Are Others Experiencing a Drop in Earnings?

1. 92

   Jean Bakulaposted 5 years ago

   I experienced a drop in earnings early in the year. As I've been here for eight years, I didn't worry about it, usually it stabilizes by Spring. But now it's April, and I am making about one third of what I was making a year ago, a huge disappointment.
   
   I have 142 articles and all of them have been moved from HP to niche sites. They normally performed well on the niches, as I write evergreen and have a loyal audience. But I feel as if it's not really worth it to write new articles if the money continues to be so low. It seems it got really bad after the Maven took over. When I moved my last article off HP, they didn't even put it on my profile page. I mentioned this before, but felt it was mean spirited and didn't give my readers a chance to see it was rewritten and updated, the same chance any of my other articles had. The new owners didn't have to rewrite all those articles and bring them up to date. Is anyone else faring like this?

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   1. 96

      chef-de-jourposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I enjoy writing new articles, one per week if possible, and update regularly. Perhaps a spring tidy up/big review plus a few new articles will help kick-start you off again?
      
      Competition might be a factor. Are you on page 1 or high up on the Google ladder? Make sure you haven't been overtaken. How's your traffic?
      
      
      CPM is unpredictable but follows a general seasonal trend. Not much we can do about it.
      
      
      Could be worth a visit to GA to check up on loading times and other potential issues?

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   2. 96

      DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Are you talking about putting the article on the front page of Exemplore? If you mean your profile page, HP has nothing to do with that. You pick the artilces you want to display at the top of the page.
      Since the Maven buyout I think CPMs have been a lot better. My earnings are up about 20% from last year.

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   3. 88

      NateB11posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I've had low earnings at least as long as you have. It dropped months ago, never recovered.

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   4. 92

      Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Now today I got an email that they "snipped" an article. It is my highest performing one. They took off the pictures, and gave me a big lecture about getting them from the correct sites which allow us to use free photos.
      
      All of the pictures were from Pixabay.com, fine for free use and not needing to be attributed.. I put them back on the article. It's the lack of caring they show us and the stupid errors they make in a case like this I find very troubling. Any communications I've had with staff has been like that, fast and they aren't paying attention, as my pictures were fine for use, and none of them really seem to care except for a few of the editors. They didn't change the words much, thankfully, as I often see several people on this article at the same time on Google Analytics.

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      1. 96

         eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         If you didn't attribute them to Pixabay, they wouldn't have known where they came from (unless you added a source link), so they would have had to check them all out individually, which I guess they're not going to do.

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2. 88

   Will Apseposted 5 years ago

   It ain't good. My earnings are down more than 50 percent.
   
   Seems to be a complex mess of events. Google algo changes have to be top of the list of suspects. "Regressive SEO" (perhaps courtesy of the new site architecture guy after the Say Media merger) did not help. They reckon they fixed up stuff after that debacle but things have not got back to where they were.

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3. 92

   Titiaposted 5 years ago

   I'm not a big gamer at this play, but my earnings are still slowly increasing.

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4. 95

   CYong74posted 5 years ago

   My earnings are stagnant, mostly, and it's because CPM keeps dropping when my traffic increases. Many here have posted that tends to happen, but I'm hoping it flats out soon. Otherwise, it's really meaningless to struggle for traffic.

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5. 96

   DrMark1961posted 5 years ago

   Are you editing your articles? I think a more recent date can help your click rate, not sure how much it helps your page rank.
   Just looking at your profile page, it seems that most articles were not edited since 2017 or 2018 (please correct me if I am wrong). Start on your account page with the article that has the most traffic, edit is for 2019, and start working your way down.

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   1. 92

      Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Will and Dr. Mark,
      You both have points worth thinking about for improving. I do think the Google algo changes have something to do with it. I sometimes have traffic, but the CPM's are so low, I lost about 2/3 of my income. I look at Google Analytics, and sometimes have a good number of people visiting my work. I did write a few new articles this year, and have a list of ideas, but feel it's not worth it. But after a few months, the new ones are beginning to get some attention. I do have quite a few articles on the first page of Google. I am an expert at my main topic--astrology. It's over saturated, but people still love it. I don't predict the future, that's old fashioned. In our generation, it's seen more as a tool for self understanding and I do personality profiles. That's where my main money comes from, but I love to write.
      
      My topics are evergreen, and it's true many articles I wrote are old. But the information doesn't change. I guess I could try to add some new info or say something in a different way, just to get some dates from 2019 on my work. That wouldn't hurt!
      
      As far as the 6 moving articles we choose, that's not what I meant. Usually when we publish a new piece, or revamp an old one, it's shown on the list of articles on the left side of our profile page. After all I wrote here, I felt not showing the last one I finally fixed up was mean. It was popular when I wrote it, and I'd like the chance for it to at least be listed on my profile page, the newest is usually at the top. I'll try not to obsess, but it shows an administration that really doesn't care or understand how hard and time consuming it was for all of us to bring so many pieces up to standard. And the battles I've had to get them on the right niches, all I didn't win either!
      
      Thanks to all who answered.

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6. 94

   viryaboposted 5 years ago

   I notice an improvement in earnings when compared to around the same time last year. However, I attribute this to the upgrade I did to all my articles over the past few months.

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7. 85

   Ladymermaidposted 5 years ago

   I'm waiting for their system to update because now traffic seems to be dropping like a rock for some unknown reason. Currently at 6 hours since the last one.

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8. 82

   Wesman Todd Shawposted 5 years ago

   I've really only been having some bad luck. It's not something I've any control over at all, so far as I'm able to understand. The past month I've sold big things with amazon, and little things with amazon, and pretty significant amounts of both large and small things were returned.
   
   It's a downer when I look at my amazon earnings and the tally for the day is -$75.
   
   So far as CPMs go....I dunno. I think those things are quite out of our control.

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9. 91

   Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

   I update, and my trends are good.

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10. 89

    C L Mitchellposted 5 years ago

    I am experiencing a similar trend. I have a few articles that have been high income earners. I'm not sure why, but my income has dropped to a third of what it was this time last year. Not sure what to do. I have made sure that they are up to date. Open to suggestions.

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    1. 96

       DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       A third? That is pretty severe. I am just wondering if a lot of your traffic is from EU countries.

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       1. 96

          eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          It's a real pain that no ads are served to un-tracked EU readers. I lost nearly 15% to 20% of potential advertisees overnight because of GDPR requirements on sites.

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    2. 94

       OldRosesposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Have you "refreshed" your hubs?  I looked at your profile page and most of your hubs on the niche sites are 2 years old.  Google ranks articles according to when they were written.  Newer articles are ranked higher than older ones.  I've been re-writing a lot of my older hubs so that they appear to be new and they have gotten a lot more traffic.

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11. 84

    Stella Kayeposted 5 years ago

    I've never earned much anyway. 270 featured articles and over three years on this site and I hardly earn a dollar a month! It's a complete joke. I don't even bother to look at my earnings page anymore.

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    1. 94

       OldRosesposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Stella, I took a quick look at your profile page.  Quite a few of your hubs are not on any of the niche sites.  The niche sites are where all the money is.  I've been moving my hubs over to Dengarden (garening is my niche) and my income is double what it was last year which was double what it was the year before.

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12. 97

    Kaili Bissonposted 5 years ago

    Hello Jean,
    My earnings are up over this time last year. I have stretches where I just don't have time to write on this site, but for the past couple of months I have been writing new articles like mad, all of which have ended up on a niche site and are doing OK traffic-wise. One slightly older article that had been on page 1 of Google search for the longest time dropped to page 3 overnight, though it still gets traffic. I freshened it up last week, so we'll see what happens. I have also unpublished and deleted dozens of articles that I wrote when I first joined years ago; most not worth the time to fix them, so a spring-clean seemed like a good idea.

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13. 96

    PaulGoodman67posted 5 years ago

    My earnings are pretty similar to last year, which is a little disappointing given that I've written quite a bit of new material. Hopefully things will improve. This HP writing thing is always up and down.

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14. 60

    paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

    

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15. 92

    Jodahposted 5 years ago

    My earnings fell in January but started to rise in February, and March was as high as ever. So no complaints and traffic keeps increasing.

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    1. 96

       PaulGoodman67posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Earnings usually fall at the start of each business quarter and then rise until the start of the next quarter, due to the way that advertisers spend their budgets. That's why to compare earnings, I look at what I've earned in previous years for the months in question.

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16. 96

    Solarasposted 5 years ago

    My earnings are off 35%. When Maven first came in with the banner bidding, earnings soared to the best I have experience in the seven years that I have been here. Pageviews are consistent year over year, although I see there is a lot of competition for my most popular articles, and have been pushed down to the #2 or 3 spot on page one.
    
    I have found it impossible to create a new article with Amazon products on it. Not one product can I add to any new article.  It's just plain hard headed and stupid.
    
    The question answer thing seems to have sucked all around. I get the stupidest questions that are not worth answering. If they were just comments, sure I could give a brief reply, but an entire page dedicated to 2 sentences, ridiculous. Do they get posted if no answer is given?
    
    Does anyone know if the maven added any or many of those bloggers they were courting at the conference? What happens if HP does not make its benchmarks for the merger? Can it just split back off again from the maven?
    
    These are the things I wonder about a 4:30 am.

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    1. 94

       OldRosesposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I'm with you - I want to know how the hubbers that moved to Maven are doing.  And what happens to our hubs if the merger fails.  I wish someone would update us on the situation.

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          paradigmsearchposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Here's my speculation if the worst case scenario were to happen.
          
          Suppose Maven and HubPages do implode, the revenue side of things is still a cash cow. Subtract the cost of leasing the server service and it's still a cash cow. Nobody is going to throw that away. One guy in a home office could keep a no-frills, bare-bones HubPages (with the niche sites) up and running.

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          1. 92

             Jesse Drzalposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             These concepts intrigue me..wanna play some more?

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             1. 60

                paradigmsearchposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                If a $100 credit suddenly shows up on my earnings page, I'll post a how-to list for HP. To start with, it would be two home offices and a total of three people (hint: #1, #2, #5)

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                1. 92

                   Jesse Drzalposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                   I comment and my Hubscore plummets by 3 points. Classic.

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                   1. 60

                      paradigmsearchposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                      And my $100 credit still hasn't shown up, tough town around here.

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          2. 88

             Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             Maven seems to have survived a crisis last year, so I would look on the upside. Not dead yet (my personal motto). In fact, their determination not to die is pretty evident.
             
             Always worth being aware of potential problems, of course.

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             1. 96

                Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                What was the crisis?  I missed that.

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    2. 88

       Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I am usually thinking about what might be in the fridge at that time of night, lol.

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17. STAFF

    Larry Slawsonposted 5 years ago

    My earnings have been relatively stable (not going up or down), which is a bit disappointing.  Was really hoping to see a big improvement this year (compared to last).

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18. 88

    Will Apseposted 5 years ago

    The "crisis survived" narrative is my own construction based on scant evidence.
    
    I sort of laid it out here: https://hubpages.com/community/forum/34 … ost4069606
    
    If you check the dates of each link you get a narrative that runs "we are finding it hard to raise funds to keep going" (2017) to "we have met our financial targets" (late 2018).
    
    Also share prices have risen in the last 6 months:
    
    
    
    After falling sharply for most of 2018.
    
    
    
    
    So, well done to them. We live to fight another day.
    
    No doubt the next staff bonus will be a super yacht each. With hubbers at the oars.

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19. 91

    Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

    A picture is worth a thousand words. The images look promising.

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20. 91

    Butterfly67posted 5 years ago

    My earnings have taken a big hit since last year and seem to be continually declining :-(

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21. 95

    CYong74posted 5 years ago

    Previously, I highlight every free pic with Pixabay as the source, without linking that is. Since last year, I discovered doing once is enough. So far, had never had any pic removed.

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    1. 92

       Jean Bakulaposted 4 years agoin reply to this

       I did identify the first few as from Pixabay, they were obviously a set as they  were the same colors and style. They didn't even read the attribution.

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