Less traffic after moved to niche site?

1. 84

   sarahspradlinposted 7 years ago

   I pretty much have the same amount of traffic everyday but last week 5 of my hubs were moved to niche sites and since then I've has less half the traffic as normal. What could cause that?

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   1. 0

      KenDeanAgudoposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      So far based on my experience my hubs who have been transferred to partnered sites gains more traffic, just give it a little bit of time. But My hubs who have been generating organic traffic on Google is now getting few traffic and sometimes not. It changes from timely.

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   2. 0

      Christy Kirwanposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Sarah,
      
      As others have said, it can take time (up to several months) for traffic to normalize on articles that have been transferred. We recommend being patient and taking a look at how the article is doing in a month or so.

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2. 85

   Marisa Wrightposted 7 years ago

   Where is your traffic coming from?

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3. 76

   psycheskinnerposted 7 years ago

   Some of my transferred hubs went from little traffic... to even less. It can happen.

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4. 95

   jansharesposted 7 years ago

   I ditto psycheskinner. I think it has to do with how they are categorized. A hub may not fit as neatly into niche subcategories as they did on HP. Therefore, they are harder for Google to find. That's been my experience with one particular hub. However, some hubs did gain traffic but it took time.

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5. 99

   Shesabutterflyposted 7 years ago

   All of my articles that have been moved to a certain niche site have drastically dropped in traffic. They have spurts of good days, but nothing like before and they have been on the niche site for several months now. However, other articles I have on different niche sites recovered quite well. I have one article that sees hundreds of views a day although that is my only one. It also ranks very very highly on Google and gets almost all of it's traffic from Google or Pinterest. Although I'm not sure that should make a difference as several of my hubs rank high on Google and get most of their views from Google or other search engines and they don't get near that amount of traffic.
   
   I agree it might take more time, but I think some niche sites are much better than others in regards to bringing or keeping traffic. Almost all of my traffic comes from Google, but when I have articles moved it sometimes takes several months for my articles to recover depending on which niche site they go to.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I'm curious, which of the niche sites is it?
      
      I have a theory about the vertical sites.  We call them "niche sites"  - but some of them don't deserve that title. 
      
      PetHelpful is a niche site.  Bellatory is a niche site.  They specialise in a clearly defined, broad subject area.  And they seem to be doing fairly well. 
      
      However HobbyLark is not a niche site.  If it was just about games and puzzles (which 90% of the site is) it would deserve that name - but they've tacked Performing Arts on the end, and now they've also added Writing as well.  Google must be having a hard time working out what "niche" the site is aiming at!  And it's no good saying "Hobbies" is the niche, because then where is Craft, or Music, or Tai Chi, or...? 
      
      I was pleased to see them create RemedyGrove, to improve the focus of HealDove, but IMO they really need to look at some of the other niche sites too.

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      1. 99

         Shesabutterflyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         The main one is actually Pethelpful. I don't know if it's because most of my articles on that site are well covered online or because of some other factor, but one of my articles that got moved there was getting an average of 100+ views a day, despite plenty of competition online. On occasion it would get less, but it was holding steady right around 100. Now I'm lucky if it gets half of that. However, I'm pretty sure it started out doing well on pethelpful and just recently last 4 months or so has dropped drastically. One other one on pethelpful has doubled it's traffic (I think mainly because I linked it in another article, but I can't prove that), but the other 2 articles have not gained any traffic and do worse than they did on hubpages, even though they were getting minimal traffic from hp. They get spurts of traffic, but nothing steady or reliable. One article I actually wanted on a different niche site but they said it wasn't suitable for that and put it on pethelpful. I'm pretty sure it would do better on skyaboveus, but I honestly haven't dived into the niche sites yet to fully see what each one contains. Just knowing what articles of mine are on pethelpful makes me think that it's still a pretty broad niche.
         
         The other niche site is wehavekids. I also have 4 articles there like pethelpful and the split is worse. Two of my articles have signigicantly less traffic and the other two are unchanged for the most part. Although I think some of my articles there could be considered seasonal, as they are more geared towards childcare/school setting, however I didn't see any major surges during fall to suggest that is the case. Again, I think this could be a pretty broad niche site as well, making it harder to find certain articles.
         
         Although, I am a bit confused on why it would take Google so long to reindex or catagorize the articles once they are moved. In my case, most of my articles that have been moved have been ranking quite well on Google for months/years. Why would being moved to a different sub-site (if that's the right term) take so long for Google to refind it, if that's what is actually happening?
         
         The one with the best traffic that I had mentioned is on Delishably, but my other 7 have not faired nearly as well. One of my recently moved articles to that niche site is picking up, so it might just take some time, but I'm beginning to think if an article is not ranked high on Google it takes much longer for it to gain traffic, even if Google has found it. Possibly never gaining enough traffic to make much of a difference, unless it gets ranked better on Google. Although that may only be the case for people who get the vast majority of their traffic from Google. I get a total of maybe 20 views from all the niche sites combined. I don't know if that's normal or not, but it's been that way since the beginning for me. As a general rule, I actually see more Pinterest traffic than niche site traffic. I think the niche sites are really no different than hp in that people find what they want from Google, but they don't actually click around and find other similar articles on the same topic. I guess that's how I've explained my lack in traffic anyway. I'm assuming the niche sites are specifically meant to help Google find the articles better and hopefully rank them higher, but I haven't found that to be the case as of yet.

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            DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Shesabutterfly--
            Do not worry too much if your articles on Pethelpful or the other niches are getting less views from time to time. My top 20 changes, and a few months down the road an article getting a few hundred a day may go down to less than 100, and then another few months go back up.
            I also do not think you need to worry much if that traffic is coming directly from the niche. If you do a Google search for the topic your article is about, does your article show up on the first page? If not, why? Should you make some edits? When it is put on the niche site it often will show up on that first page, with a HP article it may not.
            Even when an article is moved from HP to a HP niche site, it can still be improved. If, for example, you changed the focus of your article about wolves and coyotes to how to keep them out of your yard and protect your pets, your article would fit in to the site a lot better and almost surely get more traffic. (Do you have any idea how many livestock owners are looking for this material? Certainly not as many as the Poodle owners living in the foothills of Southern California, where the coyotes are going hungry because of the fires.)
            Look into your decreased traffic, sure, but keep on writing and improving articles in the meantime.

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               Shesabutterflyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               I'm curious about your comment "When it is put on the niche site it often will show up on that first page, with a HP article it may not." Only one of my articles actually shows up on the niche sites home page and several of the articles that I have gotten moved from hp to niche sites are on the first page or first three pages of Google. Do the niche site home pages rotate content frequently? Pethelpful especially, since that's my main concern traffic wise, is dominated by a select few people on the main page. I don't care if my articles are not on the main page, but I do care if my article's traffic does not recover. I wouldn't mind time to time, but I think over 4 months of less than half traffic is somewhat concerning.
               
               I will look into the article you are talking about. I did updates to it a few months back, but I don't remember exactly what it is I updated. I thought I went into detail on the how to keep them out part, but I will definitely go back in and check it out. Maybe I did not touch on it enough and I need to do some updating. I don't have specifics no, but I know it was doing much better on hp than pethelpful, by enough to make me notice the major downward trend. I have not looked at specifics in quite a while, but a few months back livestock was getting most of the keyword hits. This article is not related to pets, which is why I didn't think it belonged on pethelpful in the first place. I can understand that seasonally what you're talking about might be helpful for some states/regions/people, but I feel that the way I have it worded is the best way to title it for year round traffic. If I were looking for something to keep them away from my pets I would put yard into my search engine not pet or my specific pet breed/name/category, but maybe that's just me.

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                  DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  I was talking about the first page of the Google search engine. I do know what you mean about the first page of the niche sites.  I think the choice of articles is based on traffic, and since I get a lot of traffic to some of my articles they show up on the first page of the niche site. The same thing with Alexadry´s articles, or Solaras´articles on naming dogs, and some of them are not based on traffic but are on there because they are one of the few articles available on the subject (like agilitymach´s articles on dog agility). I have no idea how often they change the selection.
                  I am surprised you mention that livestock is one of the frequent search words, but maybe Google is not sending some searches your way because of that word? I would have thought it would get more traffic if directed towards pets.

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                     Shesabutterflyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     That makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up I did notice that especially on pethelpful (it's the only one I've really looked into today), that some articles seemed like they would be rare or hard information to find. I know I've seen a few of my other articles on different niche sites on the first page, but they were not there today. Not surprised especially if it is somewhat decided on by traffic which it seems like is the case at least in part.
                     
                     I'm not sure. You have really piqued my interest though, so I'm going to try and get some more stats and rework the article to see what I can come up with. If it changes traffic it does, and if it doesn't at least it shouldn't hurt anything.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Well that's blown my theory out of the water!  Because the sites you named are all clearly identifiable (having a broad niche is actually a good thing these days, provided you can still describe the niche in a few words, like "Pets" or "Bringing up Kids").
            
            If your main traffic source was Pinterest, then the redirect may be causing an issue.  I don't use it, but I've heard some people say that Pinterest can block redirects.  Have you gone into Pinterest and updated all your links so they point to the niche sites?

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               Shesabutterflyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               What do you think about articles that could potentially fit into multiple niches? When I was looking through different niche sites I found an article that I thought for sure should be on pethelpful, but wasn't. What makes them decide something is worthy of pethelpful vs some other niche site? Pet seems too broad to me.
               
               My main source of traffic has always been Google and other search engines with pinterst a close second. I have not looked to check the links, but my pinterest views have not fallen by as much as my main traffic. I will double check the links though and see what they say. I don't believe I've changed any links, I would have to figure out how to do that as I'm not the best at using pinterest. I simply pinned the photo I think. I'm honestly not sure I remember how I even initally pinned some of them. One of the pins I know I found on pinterst and saved to one of my own boards.
               
               EDIT: What do you think about the niche sites categorizations/indexing? I've been digging deeper into the niche sites today and I've found several issues with indexing that I think could partially explain why my traffic has dropped. Some of them are indexed into categories that are unrelated to the article. I'm assuming this makes it not only hard for Google to find, but for people looking for that information as well?

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  The problem with the move to the niche sites is the redirects. 
                  
                  When your Hubs were on the main site, they were popular enough to collect links from other websites and social networks (readers and bloggers sharing your work).   Google uses those links as signals of quality, and bumped your articles up the rankings accordingly. 
                  
                  Now your Hubs are on the niche sites, they haven't been there long enough to collect links from anywhere.  There's a redirect in place, so Google still counts the links to the original, but they don't count quite as much (this is called "losing link juice").  Your articles will need to build their own links in order to climb back up again. That's how I understand it, anyway.

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                     Shesabutterflyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     I think I understand the redirect links more. I will have to dive deeper into all the new rules and how things are effected when articles are switched to niche sites. I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things after being gone for several years. I've been back for almost a year, but I still feel like there is so much to learn! I'm still confused on the niche sites categorizations though. For example, under pethelpful you can have dogs--dog breeds. How would that effect traffic if it's wrong? That's what I was trying to say, but I don't think I worded it quite right.

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                        Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        The use of the word "niche" is confusing, I know. We probably shouldn't use it at all, now.  The HubPages sites are officially called "vertical sites".
                        
                        The old definition of a niche site was a site which was much more narrowly focussed.  For instance, I know a bit about ballet, but I wouldn't have created a blog about ballet - I would've looked for one specific keyword phrase with low competition, and built an entire blog around that. That's a "niche".  I might have chosen "Pointe shoes for Giselle feet".   Obviously I would've been severely limited in how many posts I could make around such a restricted topic, but in those days it didn't matter. 
                        
                        Nowadays it's a different story, because Google wants age AND size AND freshness.  Therefore you need to keep adding new posts regularly (even if it's only once a month) and you need to build a large site.  That means you need to widen the niche, because otherwise you're going to run out of material!   That means instead of "Pointe Shoes for Giselle Feet", my blog is about ALL pointe shoes.  Within that subject, I have many sub-categories (just like dog breeds is a sub-category of dogs). 
                        
                        Things have moved on since I created my pointe shoe site, and if I started it today, I'd probably widen my niche even more and make it about ALL kinds of ballet shoes.  Or even about ballet, period.

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                           Shesabutterflyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                           I've been seeing the term "vertical sites" and thought that was better terminology. I really do like the other sites, but I find them hard to navigate since I'm still learning about them. I understand the sub categories under main ones as in the example dog--dog breeds. I agree this is needed to help make articles easier to find, especially if Google is asking for all of those qualities in a single website. I also like that it allows for so many different topics to be covered, but also easily found.
                           
                           My question was in regards to articles being in the wrong sub category. I'm assuming that would hinder traffic as people searching for the article wouldn't find it since it's categorized wrong? Am I wrong to assume how it is categorized on the niche/vertical site (dog--dog breed) is how Google would see it as well? I would not think Google would read the article and re-categorize or sub categorize an article that has already been categorized/labeled.

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                              Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                              Yes, Google wants all those qualities in a single website.  In fact it wants four qualities - age, size, freshness and authority.  It's not good at judging authority, (since the robots can't read and understand the writer's qualifications), so one of Google's main measures is simply whether the site specialises in one broad subject area.  If the site has articles on lots of different subjects, then Google assumes it can't be an authority on all of them, therefore it's less trustworthy.  That's why HubPages is moving to a suite of specialised sites instead of one general site.
                              
                              So, in judging an article, Google looks at two things - how specialised the overall site is, and how well the article meets the search criteria.  Categories and sub-categories are more for the reader than for Google.  They are useful for that reason, and because they determine whether your Hubs appear as Related Hubs, so you can pick  up a few extra readers. 
                              
                              Categories and sub-categories on HubPages.com are also important, because when the editors are looking for Hubs to move to their vertical sites, they look in the categories that are mapped to their site.  So the Pethelpful editor is only looking in categories that relate to pets, for instance.

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                                 Shesabutterflyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                 That makes a lot of sense. I'm guessing the authority is also part of the reason why our articles are highly recommended to now contain biographys? I find them hard to write, but I can see how this could definitely help. Especially if the bio is well written and contains pertinent information that helps illustrate authority.
                                 
                                 Having hubs/articles appear as related content would be benefical for traffic and readers, but only if it is actually related to what they are searching. If something is categorized wrong it would appear to the wrong readership. Do you know if editors take the categories straight from HP or do they look for main categories and then create the sub category once it's moved to the vertical site? I never really utilized the category sections when I was writting for HP. I mainly used very general terms when I wrote many years ago.
                                 
                                 I ask because I'd like to get one of my sub categories changed, but I'm not sure it would be worth it or even easy to do.

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                                    Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                    The editors make their own decision based on their knowledge of the vertical site.  However they are all human beings and they do make mistakes - so if you feel something has been miscategorized, write to team @ hubpages.com and ask them to take another look.   I know Jean Bakula had to get several of hers reassigned.
                                    
                                    By the way, I was surprised to see your coyotes article on Pethelpful.   It's about wild animals, not tame ones, and I'd have expected it to be on Dengarden.

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                  DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Maybe that article that looked like it belonged on Pethelpful was submitted for a niche site by the author, and that person asked that the article go directly to that niche. The editor agreed.
                  The editors do not always agree on a lot of things. (I have had an article edited by Hubpro, then another editor came along later and made changes to what the first editor changed.)

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6. 0

   Jean Harrisposted 6 years ago

   Internal link structure is an important part of any website. Pages that you can reach via one or two clicks from the index page, for example, tend to stand out as more important than an article tucked back 20 pages in an archive. This is partly why a new article that appears on the index page and perhaps a sitewide "latest articles" section tend to get an initial surge in traffic but as they fade deeper into the archives(or categories) they become less and less important.
   
   On Hubpages I noticed that the categories, as you see them on the index page, almost exclusively link to Q&A and to Discussion pages and not to individual articles written by hubbers. You can click the button to sort by "latest" but this page has a cannonical tag referencing the "most popular" pages and the most popular are all Q&A/Forum/Discussion pages, not articles.
   
   Getting internal link structure attention to articles is tough on Hubpages right now in fact. Maybe that will change as they deprecate the Q&A section, we will see. Again, performance requires visibility and an article linked from the most important parts of a website(index page, category pages, on similar articles) fair best on ANY site.
   
   You can't control where Hubpages links to your articles from for the most part, but you can find equally important sections of other websites to link to your articles from. Perhaps you also have a blog about a subject, a link from the index page there, or integration into it's category pages there, will have the same overall benefit(though possibly not as strong if the site is small).
   
   I'm fairly certain our articles currently require external links to make up for not showing up in the category pages very prominently. In that sense try to get a handful of mentions on other sites if possible. An article that is not connected doesn't appear to be very important to Google.

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