too.
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  incomeguruposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Let me join your ride. While we wait for hubpages to do the cleanup.
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  jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  All aboard and sit tight. It doesn't look pretty, incomeguru. But we wil survive.
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  incomeguruposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Amen!
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misterhollywoodposted 9 years ago
Google has been doing a LOT of delisting spammy sites and moving people up and down the SERPS. http://searchengineland.com/panda-update-rolling-204313
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't think that my hubs are, in general, spammy. They are informative and cross-link to one another and reference sites (those from which I obtained information), do not contain an excess of links, and most don't feature many, if any, products. All products on the hubs are highly relevant to the topic of the hub (i.e. pregnancy tests on a hub about pregnancy symptoms).
  
  The last Panda Update benefitted me. If that's the reason that I'm seeing a loss in traffic, I feel like there's no way to please Google.
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  NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Others have said during these updates they see a drop in traffic at first but then afterward they recovered traffic and sometimes the traffic even improved.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  The last one benefited me, too. I'm curious to know what I'm suddenly doing 'wrong'. My hubs certainly aren't 'spammy'.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  That explains it. Thanks for posting that.
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  Healthyannieposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I don't think anybody in this forum have spammy hubs, everybody seem to have really high scores.
  Looking around Hubpages I have noticed contributors with spammy hubs all have much lower scores.
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misterhollywoodposted 9 years ago
Sometimes the hubs will move around a bit before the dust settles. What's down today can come up and so forth
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  NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  This makes a lot of sense to me. A shuffling around in the SERPs could cause a temporary loss of traffic.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  That all depends on what you deem "temporary". Something hit me exactly one month ago and right now there seems to be nothing temporary about it. I have made many changes and waited for this next update to see if they mattered, but now the site is down for revamping so I cannot know. What I do know is that nothing happened to me the past several days...my sucky numbers still have not moved!
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  NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Correction: Temporary for some, not temporary for others.
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Sarah Josephine Hposted 9 years ago
Maybe you should try another technique. Never hurts
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maalarueposted 9 years ago
My traffic has also dropped to about one third of what it was two days ago. Very unsettling to say the least. It sucks when you have too big changes going on at once. One being our merger and two being Google and it's Panda update. So it's hard to tell which is causing our problem; or maybe it's both?

I just hope that we survive this mess and return to normal soon. I would definitely NOT suggest making any changes to your Hubs during this time.
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  Mark Ewbieposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Panda runs regularly. HubPages had not been hit for several months, maybe more. Check Quantcast.
  
  I predicted this despite not being one of the in-crowd, the clique, the gang, the SEO 'experts', the marketers, the people who wrote a hub about it...
  
  Yawn.
  
  Obvious.
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  maalarueposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  So are you saying the issue is with HubPages?
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  Mark Ewbieposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  It looks like Google Panda has assessed HubPages and did not like it.
  
  But if you expect any real information on this forum I think you will be disappointed when the gurus wake up.
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  The update hit at the same time that the import of the lenses from Squidoo. Google Panda had already hit Squidoo for spammy content, and now that content is on Hubpages. This seems to be a logical consequence of the import of that content. In addition, several of us have two similar subdomains now, which may complicate things (correct me if I'm wrong). Heavens, I have similar content on two similar subdomains now!
  
  IMO, this was to be expected. The question is whether or not Hubpages will recover as the spammy content is removed, either by its creators (who never wanted to be on Hubpages in the first place) or by Hubpages itself as those hubs get reported for being overly promotional.
  
  Having been a Squidoo lensmaster, my problem isn't with Squidoo itself (at least not until it started unpublishing my best lenses), but it's with the sheer amount of spam content (which on Squidoo managed to succeed) that has now been brought to Hubpages for us to dig through and report.
  
  Recovery should be possible: It usually is. It's just going to take a lot more work from the community than the community may want to give.
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  Solarasposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Forgive me if I am overly optimistic or just plain wrong, but I think we should make an effort to regularly work in the HubHopper. I have been there several times this week, and find that 1 in 3 hubs I hop is copied content. So I report it, and move on.
  
  That's a lot of bad content, if in fact 1/3 of the site is spun or copied content. You can recognize it pretty quickly. It has no formatting as in: it is one capsule, with no headings or images. No effort was taken to produce it other than copy paste and change around a few words here and there.
  
  One paragraph I Googled appeared in over 40 articles, page after page of it. We need to get that off of this site.
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I generally hop several times a week for about an hour every time and have reported a lot of content to Hubpages over the last few months. I've done less the past few weeks, but I'll get on that later today.
  
  I've not seen a lot of spun content, but spammy content and low-quality content comes up for me about 2/3 hubs that I hit. Believe it or not, as many as 3/5 are less than 400 words long.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I just learned that there was a Penguin update on August 25, the exact date of the day before my numbers fell to the floor. I think I got caught up in it because there were several highly malicious sites that had linked to my work without my knowledge.
  
  I have now gotten Google to block them, but it could be as long as 10 months before my subdomain will recover because Penguin takes about that long to refresh, unlike Panda.
  
  If this is the case, I'm in real trouble here. My hubber score has been in the mid to high 90's forever, and now this? Man,what a mess.
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  Torrs13posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I'm sorry to hear this I will never understand why people think it's okay to steal content and spam up the internet. It really creates a tough job for those of us who write genuine and legit material.
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  Everyday Miraclesposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  What are you using to check your backlinks? The tools I'm using are showing no backlinks when I'm 90% sure that there are sites linking to me. I'd like to be able to deal with this if at all possible.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  If you go into Webmaster Tools you can check there to see who is linking to your articles. Hit "more" at the bottom of that list, and the entire list will show up. If you click on each one of them, you will see exactly which hubs they have linked to. Then you have to go to "who is hosting this" to check and see who the domain owner is and if any seem fishy, you must then email them ... every one of them...and ask them to undo the link. They do not have to respond and they do not have to remove any of them. Keep a list. Once you have narrowed down the ones that seem legit and those that don't, you can then use the WMT disavow tool to request that Google block those links.
  
  It has taken me more than a month to do all of this, and I have requested removal of more than 1400 links...three of which were clearly malicious and all of those were attached in the weeks prior to my traffic loss. I also found someone who had stolen my articles...in fact several someones...and have had to file DMCA complaints against them. One, which was in France, ignored me completely, and two I had to re report to Google.
  
  This is a huge mess, but if you want to clear your links, this is what you must do. I had no idea about any of this until I was given information that led me to read articles about this. Very time consuming and I still do not know if this was my problem. Won't know possibly for 10 more months!
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  maalarueposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  How would you define a malicious site? What do I look for? I have many backlinks, but am unsure of how to pinpoint which are malicious. I have found several duplicated HUBS with Copyscape and filed DMCA.
  
  It appears HubPages has lost focus and is more concerned about quantity over quality. Merging Lenses into Hubs was a bad idea. They should have left them separate, or at least put them under a different domain. This is a big mess. And now we are seeing the consequences from Google Panda/Penquin. Another day and another 10% drop. I am now down approx. 70%.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  maalarue:
  
  Believe me, I feel your pain. My problem started long before yours did, and I fear now that it is much worse that I believed it to be.
  
  Once you see the list of sites that have linked to your various articles on Webmaster Tools, you have to really think about what makes sense. If I write an article about car towing and a site called helicoptersRus links to it, something is wrong. If I then go onto that site and see that they are using the title only of my article to get people to click and then reverting that click over to a spam site that is selling all kinds of things, that is a malicious site.
  
  Also, if one site has linked numerous times that has very little to do with my article, and then if I try to open that site and am forbidden to do so, am told I have no access, or am given some other excuse such as "bandwidth exceeded", those are red flags. Also, if that site is out of the US and is in a language other than English, that is a red flag. If my anti virus or Malware refuses to allow me to enter a site and TELLS me it is malicious, then I know for sure that it is.
  
  As I noted above, doing a link audit is very tedious, but it is the only way to find out if malicious sites have linked to your articles. If Google sees this, especially if there are several of them, then when they hit you for Spam, you get thrown under the bus.
  
  I had no idea we were supposed to be doing this, and as a result had to sort through 3600 links to find the 23 domains that needed to be blocked. Unfortunately, I think I found out too late, as I finally sent my disavow to Google just last week and they only notified me a few days ago that they had updated my links file.
  
  But, I digress. That's how you know links are malicious and/or spammy...and that is exactly what Penguin and Panda are going after right now.
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  maalarueposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks you very much for that info.
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  Solarasposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Good for you! I feel like this is a community service we all need to be doing to police the site. We can't just complain about the spam - we need to ferret it out and report it. If everyone spent half the time they do reading and commenting in the forums, we might get rid of 20-30% of the spam in one month.
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  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I haven't seen such a thing here for years, especially not one whose information I can trust.
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  Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, Panda runs regularly. But usually it's the same Panda, with a few minor tweaks. This most recent Panda is a new update, with substantial changes to it. So big, in fact, that Google actually felt the need to formally announce it - which they don't usually do. That means the results will change: sites that passed the old Panda may not pass the new one, and vice versa. So you may be right, but IMO the jury is still out.
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  misterhollywoodposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Yes this is a big, fat bloated and angry Panda with gas:) I'm tired of smelling him
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Suzanne Dayposted 9 years ago
Hi everyone, was just having a read of an interesting article this morning. It's just one of many viewpoints on the subject, but I have to agree with the article from my own HP experience:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2 … l-content/

Just something to keep in mind after all this other stuff is finished.
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  robertzimmerman2posted 9 years agoin reply to this
  That was a great read, especially part 2. Thanks!
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  misterhollywoodposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Great read. I've been blogging on my site (non HP) with lots of content just for the reasons stated in that article. Thanks for the share!
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Greensleeves Hubsposted 9 years ago
After a big and very long term fall in traffic last year from about 700 visits a day average to about 450 visits a day, my traffic over several months has been slowly crawling back up to the 700 mark. It usually drops at the weekends to about 400-500, but today it dropped to 332. Hope it's just a temporary drop, and the general trend will still be one of increased traffic.
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